Patent ID: 7750228

Claim:
A tone processing apparatus comprising: a storage section that, for at least one music piece, stores tone data of each of a plurality of fragments segmented from the music piece and stores a first descriptor indicative of a musical character of each of the fragments in association with the fragment; a descriptor generation section that receives input data based on operation by a user and generates a second descriptor, indicative of a musical character, on the basis of the received input data; a determination section that determines similarity between said second descriptor and said first descriptor of each of the fragments; a selection section that selects the tone data of at least one of the fragments from the storage section on the basis of a result of similarity determination by said determination section; and a data generation section that, on the basis of the tone data of the fragment selected by said selection section, generates tone data to be outputted, wherein said determination section calculates a similarity index value indicative of a degree of similarity, to said second descriptor, of said first descriptor of each of the fragments, and said selection section selects, from said storage section, the tone data of at least one of the fragments on the basis of the similarity index value calculated by said determination section.