JP2012173722A - Singing voice evaluation device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To reflect the difficulty levels of singing the notes of a song based on the pitch of the notes to be sung, to singing voice evaluation.SOLUTION: A karaoke device in this invention identifies the difficulty levels of singing the notes of a song to be sung specified in song data, based on the relation between pitch associated with the types of scales used in the song and the specified pitch of the notes. The karaoke device obtains singing voice inputted while the song data is being played, and computes the evaluation values for the notes to be sung based on the pitch of the singing voice, the specified pitch of the notes and the identified difficulty levels of the notes.

Description

  The present invention relates to a technique for outputting a result of evaluating a singing voice.

  In a karaoke apparatus, a technique for analyzing a singing voice and outputting an evaluation score has been developed. For example, Patent Literature 1 discloses a technique for evaluating the skill of singing in comparison with the pitch of a singing voice and the pitch of a melody that is a constituent sound to be sung.

Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 10-69216

Depending on the karaoke song, it may be difficult or easy to sing, and there may be a difference in the difficulty of singing. One of the factors that cause a difference in singing difficulty is the melody pitch. For example, when singing a certain component sound, it may be difficult to sing when the component sound has a pitch that does not belong to the musical scale. For this reason, it is desirable that the singer who can skillfully sing a portion that is difficult to sing should have a higher evaluation. However, depending on the technique disclosed in Patent Document 1, such an evaluation cannot be performed.
An object of this invention is to reflect the difficulty of singing according to the pitch of the component sound which should be sung in evaluation of singing voice.

  In order to solve the above-described problem, the present invention provides an acquisition means for acquiring a singing voice input during reproduction of music data, a pitch specifying means for specifying a singing pitch of the acquired singing voice, In accordance with the period to be sung specified by the music data or each period in which the period is divided, difficulty level information that defines the singing difficulty for each pitch is obtained, and the singing specified by the music data is performed. Setting means for setting a singing difficulty level corresponding to the constituent sound based on the acquired difficulty level information corresponding to a specified pitch of the constituent sound and a period in which the constituent sound is included; Evaluation means for calculating the evaluation value of the singing voice corresponding to the constituent sound based on the designated pitch, the singing pitch corresponding to the constituent sound, and the set singing difficulty level, and the calculated evaluation value Information according to Providing singing voice evaluation apparatus characterized by comprising an output means for.

  Moreover, in another preferable aspect, the music data has information for specifying the type of scale corresponding to the period to be sung or each period into which the period is divided, and the pitch and the singing difficulty level. Based on the music data, the table storage means for storing the scale table indicating the correspondence between the scales corresponding to the scale types and the scale types corresponding to the periods to be sung or the periods divided by the periods. Scale specifying means for specifying the scale, and the setting means acquires the scale table corresponding to the specified scale type as the difficulty level information.

  Moreover, in another preferable aspect, the music data has information for identifying the type of chord corresponding to the period to be sung or each period into which the period is divided, and the pitch and the singing difficulty level. Based on the music data, the table storage means for storing the chord table indicating the correspondence relationship between the chord type and the chord type corresponding to the period to be sung or each period into which the period is divided. Chord specifying means for specifying the chord, and the setting means obtains the chord table corresponding to the specified chord type as the difficulty level information.

  In another preferable aspect, the correspondence relationship indicated by the chord table is characterized in that singing difficulty levels differ between triads and non-triads among chord constituents determined according to the type of chord. .

  Moreover, in another preferable aspect, the music data includes information for specifying a modulation mode and a modulation timing in the period to be sung, and indicates a correspondence between a modulation mode and a singing difficulty level. Table storage means for storing a table; and modulation specifying means for specifying the modulation mode and modulation timing based on the music data, and the setting means uses the modulation table as the difficulty level information. A singing difficulty level acquired and set corresponding to a constituent sound in a period after the modulation timing is set based on the difficulty level information.

  According to the present invention, in the evaluation of the singing voice, it is possible to reflect the singing difficulty level according to the pitch of the constituent sound to be sung.

It is a block diagram explaining the structure of the karaoke apparatus in 1st Embodiment of this invention. It is a functional block diagram explaining the structure of the singing voice evaluation part in 1st Embodiment of this invention. It is a flowchart explaining the difficulty level setting process in 1st Embodiment of this invention. It is a flowchart explaining the setting processing classified by pitch in 1st Embodiment of this invention. It is a figure explaining the example of the difficulty level template in 1st Embodiment of this invention. It is a figure explaining the example of a setting of the difficulty according to pitch in 1st Embodiment of this invention. It is a figure explaining the example of the component sound which should be sung in 1st Embodiment of this invention. It is a figure explaining the example of the pitch difference table in 1st Embodiment of this invention. It is a figure explaining the example of the setting information in 1st Embodiment of this invention. It is a block diagram explaining the structure of the karaoke apparatus in 2nd Embodiment of this invention. It is a figure explaining the example of the period information in 2nd Embodiment of this invention. It is a figure explaining the example of the scale table in 2nd Embodiment of this invention. It is a functional block diagram explaining the structure of the singing voice evaluation part in 2nd Embodiment of this invention. It is a flowchart explaining the difficulty level setting process in 2nd Embodiment of this invention. It is a figure explaining the example of the setting information in 2nd Embodiment of this invention. It is a block diagram explaining the structure of the karaoke apparatus in the modification 2 of this invention. It is a functional block diagram explaining the structure of the singing voice evaluation part in the modification 2 of this invention. It is a figure explaining the example of the relative scale table in the modification 3 of this invention. It is a functional block diagram explaining the structure of the singing voice evaluation part in the modification 3 of this invention. It is a figure explaining the example of the chord table in the modification 4 of this invention. It is a functional block diagram explaining the structure of the singing voice evaluation part in the modification 4 of this invention. It is a figure explaining the example of the modulation table in the modification 5 of this invention. It is a functional block diagram explaining the structure of the singing voice evaluation part in the modification 5 of this invention.

