Automatic Player Musical Instruments and Automatic Playing System Incorporated Therein

Abstract

While an automatic player piano is reenacting a music tune, the automatic player piano sometimes fails to miss a tone or tones in a repetition due to a high-speed key movement; a controller searches a music data file for a series of key events expressing the repetition, and makes the key movements uniform without changing the lapse of time from the last key event before the repetition and the lapse of time to the first key event after the repetition so that the automatic player piano is less liable to miss a tone.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The features and advantages of the automatic player musical instrument and automatic playing system will be more clearly understood from the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which

FIG. 1 is a schematic side view showing the structure of an automatic player piano according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the system configuration of a controlling unit incorporated in the automatic player piano.

FIG. 3 is a view showing the contents of a standard MIDI file,

FIGS. 4A and 4B are flowcharts showing a subroutine program for an automatic playing,

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing a job sequence for sorting key events,

FIG. 6 is a view showing the structure of key event blocks,

FIGS. 7A and 7B are flowcharts showing a job sequence for grouping key events,

FIG. 8 is a flowchart showing a job sequence for modifying music data codes in a group of key events,

FIG. 9 is a timing chart showing a group of key events before a modification and the group of key events after the modification.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart showing a job sequence executed by a motion controller,

FIG. 11 is a block diagram showing a servo control loop formed in the automatic player piano,

FIG. 12 is a timing chart showing a group of reference key trajectories before and after the modification,

FIGS. 13A and 13B are flowcharts showing a subroutine program for playback incorporated in a computer program of another automatic player piano of the present invention,

FIG. 14 is a view showing the structure of reference key trajectory data blocks,

FIGS. 15A and 15B are flowcharts showing a job sequence for forming groups of reference key trajectories, and

FIG. 16 is a flowchart showing a job sequence for averaging the contents of a group of reference key trajectory data.

Claims

1. An automatic player musical instrument for producing tones along a music passage having a repetition, comprising: a musical instrument including plural manipulators selectively moved for specifying the tones to be produced, anda tone generator connected to said plural manipulators and producing said tones specified by means of the manipulators moved for said tones; andan automatic playing system including plural actuators provided in association with said plural manipulators and responsive to a driving signal so as to move the associated manipulators for specifying said tones, anda controlling unit connected to said plural actuators for selectively supplying said driving signal to said plural actuators and including a searcher searching a set of pieces of music data expressing a music passage for tone producing events expressing at least one repetition on one of said plural manipulators,a modifier connected to said searcher and modifying pieces of event data expressing properties of said tone producing events so as to make at least one of said properties of said tone producing events uniform anda signal regulator connected to said modifier and regulating said driving signal to an optimum magnitude on the basis of said pieces of event data so as to cause said tone generator to produce the tones through the movements of said manipulators on the condition that said at least one of said properties of said tone producing events is uniform.

2. The automatic player musical instrument as set forth in claim 1, in which said searcher includes a threshold holder for storing a threshold of a certain property of said tone producing events, anda comparator connected to said threshold holder and comparing said certain property of said tone producing events with said threshold to see whether or not one of said tone producing events expresses said repetition together with another of said tone producing events.

3. The automatic player musical instrument as set forth in claim 2, in which said comparator includes a sorter sorting said pieces of music data to manipulating numbers assigned to said plural manipulators and extracting the pieces of event data from said pieces of music data so as selectively store said pieces of event data into data blocks respectively assigned to said plural manipulators, anda discriminator successively reading out said pieces of event data from each of said data blocks and discriminating certain pieces of event data expressing said tone producing events of said repetition from other pieces of event data expressing the tone producing events of other styles of rendition through the comparison with said threshold.

4. The automatic player musical instrument as set forth in claim 2, in which said certain property is a lapse of time from a time at which each of said plural manipulators changes a direction of movement to a time at which said each of said plural manipulators changes said direction of movement, again.

5. The automatic player musical instrument as set forth in claim 2, in which said certain property is a lapse of time over which each of said plural manipulators stops at a turning point of the movement of said each of said plural manipulators.

