Mulitiple language electronic musical keyboard system

Claim 1

A multiple-language electronic keyboard system for generating and modifying musical note information comprising: a plurality of manually activated switches arranged in a keyboard matrix of rows and columns with said switches sufficiently proximate to one another to allow a single finger of a user to activate a plurality of switches in a single stroke; retriggerable timing means triggerable by said switches which upon being triggered by the activation of any switch begins timing for a time period t, during which period additional switch activations will retrigger said timing means and extend the time period for t seconds beyond the instant of the last retriggering; decoding means responsive to said switches, said decoding means controlled by said timing means to read and register, upon the expiration of time period t, all switches presently activated at the point of said expiration; said decoding means configured to detect and distinguish between a first language and a second language of distinct switch activation patterns; said first language characterized by the reading and registration of a switch activation pattern where one and only one switch in any particular column is activated and less than all of the switches in any particular row are activated; said first language further characterized by the reading and registration of a switch activation pattern where at least one switch in each column is activated and all of the switches in one row are activated; said second language characterized by the reading and registration of a switch activation pattern where at least two switches are activated in at least one column and the number of switches activated in any row is less than the total number of switches contained in that particular row; and processing means responsive to said decoding means for generating musical note information at the output of said processor means which depends on the location of each activated switch and the language detected by said decoder.