<First Embodiment>
[Hardware configuration]
FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a karaoke apparatus 1 according to the first embodiment of the present invention. The karaoke apparatus 1 is an example of a singing voice evaluation apparatus of the present invention, and is an apparatus that evaluates an input singing voice. First, the hardware configuration of the karaoke apparatus 1 will be described.

  The karaoke apparatus 1 includes a control unit 10, an operation unit 20, a display unit 30, a communication unit 40, a storage unit 50, and an acoustic processing unit 60. Each of these components is connected via a bus. Moreover, the karaoke apparatus 1 has a speaker 61 and a microphone 62 connected to the acoustic processing unit 60.

  The control unit 10 includes a CPU (Central Processing Unit), a RAM (Random Access Memory), a ROM (Read Only Memory), and the like. The control unit 10 controls each unit of the karaoke apparatus 1 through the bus by executing a control program stored in the ROM or the storage unit 50. In this example, the control part 10 implement | achieves the song voice evaluation function for evaluating the input song voice by running a control program. In this singing voice evaluation function, a function for performing evaluation according to the pitch of the constituent sound is included for a singing performed on a constituent sound, and a difficulty level setting process and a singing voice evaluation process are performed.

The operation unit 20 is an operation device provided on an operation panel or the like, an operation button provided on a remote control, a keyboard, a mouse, or the like, and receives an operation of a singer and controls an operation signal indicating the contents thereof To the unit 10.
The display unit 30 is a display device such as a liquid crystal display, and displays contents according to the control of the control unit 10. The contents of this display are a background image, a lyrics telop, a menu screen, a singing voice evaluation result, etc. according to the progress of the karaoke music.
The communication unit 40 is connected to a communication line such as the Internet under the control of the control unit 10 and exchanges information with a communication device such as a server device. The control unit 10 may update information stored in the storage unit 50 using information acquired through the communication unit 40.

The storage unit 50 is a storage unit such as a hard disk or a non-volatile memory, and has storage areas for storing music data, singing voice data, a difficulty level template, a pitch difference table, and setting information.
The music data includes data related to the music to be sung in karaoke, and includes, for example, guide melody data (hereinafter referred to as GM data), accompaniment data, lyric data, and the like. The GM data is data indicating the melody of the vocal part of the music, that is, data in which the content of the constituent sound to be sung is designated, and is described in, for example, the MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) format. The accompaniment data is data indicating the contents of the accompaniment of the music, and is described in, for example, the MIDI format. The lyrics data includes data indicating the contents of the lyrics of the music and data indicating the timing for changing the color of the lyrics telop displayed on the display unit 30. The music data may also include information defining the position of each constituent part of the music, such as the position of the chorus part of the music and the position of the melody start part.

The music data corresponding to the music specified by the operation of the operation unit 20 by the singer is read by the control unit 10, the karaoke accompaniment sound is output from the speaker 61, and the lyrics telop is displayed on the display unit 30. Used for.
The singing voice data is data indicating the singing voice input from the microphone 62 by the singer who sings the music that is the object of karaoke, and is stored in, for example, the WAVE format. The singing voice data stored in this manner is associated by the control unit 10 with music data indicating the music that is the target of karaoke.

  The difficulty level template (see FIG. 5) and the pitch difference table (see FIG. 8) are information for setting the singing difficulty level for the constituent sounds to be sung. The setting information (see FIG. 9) is information in which the singing difficulty level corresponding to the constituent sound to be sung is set, and is stored in association with the music data in the difficulty level setting process. Details of the difficulty level template, the pitch difference table, and the setting information will be described in the description of the singing voice evaluation function.

  The microphone 62 receives the singing voice of the singer and outputs an audio signal indicating the singing voice to the acoustic processing unit 60. The speaker 61 emits an audio signal output from the sound processing unit 60. The acoustic processing unit 60 includes a signal processing circuit such as a DSP (Digital Signal Processor), a sound source that generates an audio signal from a MIDI format signal, and the like. The sound processing unit 60 performs A / D conversion (analog / digital conversion) on the audio signal input from the microphone 62 and outputs the signal to the control unit 10. The sound processing unit 60 receives a MIDI signal based on music data from the control unit 10 and generates an audio signal based on the signal. The sound processing unit 60 performs signal processing such as effect processing and amplification processing on the audio signal thus generated, the audio signal output from the control unit 10, the audio signal input from the microphone 62, and the like, and then the speaker 61. Output to.

Here, the control unit 10 reads and reproduces the music data, acquires the audio signal output from the acoustic processing unit 60 during the period in which the accompaniment sound of the music is output from the speaker 61, and obtains the singing voice data. Generated and stored in the storage unit 50 in association with the music data.
The above is the description of the hardware configuration of the karaoke apparatus 1.

[Singing voice evaluation function]
Next, the singing voice evaluation function realized by the control unit 10 of the karaoke apparatus 1 executing the control program will be described. In addition, you may implement | achieve part or all of each structure in the song voice evaluation part 100 which implement | achieves the song voice evaluation function demonstrated below by hardware.

  FIG. 2 is a functional block diagram illustrating the configuration of the singing voice evaluation unit 100 according to the first embodiment of the present invention. The singing voice evaluation unit 100 includes a setting unit 110, an acquisition unit 120, a pitch specifying unit 130, an evaluation unit 140, and an output unit 150. The processing performed in the singing voice evaluation function is roughly divided into difficulty level setting processing performed by the setting unit 110, and singing voice evaluation performed by the acquisition unit 120, the pitch specifying unit 130, the evaluation unit 140, and the output unit 150. There are two types of processing. Each process is demonstrated in order.

[Difficulty level setting process]
The setting unit 110 acquires the GM data, the difficulty level template, and the pitch difference table from the storage unit 50, and based on these pieces of information, the singing corresponding to each constituent sound to be sung specified in time series by the GM data. Set the difficulty level. The setting unit 110 stores the setting information indicating the setting contents in the storage unit 50 in association with the music data including the GM data used for the setting. The setting unit 110 performs such setting processing by difficulty level setting processing. This difficulty level setting process will be described with reference to FIGS.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart for explaining difficulty level setting processing according to the first embodiment of the present invention. In this example, when new music data is added to the storage unit 50, the setting unit 110 performs difficulty level setting processing for the music data. In addition, when the music used as karaoke object is designated by the singer, the difficulty level setting process corresponding to the music data may be performed.
First, when starting the difficulty level setting process, the setting unit 110 performs a pitch-specific setting process (step S10). The pitch-specific setting process is a process for setting the singing difficulty level corresponding to the pitch. The pitch-specific setting process will be described with reference to FIGS. 4, 5, and 6. FIG.

