1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates primarily to a method of writing music for typewriter keyboards, and an instrument for playing said written music with an emphasis on the ease with which a typist can transpose to new keys in music.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Keyboard instruments are old in the history of the human race. The most well known at the present time are probably the piano, the organ, and the accordian. Recently, however, there have been developments in the field of communications, computers, and printing. As a result, there are a great many people who are completely familiar with, even expert at, the standard types of keyboards for the typewriter and computers, and who cannot play ordinary music as it is written, nor as it is played on conventional musical instruments, not to mention transposing keys.
The number of musical instruments which have tried to use typewriter keyboards has grown, but their utility has been limited by the fact that the typist must still learn to read the standard musical scores. ORMAN, an English Pat. No. 1428551, dated March, 1976 taught a musical instrument and method of writing the music in letters so that the typist could play the music. The invention of ORMAN, however, assumed that "the typist will know the tune sufficiently to hold some notes longer than others." (ORMAN at page 3 lines 70-73). WELSCH, a West German Pat. No. 2005955, dated August, 1971, also taught a musical instrument and method of writing the music in letters so that the typist could play the music. The invention of WELSCH, however was at best only slightly better than the ORMAN invention, since it either assumed the typist was familiar with the tune or was limited to tunes made up of only quarter-notes and half-notes by the placement of a horizontal line directly beneath the letter for indicating a quarter-note, and the placement of a horizontal line directly above the letter to indicate a half-note. (WELSCH in FIG. 2).
THOMPSON, U.S. Pat. No. 4,031,800, issued June 28, 1977, taught a two dimensional keyboard whose keys were arranged in perpendicular rows. THOMPSON designed his keyboard so that all standard music literature could be played on his keyboard. While THOMPSON designed his keyboard instrument primarily for one skilled at playing the THOMPSON keyboard and also skilled in reading music and in correlating the music to the keyboard; the only similarity between the THOMPSON keyboard and the present invention is that, on both instruments, a musical score can be played in any key, yet the fingering motions remain the same if the musical score were to be played in a different key. A typist would stil have to learn the THOMPSON keyboard, music notation, and correlation between the two to become proficient at making music on his keyboard. Additionally, the THOMPSON keyboard, even if geometrically and identifiably converted to a typewriter keyboard layout would become a confusing system of notes. At the same time the THOMPSON keyboard would have approximately half the range of notes as the present invention.