Abstract

An apparatus for producing a chord progression by connecting or chaining chord patterns. In a preferred embodiment, the apparatus includes as a source of musical knowledge, a database of musical structure of various music pieces and a database of chord patterns. In operation, from the musical structure database, a multi-leveled structural feature of a music piece is selected and determined level by level, either automatically, semi-automatically, or manually, through a dialogue conducted between the apparatus and the user. Thereafter, chord patterns are chosen one at a time from the chord pattern database in a similar dialogue manner. A concatenating module controls the concatenation of the chosen chord patterns to be commensurate with the characteristic musical structure previously determined, thereby to provide a chord progression with musicality, naturalness and well-balanced unity and variety. The produced chord progression may be utilized as a musical material from which an automatic composer synthesizes a melody of a music piece.