  FIG. 4 is a flowchart illustrating the pitch-specific setting process according to the first embodiment of the present invention. When the pitch-specific setting process is started, the setting unit 110 reads GM data included in the music data to be processed (step S110). The setting unit 110 detects a distribution of pitches of constituent sounds designated by the read GM data (hereinafter referred to as designated pitches) (step S120). In this example, the distribution of the specified pitch indicates the range of the specified pitch over the entire music, that is, the range of the music.

The setting unit 110 determines a reference pitch (hereinafter referred to as a reference pitch) based on the detected distribution of designated pitches (step S130). In this example, the reference pitch is a pitch that is exactly the center of the highest pitch and the lowest pitch in the designated pitch distribution, and the designated pitch is distributed from “E ^b 3” to “A4”. If it is, “C4” is the reference pitch. When “D3” to “A4” are distributed, the center is between “B2” and “C4”, but either one may be determined as the reference pitch. Note that this reference pitch does not have to be the pitch that is exactly at the center of the distribution, and any method can be used as long as it is determined based on the distribution, such as the average value, median value, or mode value of the distribution. You may decide by.

  When determining the reference pitch, the setting unit 110 reads the difficulty level template, and sets the difficulty level information (difficulty level information) indicating the difficulty level of singing for each pitch level (step S140). Get the degree. Here, the content of the difficulty level template will be described with reference to FIG.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating an example of the difficulty level template according to the first embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 5A shows an example of the difficulty level template, and FIG. 5B is a diagram showing an outline of the relationship between the relative pitch and the singing difficulty level in this difficulty level template. The difficulty level template is a template in which the relative pitch (relative pitch) in semitone units with respect to the reference pitch is associated with the singing difficulty level, and the singing difficulty level increases as the absolute value of the relative pitch increases. They are associated with each other. That is, the singing difficulty level is determined to be higher as it approaches the highest pitch and the lowest pitch of the musical range. Hereinafter, singing difficulty is high indicates that singing is difficult. In this example, the degree of increase in the singing difficulty level is gentler on the negative side than on the positive side, but it may be the same or abrupt. The difficulty level template may be defined by a function indicating a curve as shown in FIG.
The setting of the difficulty level according to pitch performed using this difficulty level template will be described with reference to FIG.

FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating an example of setting the difficulty level by pitch in the first embodiment of the present invention. The setting example in FIG. 6 is an example in which the difficulty level template is shown in FIG. 5, and the designated pitches are distributed from “E ^b 3” to “A4” and the reference pitch is “C4” as in the above example. It is an example when it is determined. As shown in FIG. 6, the setting unit 110 converts the relative pitch into an absolute pitch (absolute pitch) based on the reference pitch, and sets the correspondence between the absolute pitch and the singing difficulty level. Set the difficulty by pitch. Thus, the setting part 110 acquires the difficulty according to pitch (difficulty level information) by setting the singing difficulty corresponding to every designated pitch included in the music.
When the setting unit 110 sets the pitch difficulty, the setting process ends.

Returning to FIG. 3, the description will be continued. When the setting unit 110 completes the pitch-specific setting process (step S10), the setting unit 110 sequentially reads information on the constituent sounds to be sung specified by the GM data, and the pitch difference table and the above-described pitch-specific difficulty. The singing difficulty level corresponding to each constituent sound is set based on the degree (step S30 to step S70). Specifically, the setting unit 110 determines the singing difficulty level corresponding to the constituent sounds, the singing difficulty level obtained by referring to the pitch difference table, and the singing difficulty level obtained by referring to the difficulty level by pitch. Set by computing using. In this example, this calculation is an operation for adding the singing difficulty level obtained by referring to the pitch difference table and the singing difficulty level obtained by referring to the difficulty level by pitch, which is determined in advance. Any calculation may be used as long as it follows the above formula.
The contents set in this way are stored as setting information corresponding to the music data including the GM data. Hereinafter, as an example, the constituent sounds specified by the GM data are the contents shown in FIG. 7, the pitch difference table is the contents shown in FIG. 8, and the difficulty level by pitch is the contents shown in FIG. 6. Processing in each step will be described.

  FIG. 7 is a diagram for explaining an example of component sounds to be sung in the first embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 7, the horizontal axis indicates time, and the vertical axis indicates pitch. Each component sound to be sung specified by the GM data corresponds to a hatched square portion indicated by GM, and descriptions such as “C4” and “D4” indicate the specified pitch of each component sound. N1, N2,... Described on the horizontal axis are represented in time series as portions corresponding to the period of each constituent sound, and hereinafter, the constituent sounds of the N1 portion will be referred to as constituent sounds N1 and the like. For example, the designated pitch of the constituent sound N2 is “D4”.

  FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating an example of a pitch difference table in the first embodiment of the present invention. Fig.8 (a) shows the example of a pitch difference table, FIG.8 (b) is a figure which shows the outline | summary of the relationship between the pitch difference in this pitch difference table, and a singing difficulty level. The pitch difference table is a table that associates the pitch difference (semitone unit) of the designated pitch with respect to the immediately preceding component sound and the singing difficulty level for a certain component sound, and the absolute value of the pitch difference is large. It is matched so that the singing difficulty level becomes higher. That is, about the component sound to sing, the singing difficulty is so high that the pitch difference with the last component sound is large. In this example, the degree of increase in singing difficulty is the same whether the pitch difference is on the plus side or the minus side, but the minus side is more gradual than the plus side. It ’s good or you can be steep. Further, the pitch difference table may be defined by a function indicating a curve as shown in FIG.

