Music – Instruments – General features
Reexamination Certificate
2000-02-29
2001-11-27
Fletcher, Marlon T. (Department: 2837)
Music
Instruments
General features
C084S454000, C084S483200, C084SDIG001, C084S600000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06323408
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to music creation, performance and reproduction.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is common practice that the largest proportion of music is performed on instruments whose notes are tuned according to “EQUAL TEMPERAMENT”. By “EQUAL TEMPERAMENT”, it means that notes are derived from each octave being logarithmically divided into twelve divisions. This octave, with its twelve notes so divided, is duplicated above and beneath by each corresponding note being multiplied by factors of n
th
power of two. Since note “A” is traditionally assigned a frequency of 440 Hz, its octaves above and below by n
th
power of two is therefore . . . 110 Hz, 220 Hz, 880 Hz, 1760 Hz . . . etc, where n= . . . −2, −1, 1, 2, . . . The other eleven notes are logarithmically determined to have frequencies:
440*EXP(LOG(2)*
n
/12)Hz
where for note “A♯”, n=1; for note “B”, n=2; for note “C”, n=3; for note “C♯”, n=4 . . . etc.
The frequencies being calculated of the notes A♯, B, C, C♯, D, D♯, E, F, F♯, G, G♯, A′ are hence 466.16 Hz, 493.88 Hz, 523.25 Hz, 554.37 Hz, 587.33 Hz, 622.25 Hz, 659.26 Hz, 698.16 Hz, 739.99 Hz, 783.99 Hz, 830.61 Hz and 880.00 Hz. These frequencies extend to the upper and lower octaves with frequencies multiplied by respective multiples of two for an “equal-tempered” keyboard (see FIG.
1
).
Historically, there were proposals of other ways of deriving the frequencies of notes. Some of these ways involve arrangements of the scale such that the frequencies of its notes form simple ratios with one another, and are generally termed “PURE INTONATION”. However, this has long been found to be theoretically and practically impossible to apply to instruments of pre-determined tuning, since it will result in “pure” intervals only between particular pairs of notes, but involves heavy penalties for other intervals. It has also been long realized that such formation will result in music performances that are rather unpleasant to the ears of a listener.
Furthermore, there exists no reliable theory to explain how music becomes “pleasant” to listen to. The sensors of the ear remain one of the most obscure subjects in the area of scientific research.
On the other hand, it is known that good violinists and singers do adjust each note's frequency during performances in real time so that each note deviates a little away from the “equally-tempered” frequencies, and hence render their performances significantly more pleasant to the listener. The converse is also true that poor performers appear to adjust in wrong ways and render their performances musically unpleasant. Very many proposals have been made over hundreds of years as to how notes scales and instruments should be tuned or adjusted. However, none of these proposals has yet been found compatible to aesthetically pleasing performances in the realms of classical, popular or traditional music.
For example, the following is such a proposal of a standard scale that fails to fulfil a requirement for good listening:
do 9/8 re 10/9 me 16/15 fa 9/8 so 10/9 la 9/8 te 16/15 do
This scale generates “good” major thirds (9/8*10/9=5/4), between note-pairs do/me, fa/la, so/te, and “good” minor thirds (9/8*16/15=6/5) between te/re, me/so, la/do. However, the scale produces a “bad” minor third (10/9*16/15=32/27) between re/fa. The scale also produces “Good” perfect fifth (9/8*10/9*9/8*16/15=3/2) between do/so and me/te, but “bad” fifth (10/9*16/15*9/8*10/9=40/27) between re/la. Performances in this scale arrangement sound strange and unnatural.
Historically, therefore, attempts were made to solve the problem of intonation on fixed-pitch instruments, in particular, keyboard instruments, by using multiple keys for each of the twelve notes in each octave. For example, the “bad” minor thirds (10/9*16/15=32/27) between re/fa may be overcome by the insertion of an extra key for re, so that instead of the:
do 9/8 re 10/9 me 16/15 fa 9/8 so 10/9 la 9/8 te 16/15 do, the scale now becomes:
do 10/9 re
1
81/80 re
2
10/9 me . . . etc
Additionally, the “bad” minor thirds (10/9*16/15=32/27) between re/fa is substituted by re
1
/fa (10/9*81/80*16/15=6/5) instead, giving a “good” minor third.
Although such solutions may solve apparent “problems” for isolated instances of the sounding of two notes, it does not address the needs of harmonic music flow, nor offer any explanation why listeners, including children, can readily point out wrong notes in very complicated polyphony.
Instead of splitting up keys with its complication of more than the original twelve keys for each octave, another solution is providing more than one stave of keys for the instrument. Instruments such as the harpsichord and the pipe organ do in fact have more than one stave of keys. However, there is not found any record of any workable proposal of how these staves should be tuned so that the problem of intonation may be overcome.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to overcome or at least reduce this problem.
According to one aspect of the invention there is provided keyboards, virtual keyboards, tuning tables, scales and the like for improving the perceived intonation of musical notes by modifying the notes using templates that provide frequency ratios between adjacent pairs of notes of 25/24 (h), 16/15 (m) and 27/25 (s), in a sequence of twelve notes that extends over each octave range or each extended octave range.
The twelve notes may be in the order s, h, m, h, s, h, s, m, h, m, h, m (template
1
). The twelve notes may be in the order s, h, m, h, s, h, s, m, h, m, h, s (template
2
). The twelve notes may be in the order h, s, m, h, s, h, s, m, h, m, h, s (template
3
). The twelve notes may be in the order h, m, m, h, s, h, s, h, m, m, h, s (template
4
). The twelve notes may be in the order s, h, s, h, s, h, m, m, h, m, h, m (template
5
).
According to another aspect of the invention there is provided a method of improving the perceived intonation of a melody or melodies using keyboards, virtual keyboards, tuning tables, scales and the like using templates of claim
1
to modify each note of the melody that has been produced or written according to a standard equal-tempered musical scale by adjustments according to the templates.
An electronic music generator may comprise an audio output device, and a computer arranged to drive the output device, in which the computer is programmed to respond to musical input signals or data and to modify each note thereof using templates.
According to a further aspect of the invention there are provided keyboards, virtual keyboards, tuning tables, scales, and the like for improving the perceived intonation of music with two or more parts, in which a template specified above is used to modify notes in these parts and applied with offsets for some parts to make some of the same notes different in pitch between the parts.
The present invention provides a method to tune each and every note on a fixed-tuning instrument to achieve an intonation compatible to a good performance that inherently allows a free-tuning environment. It is also possible to change the individual notes of audio signals, including voice signals, so as to improve and render a melody, or singing voice aesthetically more pleasing. It has been technically possible in the past to make individual adjustments as such signals can be presented individually using known computer programs for appropriate adjustments to a programmed computer. However, so far no overall pre-ordained new scales, or chord matching, has been available to be applied to a flow of notes in a melody that serve to generate a good overall performance. In other words, at present or in the past, a note or several notes of pre-recorded music may be changed to make them sharper and/or flatter for example, as perceived preferable to the ear of a music recordings producer. However,
Fletcher Marlon T.
Leydig , Voit & Mayer, Ltd.
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