US 4,375,177 AGranted

Automatic electronic musical instrument

AssigneesJohn Larson, Douglas Gustafson

InventorJames M. McCoskey

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Abstract

An automatic electronic musical instrument generates structured and pleasing musical sound patterns from a random sequence. One phase of the random sequence is supplied to a first shift register. A first plurality of outputs from the first shift register is used to control a rhythm oscillator. A second plurality of outputs from the first shift register is used to control a pitch oscillator. A second shift register receives a second phase of the random sequence and the rhythm signal produced by the rhythm oscillator. A programmed control input provides a song structure to the outputs of the second shift register. The outputs of the second shift register are supplied as inputs to a musical frequency generating means which has the capability of transforming dissonant frequency combinations otherwise selected by those inputs to compatible frequency combinations. The musical frequency generating means also receives the pitch signal from the pitch oscillator. Use of two shift registers in this manner imposes sufficient repetition and structure on random inputs to produce pleasing melodies. If desired, a third shift register may receive a third phase of the random sequence to generate accompaniment chords for the melodies so produced.

Claims15

Dependent claims

An automatic electronic musical instrument, which comprises:

means for generating an at least substantially random sequence of data bits,
a first shift register having an input connected to receive a first portion of the at least substantially random sequence of data bits from said random sequence data bit generating means, said first shift register having a first and second plurality of outputs,
means connected to receive input signals from the first and second plurality of outputs of said first shift register for generating rhythm and pitch signals in response to the input signals,
a second shift register connected to receive a second portion of the at least substantially random sequence of data bits which is different than the first portion of data bits and the rhythm signal, said second shift register having a plurality of outputs,
a musical frequency generating means including means for transforming dissonant frequency combinations selected for output from said frequency generating means to compatible frequency combinations and connected to receive the pitch signal from said pitch signal generating means and input signals from the plurality of outputs of said second shift register, said musical frequency generating means providing melody signal outputs in response to the pitch signals and the input signals from said second shift register, and
means for selectively inhibiting the input signals to said musical frequency generating means from the plurality of outputs of said second shift register in accordance with a predetermined pattern.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.