  Returning to FIG. 3, the description will be continued. The setting part 110 reads the information regarding the first component sound N1 to be sung specified by the GM data (step S20). The setting unit 110 sets the singing difficulty level for the constituent sound N1 with reference to the pitch difference table and the set difficulty level by pitch (step S30). Here, the first component sound N1 is handled as having a pitch difference of “0” because there is no previous component sound. Therefore, the singing difficulty level obtained by referring to the pitch difference table is “1”. Further, since the designated pitch of the constituent sound N1 is “C4”, the singing difficulty level obtained by referring to the difficulty level by pitch is “1”. Therefore, the singing difficulty level corresponding to the constituent sound N1 is set as “2” (= 1 + 1).

  Subsequently, the setting unit 110 determines whether or not the next component sound exists (step S40). When the setting sound does not exist (step S40; No), the difficulty level setting process ends. On the other hand, when the next component sound exists (step S40; Yes), the setting unit 110 reads information on the next component sound (component sound N2 at this time) (step S50). The setting unit 110 calculates the pitch difference of the designated pitch with respect to the immediately preceding component sound for the read component sound (step S60). At this time, the setting unit 110 calculates the pitch difference of the designated pitch of the constituent sound N2 with respect to the constituent sound N1, and thus calculates the pitch difference as “+2” as shown in FIG. As shown in FIG. 7, the component sound immediately before the component sound N4 is the component sound N3. If there is a silent period tw between the component sound N3 and the component sound N4, there is a silence. If the period tw is equal to or longer than a predetermined time, the singing difficulty level obtained by referring to the pitch difference table may be lowered (the singing difficulty level is brought close to “1”), or the constituent sound N4 The immediately preceding component sound may be treated as not existing (singing difficulty is “1”).

The setting unit 110 refers to the pitch difference table and obtains the singing difficulty level corresponding to the calculated pitch difference and the pitch level difficulty level corresponding to the designated pitches of the read constituent sounds. Is added as a singing difficulty level corresponding to the read constituent sound (step S70). And the setting part 110 returns to the process of step S40, and determines again whether the following structure sound exists. Thus, if the setting part 110 sets the singing difficulty corresponding to all the structural sounds designated by GM data, it will determine with the next structural sound not existing in step S40 (step S40; No), The difficulty level setting process ends.
In this way, the singing difficulty corresponding to a certain component sound is related to the distribution of the specified pitch of this component sound and the specified pitch of all the component sounds, and to the pitch difference between the component sounds immediately before this component sound. Will be set based on.

FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating an example of setting information in the first embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 9 shows the content of the setting information when the singing difficulty level is set corresponding to each constituent sound in the above example. As described above, the setting unit 110 stores the setting information corresponding to the music data in the storage unit 50 by performing the difficulty level setting process.
The above is the description of the difficulty level setting process. Next, the singing voice evaluation process will be described with reference to FIG.

[Singing voice evaluation process]
The acquisition unit 120 acquires the singing voice data of the portion corresponding to the singing voice in the predetermined evaluation period (in this example, the entire music piece) of the singing voice data stored in the storage unit 50, and the sound The data is output to the high specifying unit 130. In this example, the acquisition unit 120 sequentially acquires and outputs singing voice data sequentially generated during reproduction of music data. Note that the acquisition unit 120 may acquire and output the singing voice data after the reproduction of the music data is completed and all the singing voice data is stored in the storage unit 50.

The pitch specifying unit 130 specifies the pitch of the singing voice (hereinafter referred to as the singing pitch) for each constituent sound to be sung from the singing voice data acquired from the acquiring unit 120. Specifically, the pitch specifying unit 130 detects a zero cross when the waveform of the audio signal indicated by the singing voice data for each frame changes from negative to positive, and measures the time interval of the zero cross for each frame. Specify the singing pitch (frequency). At this time, a high-frequency component that becomes a noise component may be cut from the audio signal by a low-pass filter, or a DC component may be cut by a high-pass filter. The singing pitch may be specified from a spectrum obtained by performing FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) on the singing voice data.
The pitch specifying unit 130 outputs information indicating the singing pitch specified in this way to the evaluation unit 140 in time series.

  The evaluation unit 140 acquires information output from the pitch specifying unit 130, GM data stored in the storage unit 50, and setting information stored in the storage unit 50. For each component sound to be sung in time series in the acquired GM data, the evaluation unit 140 compares the specified pitch of the component sound with the singing pitch specified by the pitch specifying unit 130. The degree of coincidence indicating the degree of pitch coincidence is calculated. Since the evaluation unit 140 acquires the singing pitches in time series, the evaluation unit 140 can identify the time-series correspondence between the constituent sounds specified in the GM data and the singing pitches. Note that the evaluation unit 140 may acquire GM data corresponding to a portion read in the reproduction of music data by the control unit 10.

In this example, the evaluation unit 140 includes the singing pitch within a certain range (± 50 cent in this example) from the frequency of the designated pitch for the period corresponding to the component sound to be calculated. The ratio of the period is calculated as the degree of coincidence for the constituent sounds. And the evaluation part 140 calculates an evaluation value about the component sound of calculation object based on the calculated coincidence degree and the singing difficulty level corresponding to the component sound obtained with reference to the setting information. In this example, the evaluation value is calculated as a deduction target (minus value) when the coincidence is less than a predetermined set value, and when the coincidence is equal to or higher than the set value, the singing difficulty level The higher the value, the larger the added point (plus value).
When the evaluation unit 140 calculates the evaluation value for each component sound, the evaluation unit 140 calculates the overall evaluation value of the singing voice of the entire music according to the calculation result. In this example, the evaluation unit 140 performs a deduction or addition according to an evaluation value corresponding to each constituent sound from a predetermined reference point, and calculates an overall evaluation value. The evaluation unit 140 outputs information indicating the calculated overall evaluation value to the output unit 150.

