Musical Climax Display Device

1. Field of the Invention

The invention relates to a musical climax display device, which advises a singer, in cases where there is a vocal accompaniment to the music, of the point at which the music starts to move to its climax.

2. Description of the Prior Art

Generally speaking, "karaoke" involves the reproduction of karaoke music while at the same time displaying the lyrics appropriate to that music on a visual display unit. A person is thus able both to listen to the music and at the same time to sing along with it by keeping his eye on the lyrics displayed on the screen.

Most songs, however, have a part which represents what is effectively the peak or climax of that particular piece of music. However, the sort of people who most enjoy karaoke are most often, of course, simply music lovers and not professional singers. Consequently, in their inexperience, they frequently fail to recognize the point at which a song should start to move towards its climax. As a result, they finish the song in a rather disappointing way without having generated a proper build up and climax. The answer to this problem would be to find some way of indicating to the singer precisely where to begin this build up.

It is, of course, already possible, when creating music data on the basis of the MIDI standard, for example, to incorporate a variety of additional information into the basic data, relating most often to features such as pitch, timbre and strength. A reproduction device then converts all this music data into analog signals which subsequently form the basis for the generation of the related musical sounds.

It is the object of the present invention to resolve the sorts of problems outlined above by finding a simple way of warning the singer of the appropriate point at which to start his build up towards the climax of a song. It is assumed for the purpose of this disclosure that the karaoke music in question is created and reproduced in accordance with the sort of music data described above.

The present invention, which has been designed to achieve the above object, comprises a memory means in which is stored warning period data, which is inserted at a point ahead of the climax start point, a climax data readout means which accesses said memory means in order to read out and match said warning period data with the music data, and an advice control means which issues control instructions to an advice means such that, on receipt of the warning period data output from the climax data readout means, said advice means immediately starts a count while at the same time dividing the warning period into equal warning time intervals which can then be counted down as a means of signifying how long is left before the climax start position.

While music data is in the course of being reproduced, the above design enables the climax data readout means to read the warning period data out of the memory means and to match it with the music data. The warning control means then issues instructions to the warning advice means which, on receipt of said warning period data, immediately starts a count while at the same time dividing the warning period into equal warning time intervals which can then be counted down as a means of signifying how long is left before the climax start position. This in turn enables the singer to achieve a more professional build up to the climax.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating the full configuration of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating the full configuration of the preferred embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory drawing illustrating the configuration of the climax data.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory drawing illustrating the sequence of steps on the advice display in relation to the time axis.

The following is a detailed description of the preferred embodiment of the invention by reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 2 shows the climax display device of the preferred embodiment. In the drawing, 10 is a memory means which distinguishes and stores the karaoke music data for each of a plurality of different pieces of music. The music data itself is created in accordance with the MIDI standard and incorporates a range of information relating to musical features such as pitch, timbre and strength. Said memory means 10 also relates the climax data to the appropriate part of the music data for storage purposes. As shown in FIG. 3, the climax data consists of ID data, which serves to relate the climax data to the appropriate part of the music data, and warning period T data. As shown in FIG. 4, the warning period T is the time between the climax start point and the warning start point, which is set at a specified interval in advance of the climax start point. More specifically, the warning period T is input in the form of a number of clock cycles.

Said memory means 10 is connected to a reproduction device 50, which reads music data from the memory means 10 for use in the creation of the analog signals that are used as a basis for the output of musical sounds.

The memory means 10 is also connected to a decoder 21 which is in turn connected to a climax data extractor 22 and a warning period extractor 23 in that order, said climax data extractor 22 being used to read out climax data and said warning period extractor 23 being used to read out the warning period T.

Connected to the warning period extractor 23 is a division computation unit 31, which divides the warning period T into equal warning time intervals t while at the same time setting a warning position count number for each of the warning time intervals t in the warning period T. To be more precise, if, for example, the warning period T is divided into five equal warning time intervals t, then t will necessarily be equal to T/5 and the warning position count numbers will be "0", "t", "2t", "3t", "4t" and "5t(=T)". Also connected to the decoder 21 is a clock time extractor 32, which extracts the clock time signal from the memory means 10. Said division computation unit 31 is also connected to a counter 33 which, on receipt of a clock time signal from said clock time extractor 32 and of the warning period T data from the division computation unit 31, immediately initiates the count operation. Said counter 33 is also connected to a divider 34, which is in turn connected to a visual display unit 40 that functions as the advice means. The warning position count number set by said division computation unit 31 is input to the divider 34 and, when the output from the counter 33 corresponds to said warning position count number, a warning signal is output from said divider 34 to the visual display unit 40 which duly displays the countdown sequence "5", " 4", "3", "2", "1", "start build up" in accordance with the warning position count numbers "0", "t", "2t", "3t", "4t", "T". In this way, the countdown display is able to indicate to the singer just how long he has left before he needs to start building up towards the climax of his song.

In the above configuration, the decoder 21, the climax data extractor 22 and the warning period extractor 23 together make up the climax data readout means 20, which is used to access the memory means 10 and to read out and match the warning period data with the music data. At the same time, the division computation unit 31, the clock time extractor 32, the counter 33 and the divider 34 together make up the advice control means 30, which issues control instructions to an advice means 40 such that, on receipt of the warning period data output from the climax data readout means 20, said advice means 40 starts a count and then divides the warning time into equal warning time intervals on the basis of which it is then able to advise the singer of how long he has left before the start of the climax.

The preferred embodiment outlined above is thus designed to operate such that, when said warning period data is received, a count is started and the warning time T is divided into equal warning time intervals t on the basis of which the singer can then be advised of how long he has left before he needs to start his build up towards the climax. This in turn enables the singer to achieve a more professional musical build up.

Although for the purposes of the example of the preferred embodiment described above, we have assumed that the warning period T is divided into five equal warning time intervals t, the number of divisions need not, of course, be confined to five. Similarly, the visual method which is used to advise the singer of how long he has left before the climax start position need not be a countdown sequence of the type "5", "4", "3", "2", "1" but could just as easily be a count-up sequence instead or, indeed, any of a vast number of other visual warning methods.

Again, the use of a warning means other than the visual display unit 40, which is used to display the visual countdown message in the preferred embodiment outlined above, would be equally acceptable. Alternatives might include, for example, an aural warning message output using a speaker or else a combination of both visual and aural means.