Did You Know...
...that one person who claimed to be the inventor of the television is Russian emigre Vladimir Zworykin? In 1929 David Sarnoff, founder of RCA, asked Zworykin what it would take to develop TV for commercial use. He said: a year and a half and $100,000. In reality, it took 20 years and $50 million! Before his death in 1982 at the age of 92, Zworykin said of his invention: "The technique is wonderful. It is beyond my expectations. But the programs! I would never let my children even come close to this thing."
PatentStorm News
Make the Most of Our Site
See this month's Top Inventors and Most Cited Patents.
Stay on top of the latest innovations by subscribing to an RSS feed.
Registered users: Manage your profile.
| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 7518057 | Method of automated musical instrument finger finding An automated computing system and method for determining fingering of musical instruments from digitized scored music or tablature. The computerized automated finger finder system and method analyzes a musical composition and determines hand and/or fingering positio... | 04/14/2009 |
| 7446253 | Method and apparatus for sensing and displaying tablature associated with a stringed musical instrument A system and method of enhancing guitar instruction based on Tablature Plus encoding of playing techniques within a MIDI file or other data structure, that may be rendered on an associated player application that provides multimedia output of the piece being played ... | 11/04/2008 |
| 7355110 | Stringed musical instrument having a built in hand-held type computer An apparatus and method is disclosed for storing, editing, deleting and visually displaying personal information within a stringed musical instrument. A hand-held type computer (34) located in and forming a portion of the envelope or housing of the stringed m... | 04/08/2008 |
| 7345236 | Method of automated musical instrument finger finding An automated computing system and method for determining fingering of musical instruments from digitized scored music or tablature. The computerized automated finger finder system and method analyzes a musical composition and determines hand and/or fingering positio... | 03/18/2008 |
| 7339107 | Method of and system for controlling audio effects An audio effects control for and method of controlling the application of special audio effects applied to an audio signal, comprises a sensor configured to sense movement associated with the generation of the audio signal, wherein the sensor produces a control sign... | 03/04/2008 |
| 7256336 | Stringed instrument and associated fret mapping method A stringed instrument and associated fret mapping method. The instrument includes a neck having a fret board provided with a plurality of frets having offset string contact regions along their length, whereby accurate intonation of a note is achieved when a string i... | 08/14/2007 |
| 7247783 | Cooperative musical instrument A series of musical vehicles form a cooperative musical instrument. Each musical vehicle may be outfitted with a musical tone generator and horn, or loud speaker that plays a particular note on a music scale. Each musical vehicle may have multiple horns or speakers ... | 07/24/2007 |
| 7238877 | Musical instrument string ground circuit breaker The present invention is directed to a stringed, musical instrument where the instrument strings are grounded by a string ground circuit, and wherein the string ground circuit includes a circuit breaker having a current path that defines a portion of the string grou... | 07/03/2007 |
| 7238876 | Method of automated musical instrument finger finding A computerized automated method for determining fingering of musical instruments from digitized scored music or tablature. The computerized automated finger finder method determines fingering such that hand movement is minimized on a specified instrument for maximum... | 07/03/2007 |
| 7238875 | Electronic musical instrument There is provided an electronic musical instrument which is capable of muting by a simple operation. A plurality of fret operating elements are provided on a fingerboard, for determining the pitch. Six stringed operating elements for determining sounding timing are ... | 07/03/2007 |
| 7238870 | Enhanced fret saving device and process A specialized at least bilayered device similiformic with the fretboard/fingerboard/keyboard of an instrument is designed to be removingly disposed between the strings and fretboard or frets of the instrument and prevents or mitigates fret damages (from, for example... | 07/03/2007 |
| 7223913 | Method and apparatus for sensing and displaying tablature associated with a stringed musical instrument A system and method of enhancing guitar instruction based on Tablature Plus encoding of playing techniques within a MIDI file or other data structure, that may be rendered on an associated player application that provides multimedia output of the piece being played ... | 05/29/2007 |
| 7220906 | String-instrument type electronic musical instrument Light emitting sections are provided in proximity to a plurality of performance operators that are provided, on the body of an electronic musical instrument, for performing tone-generation instructing operation corresponding to operation of strings on a natural musi... | 05/22/2007 |
| 7161080 | Musical instrument for easy accompaniment This electronic musical instrument has an extremely simple user-interface that can be played with only three fingers, one at a time. A user selects from among a small set of chords, and chooses a music-ending. This enables novices to extemporaneously produce good, s... | 01/09/2007 |
| 7112738 | Electronic musical instrument An electronic musical instrument which can realize a choking effect by a simple operation. The electronic musical instrument is constructed such that a neck provided with a fingerboard is fixed to a body. A plurality of (twelve) fret operating elements are provided ... | 09/26/2006 |
| 7075001 | Keyboard guitar musical instrument apparatus A musical instrument apparatus including multiple parallel strings defining a string line and a keyboard overlay positioned at an acute angle to the string line to allow for consistent playing feel by consistently positioning the hammers on the keys while allowing l... | 07/11/2006 |
| 6995310 | Method and apparatus for sensing and displaying tablature associated with a stringed musical instrument A system and method of enhancing guitar instruction based on Tablature Plus encoding of playing techniques within a MIDI file or other data structure, that may be rendered on an associated player application that provides multimedia output of the piece being played ... | 02/07/2006 |
| 6946592 | Plectrum for a string instrument, a transmitter/receiver arrangement and a signal processing apparatus A plectrum for a stringed musical instrument having a plurality of conductive strings is provided with a non-conductive body and a conductive tip. The conductive tip is sized so as to fleetingly contact a string when the string is plucked with a plectrum. The tip is... | 09/20/2005 |
