Patent ID: 7112738

Claim:
An electronic musical instrument comprising: a musical instrument body; a fingerboard fixed to said musical instrument body; a plurality of pitch designation operating elements provided on said fingerboard in a manner being capable of being depressed, wherein pitch of musical tones to be generated in each of a plurality of sounding channels is designated according to whether at least one corresponding pitch designation operation element of said pitch designation operating elements has been depressed; a plurality of timing determination operating elements provided on said musical instrument body, for determining sounding timing for respective ones of the sounding channels; a musical tone generator that generates musical tones according to operation of said pitch designation operating elements and operation of said timing determination operating elements; an effect-application operating element provided on said musical instrument body in a vicinity of said timing determination operating elements to switch ON/OFF operations for obtaining a choking effect; and a controller responsive to the ON operation of said effect-application operating element, for providing control to obtain the choking effect by raising the pitch of a musical tone being generated by a predetermined amount for a channel among all the sounding channels, for which the pitch has been designated by depression of one of said pitch designation operating elements and in which the musical tone is being generated by said musical tone generator, and responsive to the OFF operation of said effect-application operating element, for providing control to obtain no choking effect.