Horology: time measuring systems or devices – Combined with disparate device
Reexamination Certificate
2000-04-10
2001-03-13
Miska, Vit (Department: 2859)
Horology: time measuring systems or devices
Combined with disparate device
C084S46400A, C084S484000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06201769
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a metronome having expanded potential both for indicating musical time and as a teaching aids for musical education, and, more particularly, to a device for teaching musical rhythm and rhythm notation.
Generally speaking, most music students are exposed to melody and rhythm before they begin to study music. Children acquire songs through listening to recordings, radio, television, and children's songs sung by parents and family members. Rhythms may be learned from similar sources, and also from playground games and chants. Thus an innate sense of music may develop before any formal instruction begins.
For beginning students, the placement of notes on a staff bears a spatial relationship to the tune that the notes represent, and there is usually an intuitive understanding of this association. However, the teaching of rhythm involves time signatures and note values that have no spatial relationship, and are thus not as intuitive as melody. For some students, rhythm notation may be an obstacle to early understanding of music, particularly for younger students. Although pedagogical techniques have been developed to deal with this problem, there is a lack of a simple spatial or graphic visual aid for teaching rhythm notation, and for relating that notation to the dynamic presentation of musical rhythm.
For more advanced music students, and for music professionals, the metronome remains a fundamental tool for practice. Aside from the familiar pendulum metronome, there are now electrical and electronic metronomes for keeping time in music. These device are generally characterized as marking time by emitting clicks or beeps or flashes of light at regular, selectable intervals. However, these devices are typically devoid of any display of musical rhythm, and have no means for indicating the proper manner of marking the rhythm of a measure of music.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In a general aspect, the present invention provides a metronome that marks musical time by displaying a clock face having a measure of music depicted about the periphery thereof, and a rotating indicator that sweeps about the clock face to indicate the rhythm of the depicted measure. The indicator may comprise a clock hand extending generally radially on the clock face, or may comprise an array of LEDs or similar lights disposed about the periphery of the clock face and illuminated in sequence to mark the rhythm. The metronome may provide audible indications of each note of the measure, or visual indications of each note, or both.
The present invention generally comprises a device for providing a dynamic visual aspect to a metronome and a visual aid in the teaching of musical rhythm notation. In one aspect, the device comprises a metronome that provides a display similar to a clock face, thus capitalizing on a student's familiarity with a common timekeeping device. The clock face displays beat counts and note values about the periphery thereof, and provides a clock hand that rotates in clockwise fashion to pass by the beat counts and note values and generate appropriate sounds for the beat count and notes. The invention thus provides a dynamic visual and physical indication that correlates musical notation with the rhythm it represents, and provides an aid in teaching and understanding written music. That is, it shows how written rhythms are interpreted in real time, through a physical and aural demonstration of musical notation. It uniquely creates a visual representation of meter in time, and connects aural, visual, and written musical language.
In one aspect, the metronome comprises a computer program that generates a screen display having a clock face and a clock hand mounted in the center of the face to rotate continuously in typical clock fashion. The clock face is provided with indicia distributed about the periphery thereof that represent the important aspects of a musical time signature. As the clock hand rotates past each of the indicia, an audible tone, click, a synthesized voice, or other sound is generated to denote that particular aspect of the rhythm in real time. In this way the assembly can actualize the sound of one bar of written rhythm and have a concurrent visual representation of the same bar of written music moving at exactly the same rate as the audible tones that are generated.
For example, the clock face may present 4/4 time with the digits one through four spaced about the circumference and separated by 90°, the numeral one placed at the top of the clock face (at the 12 o'clock position) the numeral two placed at the three o'clock position, the numeral three placed at the six o'clock position, and the numeral four placed at the nine o'clock position. As the clock hand rotates through one rotation, it generates a characteristic sound as the hand points to each number, so that it actualizes the sound of one measure of written music with each rotation.
In addition, the clock face may be provided with indicia representing the rhythm characteristics that occur between the counted beats. For example, between each numeral the indicia “e”, “+”, and “a” may be provided in equally spaced fashion to represent the rhythm counts that may be present between the beats. Thus, for sixteenth notes in 4/4 time, the rhythm would be sounded as “ONE ee and ah TWO ee and ah THREE ee and ah FOUR ee and ah”. To aid this representation, the sixteenth notes may be placed (by typical drag-and-drop techniques) on the clock face adjacent to each of the appropriate indicia. Likewise, eighth notes may be placed adjacent to each numeral and each “+” indicator, so that the metronome will count in eight as “ONE and TWO and THREE and FOUR and”. Quarter notes may be placed adjacent to each numeral, so that metronome will count in four as “ONE . . . TWO . . . THREE . . . FOUR . . . ”. Half notes may be placed adjacent to the one and three numerals to count half notes: “ONE . . . THREE . . . ”.
As another example, the clock face may represent 3/4 time with the digits one through three spaced about the circumference and separated by 120°. As described above, the intervening indicia may be provided to aid in counting sixteenth, eighth, quarter, and half notes. In general, any time signature may be represented, with the numerator of the signature determining the numerals presented on the clock face and the numerals being separated by equal angles about the clock face. A plurality of interchangeable clock faces may be displayed, and selected as required for the lesson being taught or the meter being studied.
Each distinct indicia may be expressed audibly by prior selection of a distinct and unique sound or voiced word, or any combination of audible sounds that are appropriate and expressive of the concept being taught. In addition, the rate at which the clock hand rotates may be selectively varied to change the tempo of the rhythm representation, as is known in prior art metronomes.
In a further aspect, the invention depicts meter using a display of one or more regular polygons. For example, a triangle may be presented to indicate counting in three, etc. In addition, the clock face may display regular polygons such as a triangle to represent 3/4 time, overlaid and centered with a rectangle representing 4/4 time, with one vertex of each polygon at a common point. As the clock hand rotates, a selected sound is generated whenever the hand intersects a vertex of either of the polygons. Thus polymetric rhythms such as four over three, five over four (represented by a pentagon overlaid with a triangle), or five over eight (represented by a pentagon overlaid with an octagon) may be sounded and displayed providing an important aid in teaching difficult polyrhythms. In addition, the points at which the moving clock hand intersects the sides of the polygons may comprise a moving illuminated spot to illustrate the differing velocities and phrasing that is created by polyrhythms.
For classroom use, the computer display may be projected on a lar
Cohen Howard
Miska Vit
LandOfFree
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