1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a music tone reproducing apparatus or music player that extracts a performance section from a music piece and mixes the extracted performance section with another music piece to perform a joint play of the music pieces.
2. Description of Related Art
As karaoke apparatuses have become widespread, needs of the market have been diversified. In the initial stage of karaoke history, it has been a general practice that a next karaoke song is performed only after the performance of a preceding karaoke song has been finished. Recently, some karaoke apparatuses provide a medley play composed of sections or phrases of two or more songs that most get into swing. In music terms, these sections are referred to as a release, bridge, or channel. Initially, a medley music has been provided as one piece of song data. Recently, some karaoke apparatuses can link and edit plural pieces of song data into a medley according to user's preferences. An editing technology has been proposed, in which the linking can be made smoothly by considering musical elements such as tempo, rhythm, and chord of the songs or music pieces to be linked with each other, thereby reducing a sense of incongruity that might otherwise be conspicuous.
Meanwhile, there is an interesting vocal play in which two or more songs hearing very much alike or compatible with each other are sung in parallel at the same time. Further, one song may be sung along with an accompaniment of another song. In implementing such interesting vocal plays on a karaoke system, plural songs may be simultaneously performed by using the above-mentioned technology, which is initially designed for the medley composition. For example, a transitional period is provided between the end of the performance section of a preceding song and the beginning of the performance section of a succeeding song immediately following the preceding song. In the transitional period, the preceding song and the succeeding song are performed in a superimposed manner.
However, simple performance of plural songs at the same time gives unnatural and confusing impressions, because different songs are normally incompatible with each other in terms of the music elements such as tempo, rhythm, and chord. Therefore, it is necessary for the songs to be simultaneously performed to be close or similar to each other with respect to the music elements. However, the conventional technology for linking plural songs does not check or evaluate whether a couple of songs have the music elements that will not cause a sense of incongruity when the songs are performed at the same time. Further, the simultaneous performing of plural songs requires synchronizing the songs with each other for reproduction of music tones. However, no technology for realizing this requirement has been developed.