Patent ID: 7923621

Claim:
A tempo analyzing apparatus comprising: a frequency band extracting means for extracting a sound signal of a frequency in a predetermined frequency band from an input sound signal; a volume calculating means for calculating a volume of the sound signal extracted by the frequency band extracting means; a threshold setting means for setting a threshold used to detect a peak of change in level with reference to the volume calculated by the volume calculating means; a peak detecting means for detecting positions of a plurality of ones, higher than a predetermined threshold, of peaks of change in level of the sound signal extracted by the frequency band extracting means, the peaks of change in level being detected in accordance with the threshold set by the threshold setting means, the positions including at least one reference position; a time interval detecting means for detecting a time interval between the at least one reference position and one or more others of the positions detected by the peak detecting means in a predetermined unit-time interval; an interval frequency detecting means for identifying a frequently occurring one of the time intervals detected by the time interval detecting means; an identifying means for accumulating a frequency of occurrence of each time interval between the positions of peaks detected in a plurality of unit-time intervals and identifying the tempo of the sound to be reproduced with the input sound signal on the basis of a maximum one among all the accumulated frequencies of time interval occurrence, wherein when the identifying means determines that a frequency of occurrence for a time interval exceeds a value, the identifying means reduces frequency of occurrence for at least one time interval; an image display device; and a display controlling means for causing an image to be displayed on the image display device, the image corresponding to the tempo identified by the identifying means and not to a tempo identified using any auto-correlation calculation or beat structure analysis.