Patent ID: 7383186

Claim:
An apparatus for synthesizing a singing voice of a song, comprising: a storage section that stores template data in correspondence to various expressions applicable to music notes including an attack note and a non-attack note, the template data including first template data defining a temporal variation of a characteristic parameter for applying the corresponding expression to the attack note and second template data defining a temporal variation of a characteristic parameter for applying the corresponding expression to the non-attack note; an input section that inputs voice information representing a sequence of vocal elements forming lyrics of the song and specifying expressions in correspondence to the respective vocal elements, wherein the input section inputs the voice information containing timing information, which specifies utterance timings of the respective vocal elements along a progression of the song; a synthesizing section that synthesizes the singing voice of the lyrics from the sequence of the vocal elements based on the input voice information, such that the synthesizing section operates when the vocal element is of an attack note for retrieving the first template data corresponding to the expression specified to the vocal element and applying the specified expression to the vocal element of the attack note according to the retrieved first template data, and operates when the vocal element is of a non-attack note for retrieving the second template data corresponding to the expression specified to the vocal element and applying the specified expression to the vocal element of the non-attack note according to the retrieved second template data; and a discriminating section that discriminates the respective vocal elements to either of the non-attack note or the attack note based on the utterance timings of the respective vocal elements, such that the vocal element is identified to the non-attack note when the vocal element has a preceding vocal element, which is uttered before the vocal element, and when a difference of the utterance timings between the vocal element and the preceding vocal element is within a predetermined time length, and otherwise the vocal element is identified to the attack note when the vocal element has no preceding vocal element or has a preceding vocal element but the difference of utterance timings between the vocal element and the preceding vocal element exceeds the predetermined time length.