JPH03211596A - Electronic musical instrument - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To allow the adjustment of a pitch so as to attain the consonance of an assigned chord by having a tuning means which tunes the interval of the constituting tones of the assigned chord to the specific interval and produces such tones and a reference tone determining means which determines the tone to serve as a reference tone in specific priority order. CONSTITUTION:This musical instrument is controlled by a CPU 10. The CPU 10 is connected via a bus 11 to respective operating sections and memories. When the chord is assigned by a chord assigning means, the interval of the chord constituting tones is tuned to the specific interval in order to improve the sound of this chord. The reference tones of the tuning of this time is determined by priority order of the fundamental note of the chord when this fundamental note is under production, the 5-degree tone of the chord when this 5-degree tone is under production, the other constituting tone of the chord when this other constituting tone is under production, and the fundamental note of the chord when the constituting tone of the chord is not produced. The deviation in the pitch of the tones important for the chord is decreased in such a manner. The unnaturality is eliminated in this way by the slight change in the pitch.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION +al Industrial Application Field This invention relates to an electronic musical instrument that can tune the musical tones it produces to a specific temperament such as just intonation.

(Middle) Conventional Technology Many electronic musical instruments such as synthesizers have a keyboard as a performance device. When a keyboard is used as a performance device, the scale is tuned to equal temperament.

Equal temperament is an octave (double frequency ratio) logarithmically equal to 1.
This temperament is created by dividing the pitch into two equal parts, making semitones, and then making the double half a whole tone, forming a scale. In equal temperament, the relationships between all semitones and whole tones are equal, so no matter what tonality you play, the sound will be the same, and it is easy to modulate and transpose.

(c) Problems to be Solved by the Invention By the way, chords such as "do mi so" harmonize most beautifully when their respective frequency ratios are expressed as simple fractions. However, in equal temperament, all intervals (ratios between pitches) are expressed logarithmically, so even such simple chords have the disadvantage that they are not pure harmony and the sound is muddy.

Therefore, it may be possible to tune the keyboard to a temperament that makes the chords resonant, such as a pure key, but when playing in a key other than the tuned tonality (for example, C major), such a natural temperament sounds better than equal temperament. It had the disadvantage of muddying the resonance and the inability to modulate or transpose the key. As a result, the types of songs that can be played are narrowed down, and the tuning has to be re-tuned for each song that is played.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In view of these conventional problems, it is an object of the present invention to provide an electronic musical instrument that can adjust the pitch so as to harmonize a specified chord, and that normally produces sound in equal temperament.

(d) Means for solving the problem (1) The first invention related to this application is an electronic musical instrument that normally produces musical tones in equal temperament and has a chord designation means that accepts designation of the chord to be sounded. It has a tuning means that tunes the intervals of the constituent tones of the chord to a specific pitch and produces the sound, and when the root note of the chord is being sounded at that time, the root note ii of the chord is then sounded. When the fifth note of the chord is being sounded, the fifth
Degree iii When other constituent tones of the chord are being sounded at that time,
The present invention is characterized in that reference tone determining means is provided for determining the constituent tones iv of the chord based on the priority order of the root tone of the chord when the constituent tones of the chord are not being pronounced at that time.

(2) The second invention of this application is an electronic musical instrument that normally produces musical tones in equal temperament and has a chord designation means that accepts designation of the chord to be produced, which specifies the intervals of the constituent tones of the designated chord. A tuning means for producing a sound tuned to the temperament of the chord, and a shifting means for gradually returning the interval to an equal temperament when the constituent notes of this chord continue to produce sound after the designation of this chord is released. It is characterized by

te1 Effects of the Invention In the electronic musical instrument of the present invention, when a chord is specified by the chord specifying means, the pitches of the notes constituting the chord are tuned to a specific pitch in order to improve the resonance of the chord. At this time, the reference tone for tuning (a note that does not change the pitch) is then selected from the chord (the chord that you are about to pronounce).
The same applies hereafter)) When the root note of the chord is being pronounced, its root note ii At that time, when the fifth note of the chord is being pronounced, its 5th note
degree iij At that time, when other constituent sounds of the chord are being sounded,
If the constituent notes iv of the chord are not being pronounced at that time, the priority is determined by the root note of the chord. By determining in this way, it is possible to reduce the pitch deviation of important notes for the chord, and it is possible to avoid giving an unnatural feeling to the flow of the song.

