Music – Accessories – Teaching devices
Patent
1986-09-12
1987-06-09
Franklin, Lawrence R.
Music
Accessories
Teaching devices
84474, G10G 102
Patent
active
046711597
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The invention refers to a chord key for musical instruments comprising a number of plastic sheets rotatably connected together and provided with marks to show fingering positions on the instrument corresponding to the positions of the notes included in various chords. The chord key is used for determining all possible grips on a musical instrument (guitar, piano, mandolin, banjo, ukulele and others) so as to achieve a desired polyphonic composition of notes or a chord, as it is called. The invention is also intended for determining by means of the said device the notes which are included in a large number of chords.
The chord key can also be used in the teaching of music, and in the composing and arranging of music.
The invention is made in a special design for each instrument it is intended for. Suitable instruments are string instruments such as the guitar and the like and keyboard instruments such as the piano and the like. The device described here is intended for the guitar.
The problem that the invention intends to solve consists in finding, starting from a desired harmonic structure (chord) and also a number of secondary conditions such as bass, melody and the like, a method for or a grip on the instrument in question by which this is achieved.
Traditionally, this problem has been solved by chord books, as they are called, that consist of a greater or lesser number of selections of chord grips. There are also prior patent applications for various kinds of devices, but none of these can be considered to have all the advantages of the device proposed herein. More details of these other devices are described below in connection with the search for prior art.
The chord key according to the invention is essentially characterized in that each sheet with fingering marks is transparent and corresponds to all possible positions for a particular note in various chords and that each sheet is provided with its own special mark for distinguishing that note in the various possible grips of the chord, and also that a bottom sheet is likewise rotatably attached to the other sheets and depicts the fretboard or manual of the instrument, whereby all possible fingering positions for a particular chord in which particular notes are included, are obtained by turning out those sheets which correspond to the notes of the chord and by positioning these sheets on top of the fretboard sheet.
The proposed chord key is very small and straightforward in design, which is not the case with the devices referred to above. With the chord key according to the invention all possible chords are displayable in all their inversions. This makes it possible to select from a large number of possible grips for a particular chord, a grip that satisfies one or more secondary conditions. For instance, a particular note in the bass or a particular melody note in the upper part, etc. may be desired. With the aids referred to earlier, this selection seems a good deal more difficult and consequently will consume much more time.
There are a number of different, well-known inventions of patented chord keys. An investigation has shown that there are theoretically, great similarities to EP No. 29463 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,712,167 but in these documents a quite different design of device is described. Both are based on a principle of displacing in parallel a number of sheets or the like. This design is a good deal clumsier and bulkier and also more expensive to manufacture. Two documents, U.S. Pat. No. 3,972,293 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,884,110, have great similarities to tne inventive device as far as the design is concerned. Both describe a number of rotatable sheets, but these devices are intended to solve other theoretical problems than the device according to the invention. All other documents can be regarded as irrelevant. On the market there are, on the one hand, a number of very simple rotary slide rule constructions, as they are called, and on the other, a number of electronic aids. The first type must be regarded as clearly differing from the device ac
REFERENCES:
patent: 3712167 (1973-01-01), Renault
patent: 3903781 (1975-09-01), Leonard
patent: 3903782 (1975-09-01), Leonard
patent: 4069735 (1978-01-01), Bertram
patent: 4503748 (1985-03-01), Barber
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