ELECTRONIC MUSICAL INSTRUMENT HAVING A CHORD DETECTING FUNCTION

A CPU extracts a specified number of tones, in order of lower pitch from among notes of pressed keys and then determines a chord based on the specified tones so that a musical relationship can be established between the tones corresponding to the depressed keys and the generated chord, thus eliminating incongruity in the performance. In addition, since the chord detection is made based on the specified number of tones, there is no need to play all the constituent notes of the chord. Moreover, by storing chord pattern abbreviations in chord table memory, chords are detected in the manner that of frequently occurring abbreviated chord patterns are prioritized over infrequently occurring chord patterns.