Furthermore, in the second invention of this application, when the specified chord changes, the missing musical tone is gradually restored to equal temperament from the pinch-adjusted pitch by the constituent notes of the new chord. As a result, the pitch of the musical tone does not suddenly shift, so that the listener does not feel the pitch is unstable.

(f) Embodiment FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a control section of an electronic musical instrument that is an embodiment of the present invention. This electronic musical instrument is controlled by a CPU 10, and the CPU 10 is connected to each operating section and memory via a bus 1). Bus 1) has a key-on detection circuit 1
3. Switch interface 14. Sound source circuit 15. R
OM1? , RAM 18 and timer 19 are connected. The ROM 17 stores control programs and the like necessary for the operation of this electronic musical instrument, and the RAM 18 has registers set therein for storing data generated during performance. The keyboard 1 is connected to the key-on detection circuit 13,
Detect keys turned on/off. A switch group 2 for specifying tone colors and the like is connected to the switch interface 14, and detects whether each switch is turned on or off.

The tone generator circuit 15 has a plurality of (8 or 16) sound generation channels, and a musical tone designated by the CPU 10 is assigned to each channel and generated. A sound system 4 is connected to this sound source circuit 15, and the generated musical tones are amplified and outputted from a speaker or the like. Also, timer 19
This is a circuit that outputs a clock signal from PU10 at a specified tempo and interrupts CPU10 at predetermined timings. Based on this interrupt signal, CPU10 performs operations such as scanning the keyboard 1 and processing the musical tone being sounded.

In this electronic keyboard instrument, it is possible to specify a chord to be sounded on the keyboard 1 when in automatic chord generation mode (automatic accompaniment mode). The specification method is, for example, ``If you press one key in a specific octave, the major triad of that key will be sounded.''

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a part of the memory area set in the ROM 17 and RAM 1B. FIG. 3 (A) shows the shift amount table T E set in the ROM 17.
L (1) is shown. This table stores the amount of pitch shift from equal temperament to just intonation.

The address of this table indicates the number of semitones with O as the tonic (the root of the chord), and the data indicates the amount of pitch shift from equal temperament to just intonation for each interval. For example, the major third above the tonic (Mi) The number of semitones in the note is 5, but if you want to tune this note into just intonation based on the tonic, you can see that you only need to shift it to 2 cents below the equal temperament.

Further, in this embodiment, since the tonic tone may not be the reference tone, in this case, the pitch shift amount is determined by the following calculation.

(Amount of pitch shift of reference tone) - (Amount of pitch shift of sound to be produced) = (Amount of actual pitch shift of sound to be produced) FIG.

The ROOT register and the TYPE register are registers that store the root note and type of a specified chord, respectively.

Here, the type of chord is a harmonic tone.

1) This refers to seventh chords, etc.

The KC(1) register is a register in which the pitch (key code) of each constituent note of a specified chord is stored. This register is set with the number of constituent tones, each of which is distinguished by an index i.

N T (1) The register register converts the note name data (C to O
This is a register that stores the number of semitones.

K ON N T (1) The flag is a key-on flag provided for each chromatic scale (note name data 0 to 1), and the flag corresponding to the musical tone during key-on is set.

The FNT register is a reference tone register. When tuning a chord into just intonation, the note that serves as the reference for pitch relationship is stored in this register.

The PCHNT(1) register is a register that stores the amount of pitch modification of each chord component note to be produced.

At the time of sound generation, this content is sent to the sound source circuit 15 together with the key code (KC(1)).

FIGS. 1A to 1D are flowcharts showing the operation of the electronic musical instrument. FIG. 3A shows the main routine.

When this electronic musical instrument is powered on, an initial setting operation is first performed at nl. Initial setting operations are operations such as reading a predetermined program, presetting the sound source circuit, and clearing registers.Next, it is necessary to determine whether or not there is a key-on/off event (n2), and when an event occurs, the corresponding process is executed. (n3). Next, change the key that is currently sounding to Chie Norishuku n4), perform processing such as volume control in n5, and then
Return to While the power is on, operations n2 to n5 are repeatedly executed.

