Claims Analysis
Total Claims: 7
Claim 1
Independent Claim
177 words
In a musical instrument, a keyboard having three note selection keys, a tone generator responsive to combinatorial operation of said keys to produce tone signals at corresponding degrees of a diatonic scale, a register connected between said keys and said tone generator, a timer responsive to initiation of a change in state of said keys to store the final state in said register after a predetermined delay, whereby undesired transient pitch changes corresponding to intermediate states which result from the finite time required to complete a combinatorial key selection manually are avoided, a chord selector providing additional inputs to said register to augment the keyboard note selection, a comparator having its inputs connected to certain corresponding inputs and outputs of said register so as to detect note selection changes but to be non-responsive to chord selection changes, said timer being controlled by said comparator to respond to a note selection change and to be unresponsive to a chord selection change, whereby a chord change can be preselected to become effective when accompanied by a note selection change.
Claim 2
Dependent Claim
177 words
In a musical instrument, a keyboard having three note selection keys, a tone generator responsive to combinatorial operation of said keys to produce tone signals at corresponding degrees of a diatonic scale, a register connected between said keys and said tone generator, a timer responsive to initiation of a change in state of said keys to store the final state in said register after a predetermined delay, whereby undesired transient pitch changes corresponding to intermediate states which result from the finite time required to complete a combinatorial key selection manually are avoided, a chord selector providing additional inputs to said register to augment the keyboard note selection, a comparator having its inputs connected to certain corresponding inputs and outputs of said register so as to detect note selection changes but to be non-responsive to chord selection changes, said timer being controlled by said comparator to respond to a note selection change and to be unresponsive to a chord selection change, whereby a chord change can be preselected to become effective when accompanied by a note selection change.
Claim 3
Dependent Claim
53 words
In a musical instrument as claimed in claim 1, said keyboard having two octave selection keys providing additional inputs to said register to augment the note selection keys, said timer also being responsive to initiation of a change in state of said octave selection keys to store the final state of said keyboard.
Claim 4
Dependent Claim
68 words
In a musical instrument as claimed in claim 1, said chord selector comprising a 2×3 orthogonal array of five chord buttons for selecting desired chords by combinatorial operation of the buttons, one of said buttons being elongated to fill two spaces in said 2×3 orthogonal array to enable selection with a minimum of finger motion and to facilitate location of the player's fingers on the array by feel.
Claim 5
Dependent Claim
71 words
In a musical instrument having a set of chord selection buttons as claimed in claim 3, a double touch chord button included in said set, and an encoder responsive to operation of said button to the first touch position to produce selection signals for a dominate 7th (7) chord and responsive to operation of said button to the second touch position to produce selection signals for a diminished 7th (-7) chord.
Claim 6
Dependent Claim
46 words
In a musical instrument as claimed in claim 4, four additional chord buttons included in said set, said encoder being responsive to individual operation of the other four buttons to produce corresponding selection signals for major (M), minor (m), augmented (+), and major 6th (6) chords.
Claim 7
Dependent Claim
42 words
In a musical instrument as claimed in claim 5, said encoder being further responsive to operation of said five buttons in pairs to produce corresponding selection signals for minor 6th (m6), minor 7th (m7), augmented 7th (+7), and major 7th (M7) chords.