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Method and apparatus for music instruction

  • US 4,175,468 A
  • Filed: 10/22/1976
  • Issued: 11/27/1979
  • Est. Priority Date: 10/22/1976
  • Status: Expired due to Term
First Claim
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1. An apparatus for indicating finger pattern information for a musical stringed fingerboard instrument, comprising:

  • a first base;

    at least one type of fist indicia on said first base in a fingering pattern specified by pairs of coordinates having first dimension course coordinates representing courses of said stringed fingerboard instrument and second dimension string stop coordinates representing string stops characteristic of musical intervals used in fingering said stringed fingerboard instrument, the direction of increasing said string stop coordinates representing the direction of increasing musical pitch on the stringed fingerboard instrument, said pairs of coordinates forming a mapping image of allowable locations for fingering said stringed fingerboard instrument to sound musical tones of a chord or scale;

    a tuning reference being present on said first base;

    a second base;

    a string stop series of second indicia on said second base, said second indicia representing an ordinal numbering of string stops of said stringed fingerboard instrument, said ordinal numbering ascending in the same directional sense as the direction of increasing said string stop coordinates of said fingering series, said second indicia having spacings which represent musical intervallic magnitudes characteristically used in stopping the strings of said stringed fingerboard instrument and which are of such size that pairs of indicia of said string stop series align with pairs of string stop coordinates of said fingering pattern, said aligned pairs of string stop coordinates representing the same musical intervallic magnitudes as said spacings of said second indicia thereto aligned, said string stop series being substantially adjacent to said fingering pattern along said second dimension of said fingering pattern, said string stop series and said fingering pattern being alignably repositionable with respect to each other in a direction substantially along said second dimension of said fingering pattern;

    a principal note reference being present on said second base; and

    a third base;

    a negative principal note series of third indicia being on said third base and being substantially adjacent to said string stop series and said fingering pattern and being repositionable with respect to said string stop series and with respect to said fingering pattern in a direction substantially along said second dimension of said fingering pattern and representing a chromatic ordering of note names descending in musical pitch in the same directional sense as the direction of increasing musical pitch as represented by said string stop coordinates of said fingering pattern, pairs of said third indicia having such spacings as to be alignable with pairs of string stop coordinates of said fingering pattern representing the same musical intervallic magnitudes as characterized by said note names represented in turn by said third indicia so aligned;

    whereby a fingerboard pattern may be indicated for the desired principal note in any one of a plurality of congruent tunings.

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