The output unit 150 determines the content to be displayed on the display unit 30 as the evaluation of the singing voice based on the information output from the evaluation unit 140, and outputs control information for displaying the content on the display unit 30. . The content displayed on the display unit 30 only needs to indicate the overall evaluation value of the entire music. In addition, if the information which shows the evaluation value about each structural sound is output from the evaluation part 140, the output part 150 may display the evaluation result with respect to each structural sound. As described above, the contents displayed on the display unit 30 can be various.
This completes the description of the singing voice evaluation function.

  As described above, the karaoke apparatus 1 according to the first embodiment of the present invention sets the singing difficulty level for a constituent sound according to the pitch-specific difficulty level determined by the distribution of the musical range using the difficulty level template. And the evaluation value of the singing voice about the constituent sound is calculated according to the singing difficulty level. Therefore, the karaoke apparatus 1 evaluates the singing voice of the karaoke song, and the singing difficulty level (in this example, relative to the musical range of the musical piece of the designated pitch) due to the absolute pitch of the designated pitch of the constituent sound of the musical piece Singing difficulty determined by the height relationship) can be reflected in the evaluation result. At this time, the karaoke apparatus 1 sets the singing difficulty level used in the calculation of the evaluation value of the singing voice, including the singing difficulty level determined by the pitch difference between a certain component sound and the pitch of the immediately preceding component sound. You can also. Therefore, the karaoke device 1 reflects this singing difficulty level in the evaluation value of the singing voice even when there is a difference in the singing difficulty level determined by the pitch difference as well as the absolute pitch of the designated pitch. Can be made.

Second Embodiment
1A of karaoke apparatuses in 2nd Embodiment implement | achieve the apparatus which evaluates a singing voice by the structure different from 1st Embodiment supposing the case where a singing difficulty level changes with the designated pitch of a component sound. . In this example, the singing difficulty according to the pitch difference is not used as in the karaoke apparatus 1 in the first embodiment. In this example, when the singing difficulty level differs depending on the specified pitch of the constituent sound, the pitches belonging to the musical scale type corresponding to the music are easy to sing, and the singing difficulty level is low, while not belonging to the musical scale type. The pitch refers to a case where it is difficult to sing and the difficulty of singing is high.

[Hardware configuration]
FIG. 10 is a block diagram illustrating the configuration of a karaoke apparatus 1A according to the second embodiment of the present invention. 1 A of karaoke apparatuses have the memory | storage part 50A from which the memorize | stored content differs from the memory | storage part 50 of the karaoke apparatus 1 in 1st Embodiment. Moreover, 1 A of karaoke apparatuses have the control part 10A from which the singing voice evaluation function implement | achieved by running a control program differs from the case in the control part 10 of the karaoke apparatus 1. FIG. About the other structure which 1A of karaoke apparatuses have, since it is the same as that of the karaoke apparatus 1, description is abbreviate | omitted.
Unlike the storage unit 50 according to the first embodiment, the storage unit 50A includes music data including period information that defines the type of musical scale in time series, and a musical scale in which pitches are associated with singing difficulty levels. A table is stored for each scale type.

FIG. 11 is a diagram illustrating an example of period information in the second embodiment of the present invention. In the example shown in FIG. 11, the period information indicates that the scale type from time t0 (music start timing) to time t1 is “C major scale (Cmaj)”, and then the scale type from time t2 to time t2 is the scale type. “D ^b major scale (D ^b maj)” is information that is specified in time series by indicating the type of scale corresponding to each period obtained by dividing the music period. Here, the period of the music may not be divided as long as it is the same scale type throughout the music. Note that the type of musical scale can be considered as the type of key of music, so the music in this example can be treated as being transposed at time t2.

  FIG. 12 is a diagram for explaining an example of the scale table in the second embodiment of the present invention. In the example shown in FIG. 12, the scale table corresponding to some musical scale types is shown as an example among the musical scale tables corresponding to various musical scale types stored in the storage unit 50A. Here, FIG. 12A shows a scale table corresponding to the scale type “C major scale (Cmaj)”, and FIG. 12B shows a scale table corresponding to the scale type “C minor scale (Cmin)”. . Note that the pitches in the scale table are shown for one octave, but the octave differences are treated as being the same pitch. For example, the pitches “E3” and “E4” are the same “E”.

  As shown in FIG. 12, the scale table has a low singing difficulty level for the pitches belonging to the corresponding scale type, and a high singing difficulty level for the other pitches. For example, paying attention to the pitch “E”, the scale type “Cmaj” has a pitch of “1” because it belongs to that scale, but the scale type “Cmin” Since the pitch does not belong to the scale, the difficulty level is as high as “4”. That is, the scale table stipulates that when the scale type is “Cmin”, it is more difficult to sing the pitch “E” than in the case of “Cmaj”.

  Next, the singing voice evaluation function realized by the control unit 10A of the karaoke apparatus 1A executing the control program will be described. In addition, you may implement | achieve part or all of each structure in 100 A of singing voice evaluation parts which implement | achieve the singing voice evaluation function demonstrated below by hardware.

  FIG. 13 is a functional block diagram illustrating the configuration of the singing voice evaluation unit 100A in the second embodiment of the present invention. The singing voice evaluation unit 100A includes a setting unit 110A, an acquisition unit 120, a pitch specifying unit 130, an evaluation unit 140, an output unit 150, and a specifying unit 160. In this example, the difficulty level setting process is performed by the setting unit 110A and the specifying unit 160. The singing voice evaluation process is the same as in the first embodiment.

[Difficulty level setting process]
The specifying unit 160 acquires period information from the storage unit 50A, specifies the type of scale in each period of the music, and outputs information indicating the specified contents to the setting unit 110A.
110 A of setting parts acquire GM data and a scale table from the memory | storage part 50A, and set the singing difficulty level about each component sound which should be sung specified in time series by GM data based on these information. 110 A of setting parts perform such a setting process by a difficulty level setting process.

  FIG. 14 is a flowchart for explaining difficulty level setting processing according to the second embodiment of the present invention. 110 A of setting parts read the information regarding the component sound which should be sung designated by GM data (step S210), and acquire the scale table (difficulty level information) corresponding to the kind of scale in the period when this component sound is included ( Step S220). The setting unit 110A refers to the acquired scale table, and sets the singing difficulty level corresponding to the designated pitch of the constituent sound as the singing difficulty level corresponding to the constituent sound (step S230). The contents set in this way are stored as setting information.

