The invention is an electronic, voice-controlled musical instrument. It is
in essence an electronic kazoo. The player hums into the mouthpiece, and
the device imitates the sound of a musical instrument whose pitch and
volume change in response to the player's voice. The player is given the
impression of playing the actual instrument and controlling it intimately
with the fine nuances of his voice. The instrument can in principle be any
music-producing sound source: a trumpet, trombone, clarinet, flute, piano,
electric guitar, voice, whistle, even a chorus of voices, i.e. virtually
any source of sound. In its simplest configuration, the instrument
resembles a kind of horn. However, the shape and appearance of the
instrument can be fashioned by the manufacture to match the sound of any
traditional instrument, if desired; or its shape can be completely novel.
The functional requirements of the invention's physical design are only:
that it be hand-held; that it have a mouthpiece (5) where the player's
voice enters; that it have one or more speakers (3) where the sound is
produced; that it have a body (11) where the electronics and batteries are
stored and where finger-actuated controls (1a, 1b) can be placed. There
primary software components of the invention are the frequency-detection
module, the loudness-tracking module, and the note-attack module. The
frequency-detection module (FDM) identifies the frequency of the player's
voice. It does this by analyzing the incoming sound wave and finding
patterns of recurring shapes. This method is a highly computationally
efficient and novel combination of auto-correlation and zero crossing- or
peak-based pitch detection. The chosen instrument is synthesized at the
pitch determined by the FDM or at an offset from that pith as desired by
the player. The loudness-tracking component measures the loudness of the
player's voice, and this information is used then to set the volume of the
synthesized sound. The note-attack module detects abrupt changes in the
loudness of the player's voice. This component helps decide when the
synthesized instrument should begin a new note.
