Electronic apparatus for programmed automatic playing of musical accompaniment systems

Claim 1

An electronic apparatus for use with an electronic musical instrument having signal generators for providing signal sources representative of the notes of the musical scale, at least an accompaniment keyboard for selecting note signals to be played, and output reproduction means for accoustically reproducing the notes, said apparatus comprising: at least four preferential selection circuit means (16,17,18,20) coupled to said accompaniment keyboard and adapted to supply respectively at least the lowest note played, the note following the lowest note played, the highest note played and the mixture of all the notes played, when a group of any number of notes are played simultaneously on said accompaniment keyboard; chord gate means (25) receiving said mixture of all the notes played from the associated preferential selection means (20) and coupling it to the output reproduction means; a first group of gate means (41,42,43) each receiving respectively one of the outputs, other than said mixture of all the notes played, from the associated preferential selection circuit means (16,17,18); a first divider means (45,46,47) receiving the outputs from said first group of gates and dividing, in stages, the frequencies of the signals received, by successive powers of two; a second group of gate means, one of which (49) receives the output from said first group of gate means and the others of which (50,51,52) each receive respectively an output from a stage of said first divider means, the outputs of said second group of gate means being coupled to the output reproduction means; and automatic cyclical programmer means (21) adapted to activate cyclically and automatically each of said gate means according to a present program to thereby pass the input to each gate means through the respective gate means.