  Subsequently, the setting unit 110A determines whether or not the next component sound exists (step S240), and if it does not exist (step S240; No), the difficulty level setting process ends. On the other hand, when the next component sound exists (step S240; Yes), the setting unit 110A returns to step S210, reads information on the next component sound, and continues the process.

  FIG. 15 is a diagram illustrating an example of setting information according to the second embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 15 (a) shows that the GM data has the contents shown in FIG. 7, and all the constituent sounds N1 to N5 are included in the period from time t0 to time t1 shown in FIG. 11, and the scale table is shown in FIG. The example of the setting information memorize | stored when it is the content shown in FIG. As shown in this example, since the designated pitches of the constituent sounds N1, N2, and N3 are pitches that belong to the scale type “Cmaj”, the singing difficulty level is low, and the constituent sounds N4 and N5 are Since the pitch does not belong to the type “Cmaj”, the singing difficulty becomes high.

On the other hand, FIG. 15B shows the case where the constituent sounds N1, N2, and N3 are included in the period from time t0 to time t1 and the constituent sounds N4 and N5 are included in the period from time t1 to time t2. The example of the setting information memorize | stored is shown. As shown in this example, the specified pitches of the constituent sounds N1, N2, and N3 are pitches that belong to the scale type “Cmaj”, so the singing difficulty is low, and the constituent sounds N4 and N5 are also in the scale. Since the pitch belongs to the type “D ^b maj”, the singing difficulty level becomes low.
The above is the description of the difficulty level setting process. As described above, the singing voice evaluation process is the same as that of the first embodiment, and only the contents of the setting information used for the evaluation are different, and thus the description thereof is omitted.

  In this way, the karaoke apparatus 1A according to the second embodiment of the present invention sets the singing difficulty level for a certain constituent sound according to the type of scale, and the singing voice of the constituent sound according to the singing difficulty level. An evaluation value is calculated. Therefore, in the evaluation of the singing voice of the karaoke song, the karaoke apparatus 1A has a difficulty in singing due to whether it belongs to the scale type or not when the singing difficulty is different depending on the absolute pitch of the designated pitch. Can be reflected in the evaluation result.

<Modification>
As mentioned above, although embodiment of this invention was described, this invention can be implemented in various aspects as follows.
[Modification 1]
In the first embodiment described above, the setting unit 110 sets the difficulty level by pitch using the difficulty level template in the difficulty level setting process, and refers to the difficulty level by pitch and the pitch difference table, Although the singing difficulty level corresponding to the constituent sounds has been set, the singing difficulty level may be set without using either the pitch-specific difficulty level or the pitch difference table. In the setting of the singing difficulty level corresponding to the constituent sounds, the difficulty level template may not be provided if the difficulty level by pitch is not used. Therefore, the setting unit 110 sets the singing difficulty level corresponding to the constituent sounds based on the pitch difference table.

  On the other hand, in the setting of the singing difficulty level corresponding to the constituent sounds, when the pitch difference table is not used, the setting unit 110 sets the singing difficulty level corresponding to the constituent sounds based on the difficulty level by pitch. It will be. In this case, the singing difficulty is determined by the designated pitch of the constituent sounds, and the singing voice is evaluated as the singing difficulty is higher as the pitch is higher or lower in the musical range. It will be. In addition, since the difficulty level classified by pitch associates a pitch with the difficulty level of singing, it also corresponds to a scale table in the second embodiment.

[Modification 2]
The present invention is also applicable as a karaoke apparatus 1B that combines the configuration of the karaoke apparatus 1 in the first embodiment described above and the configuration of the karaoke apparatus 1A in the second embodiment.

  FIG. 16 is a block diagram illustrating a configuration of a karaoke apparatus 1B according to Modification 2 of the present invention. The karaoke apparatus 1B includes a storage unit 50B that further stores the difficulty level template and the pitch difference table stored in the storage unit 50 in the first embodiment, in addition to the contents stored in the storage unit 50A in the second embodiment. Have. Moreover, the karaoke apparatus 1B has a singing voice evaluation function having both functions of a singing voice evaluation function realized by the control unit 10 of the karaoke apparatus 1 and a singing voice evaluation function realized by the control unit 10A of the karaoke apparatus 1. The controller 10B is realized.

FIG. 17 is a functional block diagram illustrating the configuration of the singing voice evaluation unit 100B according to Modification 2 of the present invention. As illustrated in FIG. 17, the singing voice evaluation unit 100B in the second modification is configured to further realize the function of the setting unit 110 in the first embodiment in the setting unit 110A of the singing voice evaluation unit 100A in the second embodiment. The setting unit 110B is included. That is, the setting unit 110B sets the singing difficulty level corresponding to the constituent sounds based on the scale table, the pitch difference table, and the difficulty level by pitch. At this time, the setting unit 110B adds the singing difficulty obtained based on the scale table, the singing difficulty obtained based on the pitch difference table, and the singing difficulty obtained based on the pitch-specific difficulty. And the singing difficulty level corresponding to the constituent sounds may be set.
Thus, in the difficulty level setting process, the singing difficulty level corresponding to the constituent sounds can be set in combination with various information for setting the singing difficulty level. That is, the present invention can be applied not only to the configurations in the first embodiment and the second embodiment but also to a karaoke apparatus that performs the difficulty level setting process by combining the configurations described in the other modifications.

[Modification 3]
In the second modification described above, the scale table is stored in the storage unit 50B corresponding to the number of types of scales, similar to that used in the second embodiment. Rather than prescribing the correspondence relationship, the relative scale table defined by the correspondence relationship between the pitch difference and the singing difficulty level makes it possible to reduce the memory capacity of the table by storing some tables in common You may do it.

