Patent ID: 8106281

Claim:
A music difficulty level calculating apparatus comprising: a storing unit which stores musical-tone data, wherein the musical-tone data includes pitch information of each of musical notes composing music, fingering information for playing the musical notes, and time information of each of the musical notes; a separate difficulty level calculating unit which calculates separate difficulty levels on plural elements required for playing the music respectively, based on one of the pitch information, the fingering information, and the time information stored in the storing unit; and a whole difficulty level calculating unit which calculates a whole difficulty level of the music based on the separate difficulty levels calculated by the separate difficulty level calculating unit; wherein the separate difficulty level calculating unit comprises: a fingering difficulty level calculating unit which calculates a fingering difficulty level concerning a fingering for playing adjacent musical notes, based on the pitch information and the fingering information stored in the storing unit; a rhythm difficulty level calculating unit which calculates a rhythm difficulty level concerning a musical-tone duration and a timing of musical notes, based on the time information stored in the storing unit; and a key difficulty level calculating unit which calculates a key difficulty level concerning a key of the music based on the pitch information stored in the storing unit; wherein the fingering difficulty level calculating unit comprises: a first classification item value obtaining unit which obtains a classification value of at least one of classification items concerning fingering, wherein the classification value is a value selected from among (i) a first classification value indicating a specific state in a first classification item concerning positions of fingers for playing adjacent musical notes, (ii) a second classification value indicating a specific state in a second classification item concerning finger spreading for playing adjacent musical notes, (iii) a third classification item indicating a specific state in a third classification item concerning finger crossing over or under another to play musical notes, and (iv) a fourth classification item indicating a specific state in a fourth classification item concerning finger changing to play adjacent musical notes; and a first cost accumulating unit which (i) reads, from a cost table stored in the storing unit, cost values corresponding respectively to the specific states in the respective classification items based on the classification values of the respective classification items, wherein the cost table stores the cost values corresponding to the specific states in the classification items, and (ii) accumulates the read cost values to obtain an accumulated cost value as the fingering difficulty level.