Patent ID: 7053290

Claim:
A music reproducing apparatus that has a display device and plays a musical piece, comprising: a musical piece data storage unit operable to store data of a plurality of musical pieces; a parameter storage unit operable to store a musical piece parameter obtained by quantifying a feature of each musical piece and represented by at least one factor for each musical piece stored in the musical piece data storage unit; a playback unit operable to reproduce data of the musical pieces stored in the musical piece data storage unit; a candidate piece specifying unit operable to specify, as a first candidate piece, a musical piece whose musical piece parameter includes a first factor that is larger than a first factor of a musical piece currently being played from among the musical pieces whose data is stored in the musical piece data storage unit, and also to specify, as a second candidate piece, a musical piece whose first factor is smaller than the first factor of the musical piece currently being played from among the musical pieces; a display control unit operable, when data of a musical piece is reproduced by the playback unit, to cause musical piece information regarding the first candidate piece to be displayed in a predetermined first direction from a reference position on a screen of the display device, and also to cause musical piece information regarding the second candidate to be displayed in a second direction reverse to the first direction; and a playback control unit operable, upon receiving an input from a user of specifying a musical piece indicated by musical piece information displayed on the display device, to control the playback unit so that the playback unit reproduces data of the specified musical piece.