Patent ID: 7807909

Claim:
A musical instrument for producing music sound, comprising: at least one manipulator moved in a certain direction by player's force so as to specify an attribute for the music sound to be produced; a tone generator connected to said at least one manipulator, and producing said music sound having said attribute, said tone generator having a sub-system exerting a load force on said at least one manipulator in a direction opposite to said certain direction; and a supporting system including at least one sensor provided for said at least one manipulator and producing a detecting signal representative of a physical quantity expressing the movement of said at least one manipulator, at least one actuator responsive to a driving power so as to exert an assisting force in said certain direction on said at least one manipulator, and a controller connected to said at least one sensor and said at least one actuator, said controller receiving said detecting signal representative of said physical quantity from said sensor and supplying said driving power to said actuator, said controller storing a relation between said physical quantity and a magnitude of said driving power, said controller adjusting said driving power to a certain magnitude corresponding to said physical quantity in said relation so that said at least one manipulator starts to move on the condition that a total of said player's force and said assisting force reaches a threshold greater than a load due to said load force.