FIG. 18 is a diagram for explaining an example of a relative scale table in Modification 3 of the present invention. The relative scale table is a table in which pitch differences and singing difficulty levels are associated with each other. FIG. 19 is a functional block diagram illustrating the configuration of the singing voice evaluation unit 100C according to the third modification of the present invention. A plurality of types of relative scale tables are stored in the storage unit 50C, and combinations of scale types to be applied and original pitches (designated pitches of the constituent sounds immediately before the constituent sounds for which the singing difficulty is set) are combined. It is prescribed. For example, in the relative scale table shown in FIG. 18A, the combination of the scale type and the original pitch is a combination of the scale type “Cmaj” and the original pitch “C” (hereinafter referred to as (Cmaj, C). ), (Dmaj, D), (Amin, C),... Further, the relative scale table shown in FIG. 18B is obtained when the combination of the scale type and the original pitch is (Cmin, C), (Dmin, D), (Emaj, C),. Applied.
The setting unit 110C acquires a relative scale table corresponding to the scale type and the original pitch, and uses the singing difficulty corresponding to the pitch difference with respect to the immediately preceding constituent sound as the singing difficulty corresponding to the constituent sound. You only have to set it.

[Modification 4]
In the second embodiment described above, the scale table in which the singing difficulty level for each pitch is determined according to the type of scale is used, but the table in which the singing difficulty level for each pitch is determined according to the type of chord is used. You may do it. In this case, a chord table in which pitches and singing difficulty levels are associated with each other according to the type of chord is used.

FIG. 20 is a diagram for explaining an example of a chord table in Modification 4 of the present invention. FIG. 21 is a functional block diagram illustrating the configuration of the singing voice evaluation unit 100D according to Modification 4 of the present invention. The chord table is stored in the storage unit 50D corresponding to the type of chord. The chord table shown in FIG. 20 shows a chord table corresponding to some chord types (C7) among chord tables stored in the storage unit 50D as an example. As shown in the chord table, the pitches corresponding to the three chords (in this example, “C”, “E”, “G”) among the pitches constituting the chord have a single singing difficulty level. Next, the singing difficulty level of the pitch that becomes the other tension (in this example, “B ^b ” corresponding to 7th) is increased, and the singing difficulty level of the pitch that does not constitute a chord is further increased. It is prescribed.

  The period information stored in the storage unit 50D defines the type of chords in time series. The specifying unit 160D specifies the type of chord based on the period information. The setting unit 110D obtains a chord table corresponding to the type of chord among the chord tables stored in the storage unit 50D, and uses the singing difficulty level corresponding to the specified pitch to use the singing difficulty level corresponding to the constituent sound. Should be set. In setting the singing difficulty level, the singing difficulty level corresponding to the type of scale and the type of chord is set by combining the singing difficulty levels obtained from the scale table as in the processing in the second embodiment. You can also. That is, even if the chords are the same, the singing difficulty level can be varied by changing the type of musical scale. In this way, the singing difficulty level can be set according to the function of the chord or the specified pitch. This is because the musical function of the same chord differs depending on the type of the scale, and the musical function of the pitch constituting the chord also differs. For example, even if the chord type is the same, depending on the type of scale, the function is different because it is a dominant chord or a doppel dominant chord.

[Modification 5]
In the second embodiment described above, a scale table is used in which the singing difficulty level for each pitch is determined according to the type of the scale. However, when the music is modulated, the singing difficulty level is determined according to the mode of modulation. A table may be used. In this case, a modulation table in which modulation modes and singing difficulty levels are associated is used.

FIG. 22 is a diagram for explaining an example of a modulation table in the fifth modification of the present invention. FIG. 23 is a functional block diagram illustrating the configuration of the singing voice evaluation unit 100E according to Modification 5 of the present invention. The modulation table is stored in the storage unit 50E. The mode of modulation is a relative change in the key after the modulation from the key before the modulation, and is determined by the change in the major and minor how many times the key has moved. In the example shown in FIG. 22, the case where the modulation is +1 degree (semitone unit) and remains major is indicated as (+1, maj → maj). That is, (−4, maj → min) indicates a modulation from a major to a minor (for example, a modulation from a C major to an A minor), that is, a modulation to a parallel tone at −4 degrees (semitone unit).
Singing makes it difficult to sing, and the difficulty of singing varies depending on the mode of modulation. For example, the modulation to parallel tones is easier to sing when the modulation is performed compared to other modulation modes (for example, the modulation from the C major to the C minor, etc.). It is decided to be lower.

The specifying unit 160E refers to the period information, specifies the modulation mode and the modulation timing, and outputs information indicating the specified contents to the setting unit 110E. In the case of the period information as shown in FIG. 11, the modulation timing is time t2, and the modulation mode is a semitone increase (from Cmaj to D ^b maj (+1, maj → maj)). Thus, it can be said that period information is the information shown about the mode of modulation in the period which should be sung, and the timing of modulation.
When the setting unit 110E sets the singing difficulty level corresponding to the component sound, the component sound after the modulation timing (time t2) is referred to the modulation table to change the modulation mode (from Cmaj to D ^b maj). For example, the singing difficulty level may be set to “1” for the constituent sound before the modulation. In this case, the singing difficulty level corresponding to the component sound before the modulation timing (time t2) is “1”, and the singing difficulty level of the component sound after the modulation timing is “4”. Note that, after a certain amount of time has elapsed since the modulation, the setting unit 110E becomes accustomed to singing in that key, so that the setting unit 110E can perform a predetermined number of constituent sounds after a predetermined time has elapsed after the modulation. Later, the singing difficulty level corresponding to the constituent sounds may be set to “1”.

[Modification 6]
In each embodiment mentioned above, although the evaluation part 140 was made into a large point object, so that the singing difficulty was high about the constituent sound whose matching degree is more than a setting value, the evaluation value of the calculated singing voice is set as the singing difficulty. The evaluation value may be calculated by any method as long as it changes accordingly. As an example, when the evaluation unit 140 calculates the degree of coincidence between the designated pitch and the singing pitch for a certain constituent sound, the ratio of the period in which the singing pitch is included in a certain range from the frequency of the designated pitch. However, the frequency range of the certain range may be changed according to the singing difficulty level. For example, in the embodiment, the fixed range is ± 50 cent. However, the higher the singing difficulty, the wider the range may be, and the higher the degree of coincidence may be calculated. Thus, the degree of coincidence may be calculated low. In this case, since the evaluation unit 140 reflects the singing difficulty level in the calculation of the coincidence degree, the score added to the evaluation value for the constituent sound having the coincidence degree equal to or higher than the set value is further added to the singing difficulty level. It is not necessary to change it accordingly.