6. The automatic player musical instrument as set forth in claim 2, in which said comparator includes a data generator determining pieces of reference trajectory data for each of said plural manipulators on the basis of said pieces of music data and pieces of experimental data,a sorter sorting said pieces of reference trajectory data to manipulating numbers assigned to said plural manipulators and preparing the pieces of event data from said pieces of reference trajectory data so as selectively store said pieces of event data into data blocks respectively assigned to said plural manipulators, anda discriminator successively reading out said pieces of event data from each of said data blocks and discriminating certain pieces of event data expressing said tone producing events of said repetition from other pieces of event data expressing the tone producing events of other styles of rendition through the comparison with said threshold.

7. The automatic player musical instrument as set forth in claim 1, in which said musical instrument is a piano having black keys and white keys serving as said plural manipulators.

8. The automatic player musical instrument as set forth in claim 7, in which said black keys and said white keys are connected to dampers and action units for driving hammers to strike strings at an end of rotation, and said dampers, said action units, said hammers and said strings serve as said tone generator.

9. The automatic player musical instrument as set forth in claim 1, in which said controlling unit and said plural actuators form a servo control loop together with sensors monitoring said plural manipulators.

10. The automatic player musical instrument as set forth in claim 9, in which said sensors indirectly monitors said plural manipulators through the movements of movable portions of said plural actuators.

11. The automatic player musical instrument as set forth in claim 10, further comprising other sensors directly monitoring said plural manipulators.

12. An automatic playing system for performing a music passage on a musical instrument, comprising: plural actuators provided in association with plural manipulators of said musical instrument, and responsive to a driving signal so as to move the associated manipulators for specifying tones to be produced by means of a tone generator of said musical instrument connected to said plural manipulators; anda controlling unit connected to said plural actuators for selectively supplying said driving signal to said plural actuators, and including a searcher searching a set of pieces of music data expressing a music passage for tone producing events expressing at least one repetition on one of said plural manipulators,a modifier connected to said searcher and modifying pieces of event data expressing properties of said tone producing events so as to make at least one of said properties of said tone producing events uniform anda signal regulator connected to said modifier and regulating said driving signal to an optimum magnitude on the basis of said pieces of event data so as to cause said tone generator to produce the tones through the movements of said manipulators on the condition that said at least one of said properties of said tone producing events is uniform.

13. The automatic playing system as set forth in claim 12, in which said searcher includes a threshold holder for storing a threshold of a certain property of said tone producing events, anda comparator connected to said threshold holder and comparing said certain property of said tone producing events with said threshold to see whether or not one of said tone producing events expresses said repetition together with another of said tone producing events.

14. The automatic playing system as set forth in claim 13, in which said comparator includes a sorter sorting said pieces of music data to manipulating numbers assigned to said plural manipulators and extracting the pieces of event data from said pieces of music data so as selectively store said pieces of event data into data blocks respectively assigned to said plural manipulators, anda discriminator successively reading out said pieces of event data from each of said data blocks and discriminating certain pieces of event data expressing said tone producing events of said repetition from other pieces of event data expressing the tone producing events of other styles of rendition through the comparison with said threshold.

15. The automatic playing system as set forth in claim 13, in which said certain property is a lapse of time from a time at which each of said plural manipulators changes a direction of movement to a time at which said each of said plural manipulators changes said direction of movement, again.

16. The automatic playing system as set forth in claim 13, in which said certain property is a lapse of time over which each of said plural manipulators stops at a turning point of the movement of said each of said plural manipulators.

17. The automatic playing system as set forth in claim 13, in which said comparator includes a data generator determining pieces of reference trajectory data for each of said plural manipulators on the basis of said pieces of music data and pieces of experimental data,a sorter sorting said pieces of reference trajectory data to manipulating numbers assigned to said plural manipulators and preparing the pieces of event data from said pieces of reference trajectory data so as selectively store said pieces of event data into data blocks respectively assigned to said plural manipulators, anda discriminator successively reading out said pieces of event data from each of said data blocks and discriminating certain pieces of event data expressing said tone producing events of said repetition from other pieces of event data expressing the tone producing events of other styles of rendition through the comparison with said threshold.

18. The automatic playing system as set forth in claim 12, in which said plural actuators and said controlling unit form a servo control loop together with sensors monitoring said plural manipulators.

19. The automatic playing system as set forth in claim 18, in which said sensors indirectly monitors said plural manipulators through the movements of movable portions of said plural actuators.

20. The automatic playing system as set forth in claim 19, further comprising other sensors directly monitoring said plural manipulators, sensors monitoring said plural manipulators.