(B) in the same figure shows the pronunciation check operation. This operation is executed in n4 of the main processing routine, and is an operation of setting the key-on flag corresponding to the musical tone currently being generated. First, set the index i representing the note name data to 0 and n
1l), Search all keys to see if there is a musical tone being sounded with this note name data of index i (n12), If the note with this note name is being sounded in any octave, then K ON N Set T (1) to 1 (n13), on the other hand, if there is no sound being produced, set KONNT (i) to O (n14), then add 1 to i, until t = 0 to 1) (n16 ), n12 and subsequent operations are repeatedly executed.

[1(C) is a key on/off event processing operation. This operation starts when there is a key on/off event. First, the specified chord is determined by the combination of keys that are turned on at the time, and the root note and type of the chord are determined. The determined root note and type are stored in the ROOT register and TYPE register (n21). This R
Based on the contents of the OOT register and TYPE register, the chord constituent tones to be produced are determined, and the notes K C (1) to K C (
N) (n22). Here, N indicates the number of chord constituent notes, which changes depending on the type of chord.

The key codes set for these KC(1) to KC(N) are converted to pitch name data, respectively, and N T (1) to N
Store in T (N) (n23). Here, the pitch name data is indicated by the number of semitones, with O being the root note of the chord.

Next, the key-on flag KONNT (NT(1)) ~ KO
Determine whether any of NNT (NT(N)) is set (n24), and if there is one set, determine whether there are multiple ones (n25), and if there are multiple determines whether there is one that is equal to the root note (ROOT) of the chord (n26), or whether there is one that is equal to the fifth note (ROOT+7) (n28), and i When the root note is being sounded, The root note ii When the fifth note is being sounded, the fifth note iii
When another constituent note is being sounded, the constituent note iv of the chord is not being pronounced, the note name code is sent to the reference note register FNT in the order of priority of the root note of the chord (n26 to n32); The reference tone is now determined,
Pinch shift amount P of each chord constituent tone based on this reference tone
CHNT (NT(1)) is calculated (ri33), and this pitch shift amount is performed by the above-mentioned calculation operation. This pitch shift amount PCHNT (NT(1)) is transmitted to the tone generator circuit 15 together with the key code KC(1) to perform pinch control and generate musical tones (n34).

(D) in the same figure shows the timer interrupt operation. This movement lasts several hundred meters
is executed once. First, the index counter i is set to 0 (n41). It is determined whether KONNT specified by this index is O. If it is 0, the pitch shift amount register PCHNT (1) is set to SGN (PCHNT ( 1
)). Here, the SGN function is: i > 0 : 5GN(1) = 1i=o
:5GN(1)=O i <-1: S GN(1)=-1. If KONNT is 1, the sound is being generated, so the process directly proceeds to n44 without changing the pitch. At n44, i is incremented and the operations from n42 onwards are repeatedly executed until i reaches 12 (n45).

(Effects of the invention As described above, in the electronic musical instrument of this invention, when tuning a chord to be sounded to a resonant temperament such as just intonation, if the constituent notes of the chord are already being sounded, The standard tone is determined based on the priority of the middle root note, the fifth note, etc., and the pitches of other chord constituent notes are adjusted to match this.In this way, the root note, the fifth note, etc. It is possible to eliminate unnaturalness caused by minute changes in pitch by giving priority to sounds with high importance for chords such as .

[Brief explanation of drawings]

1(A) to (D) are flowcharts showing the operation of the control section of an electronic musical instrument according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a block diagram of the control section of the electronic musical instrument, and FIG. 3(A), (B) is a partial configuration diagram of the memory of the electronic musical instrument.

Claims (2)

[Claims] (1) In an electronic musical instrument that normally produces musical tones in equal temperament and has a chord specification means that accepts the specification of the chord to be produced, a tuning means that tunes the intervals of the constituent notes of the specified chord to a specific pitch and produces the sound. (a) When the root of the chord is being sounded at that time, its root; (b) When the fifth note of the chord is being sounded, its fifth. Note (c) When other constituent notes of the chord are being sounded at that time,
An electronic musical instrument characterized in that the electronic musical instrument is provided with reference tone determining means for determining the constituent tones (d) in accordance with the priority order of the root tone of the chord when the constituent tones of the chord are not being sounded at that time. (2) In an electronic musical instrument that normally produces musical tones in equal temperament and has a chord specification means that accepts the specification of the chord to be produced, a tuning means that adjusts the intervals of the constituent tones of the specified chord to a specific temperament and produces the sound. An electronic musical instrument characterized by the following: and a shift means for gradually returning the interval to equal temperament when the constituent tones of this chord continue to sound after the designation of this chord is released.