  In calculating the evaluation value of the singing voice corresponding to each constituent sound, the constituent sound may be divided into a plurality of evaluation periods, and the evaluation value may be calculated with different singing difficulty levels in each evaluation period. For example, the length of the constituent sounds is divided into a first evaluation period in the first half and a second evaluation period in the second half, the set singing difficulty is used in the first evaluation period, and the singing difficulty in the second evaluation period is You may make it become smaller than one evaluation period. Since the difficulty of singing due to the pitch difference has a large effect immediately after the pitch changes, the evaluation unit 140 reflects this effect more by making it different between the first evaluation period and the second evaluation period. Evaluation can be performed.

[Modification 7]
In the first embodiment described above, the setting unit 110 sets the difficulty level by pitch using the specified pitch distribution and the difficulty level template of all the constituent sounds of the music piece. The reference pitches for each period may be determined using the distribution of the designated pitches of the constituent sounds in each period divided into two, and the pitch-specific difficulty corresponding to each period of the music may be set.

[Modification 8]
In the second embodiment described above, the specifying unit 160 refers to the period information included in the music data, and specifies the type of scale in each period of the music, but refers to the GM data included in the music data. Then, the type of the scale may be specified by analyzing the distribution of the designated pitch. In this case, GM data functions as a substitute for period information. As described above, the specifying unit 160 may specify the type of the scale based on the information included in the music data. Similarly, the identification unit 160D in the fourth modification example, the identification unit 160E in the fifth modification example, and the like specify the type of chord by referring to the GM data included in the music data and analyzing the distribution of the specified pitch. You may do it.

[Modification 9]
In each embodiment mentioned above, although the information output from the output part 150 was control information for making it display on the display part 30 with the display content according to evaluation of song voice, the information which shows the other content It may be. Since the information output from the output unit 150 may be information for informing the singer of the evaluation value, for example, it may be voice data expressing the content of the evaluation result with a voice. Further, the information output from the output unit 150 may be MIDI format sequence data for sound generation using a sound source in the sound processing unit 60.

  In addition, as what alert | reports the evaluation result of a song, you may use light emission, a fragrance, a movement, etc. In this case, it is possible to perform a light emitting device using LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) that emit light in various light emission modes, a scent discharge device capable of releasing gas having various scent components, and various operations. Connect the robot as an external device. Then, control information for controlling the external device in time series may be information output from the output unit 150.

[Modification 10]
The control program in the above-described embodiment is provided in a state stored in a computer-readable recording medium such as a magnetic recording medium (magnetic tape, magnetic disk, etc.), an optical recording medium (optical disk, etc.), a magneto-optical recording medium, or a semiconductor memory. Can do. Further, the karaoke apparatus 1 may download the control program via a network.

1, 1A, 1B ... Karaoke device, 10, 10A, 10B ... control unit, 20 ... operation unit, 30 ... display unit, 40 ... communication unit, 50, 50A, 50B, 50C, 50D, 50E ... storage unit, 60 ... Acoustic processing unit, 61 ... speaker, 62 ... microphone, 100, 100A, 100B, 100C, 100D, 100E ... singing voice evaluation unit, 110, 110A, 110B, 110C, 110D, 110E ... setting unit, 120 ... acquisition unit, 130 ... Pitch identification part, 140 ... Evaluation part, 150 ... Output part, 160, 160D, 160E ... Specification part

Claims (5)

Acquisition means for acquiring a singing voice input during reproduction of music data;
A pitch specifying means for specifying the singing pitch of the acquired singing voice;
In correspondence with the period to be sung specified by the music data or each period in which the period is divided, difficulty level information that defines the singing difficulty for each pitch is obtained, and the singing specified by the music data A setting means for setting a singing difficulty level corresponding to the constituent sound, based on the acquired difficulty level information corresponding to a designated pitch of the constituent sound and a period in which the constituent sound is included;
An evaluation means for calculating an evaluation value of the singing voice corresponding to the constituent sound to be sung based on the designated pitch corresponding to the constituent sound, the singing pitch, and the set singing difficulty level;
An singing voice evaluation apparatus comprising: output means for outputting information according to the calculated evaluation value. The music data has information for specifying the type of scale corresponding to the period to be sung or each period in which the period is divided,
Table storage means for storing a scale table indicating a correspondence relationship between pitches and singing difficulty levels according to the type of scale;
A scale specifying means for specifying the type of scale corresponding to each period in which the period to be sung or each period is divided based on the music data;
The singing voice evaluation apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the setting unit acquires the scale table corresponding to the specified scale type as the difficulty level information. The music data has information for specifying the type of chord corresponding to each period in which the period to be sung or the period is divided,
Table storage means for storing a chord table indicating the correspondence between pitches and singing difficulty levels in correspondence with the type of chord;
A chord identifying means for identifying a chord type corresponding to each period in which the period to be sung or each period is divided based on the music data;
The singing voice evaluation device according to claim 1, wherein the setting unit acquires the chord table corresponding to the specified chord type as the difficulty level information. 4. The singing according to claim 3, wherein the correspondence relationship indicated by the chord table has different singing difficulty levels between a triad and a non-triad among the chord constituent sounds determined according to the type of chord. Voice evaluation device. The music data has information for specifying a modulation mode and a modulation timing in the period to be sung,
Table storage means for storing a modulation table indicating the correspondence between the modulation mode and the singing difficulty;
A modulation specifying means for specifying the modulation mode and the modulation timing based on the music data; and
The setting means acquires the modulation table as the difficulty level information, and sets a singing difficulty level corresponding to a constituent sound in a period after the timing of the modulation based on the difficulty level information. The singing voice evaluation apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the singing voice evaluation apparatus is characterized.

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