Patent ID: 7323630

Claim:
An automatic performance system comprising: performance pattern storage means for storing a plurality of performance patterns, the performance patterns comprising data representing events corresponding to the production of tones; pattern sequence storage means for storing pattern sequence data representing a sequence of said performance patterns, the pattern sequence data including identifiers of performance patterns in the sequence, the identifiers having a predefined attribute; signal processing means for producing tones corresponding to the performance patterns of a pattern sequence; an operator for use by a user during performance of a pattern sequence to generate events representing the addition of a tone to or deletion of a tone from the pattern sequence at the location in the pattern sequence at which the event is generated; creation means for creating a new performance pattern in accordance with events generated by the operator and a performance pattern that was performed during occurrence of those events; and modification means for modifying the pattern sequence data to substitute in the pattern sequence data, an identifier of the new performance pattern for the identifier of the performance pattern from which it was created with the same attribute as the predefined attribute.