| 6911590 | Interchangeable guitar A guitar having a shell body and a main body. The main body and/or a portion of the main body is detachably connected to the shell body. A neck is connected to the main body and/or the shell body. A bridge is connected to the main body. The neck includes a headstock... | 06/28/2005 |
| 6444891 | Electronic guitar with its keys arranged in complex array Electronic guitar including a case, a keyboard, a sound synthesis electronic assembly and an output line. The keyboard is divided into an upper keyboard arranged on a neck of the case and a lower keyboard arranged on a body of the case. The upper and lowe... | 09/03/2002 |
| 6018119 | Stringless twitch fret instrument The stringless fret instrument to be played as on a twitch instrument consists of the neck (1) on which there are frets (2) located transversely to a lengthwise axis of the neck (1), between which there are situated, in rows parallel with the axis of the ... | 01/25/2000 |
| 5900571 | Two dimensional musical instrument with three-quarter steps along one dimension A musical instrument includes a two-dimension array of note producing elements wherein the elements along one dimension of the array have three-quarter steps or increasing fundamental frequencies Fn according to the equation Fn =F | 05/04/1999 |
| 5739455 | Electronic guitar music simulation system An electronic guitar music simulation system which includes a guitar shaped keyboard having multiple key switches corresponding to various musical notes. A control processor within the guitar shaped keyboard is utilized to detect each change in a key swit... | 04/14/1998 |
| 5698808 | Electronic guitar having power conducting pick An electronic stringed instrument which simulates an acoustic counterpart, such as a guitar, in the aspect of string arrangement. The strings on the novel electronic instrument are actually depressed and picked in a manner similar to playing the acoustic ... | 12/16/1997 |
| 5167179 | Electronic musical instrument for simulating a stringed instrument In order to accurately simulate the sounding system of the stringed instrument such as the violin and cello, an electronic musical instrument provides a performance unit such as a keyboard and a multi-channel sound source unit. As the sound source unit, t... | 12/01/1992 |
| 5040447 | Electronic stringed instrument with fingering operating data memory system and navigate display device In an electronic stringed instrument, when a fingered string is plucked, the initiation of vibration of the plucked string is detected by a string vibration sensor to generate timing data representing the vibration initiation timing and number data repres... | 08/20/1991 |
| 5033351 | Fingerboard and neck for electronic musical instrument A fingerboard and a neck for an electronic musical instrument according to the present invention are used for an electronic musical instrument, such as an electronic guitar, an electronic violin, and a guitar synthesizer. A flexible sheet made of a slippe... | 07/23/1991 |
| 5025703 | Electronic stringed instrument An electronic stringed instrument employs a plurality of sensors or monitors for instrument performance. Preferred sensors or monitors include a detector for detecting that a string of the instrument is vibrated, an apparatus for evaluating a string-vibra... | 06/25/1991 |
| 5024134 | Pitch control device for electronic stringed instrument A plurality of strings are extended along a surface of a body, and an operation by a player with respect to the strings is detected by two detection systems. The first detection system is operated when a string vibration is started, and electrically obtai... | 06/18/1991 |
| 4986157 | Electronic musical instrument with a fret-split function The present invention relates to an electronic musical instrument with a fret-split function, which is used in electronic stringed instruments such as an electronic guitar, electronic violin, guitar synthesizer. Fingering areas provided on a finger-board ... | 01/22/1991 |
| 4977813 | Electronic musical instrument having playing and parameter adjustment mode An electronic musical instrument having a parameter adjustment mode and playing mode of operation includes a plurality of fret members located at predetermined spacings, a string stretched over the fret members so that a player's depression of the string ... | 12/18/1990 |
| 4966052 | Electronic musical instrument Root and type of a chord are discriminated at discriminators in accordance with the operation status on a fingerboard. The chord is designated according to a simplified fingering rule predetermined on the fingerboard so as to designate the chord. An autom... | 10/30/1990 |
| 4953439 | Electronic musical instrument with quantized resistance strings For reading the frets of a stringed electronic musical instrument, a plurality of resistance wire strings are secured to a nut end and a bridge of the instrument, with the strings superposing in parallel relationship over a plurality of conducting frets m... | 09/04/1990 |
| 4951546 | Electronic stringed musical instrument For elimination of an error made in a sound production, an electronic fretted and stringed musical instrument operates in a parameter adjusting mode of operation prior to a playing mode of operation, and the fret positions are adjusted for actual fret mem... | 08/28/1990 |
| 4873904 | Electronic musical instrument having playing and parameter adjustment modes An electronic musical instrument including fret members located at predetermined spacings, a string stretched over the fret members and contactable with any of the fret members when depressed by a player, a fret-position detector for producing supersonic ... | 10/17/1989 |
| 4748887 | Electric musical string instruments and frets therefor An electric string instrument, e.g. an electric guitar, has one or more resistive elements associated with each fret whereby sideways deflection of a string while in contact with a fret creates a change in the effective resistive value of that fret. This ... | 06/07/1988 |
| 4723468 | Electronic stringed instrument An electronic stringed instrument includes strings, a plurality of metal frets, an ultrasonic transmitter/receiver, and a fret discriminator. The strings are kept taut above an instrument body. The frets are arranged below the strings along their extensio... | 02/09/1988 |
| 4635518 | Segmented fret electronic musical instrument An electronic stringed musical instrument having an electrically insulating fingerboard is disclosed. The fingerboard is provided with a number of segmented frets attached across its upper surface at desired points along its length. Each of the frets incl... | 01/13/1987 |
| 4468997 | Fretboard to synthesizer interface apparatus Apparatus for detecting note selection on a guitar fretboard including a differential amplifier for detecting voltage drops across successive fret pairs, a multiplexer for connecting successive fret pairs to the differential amplifier, counters for mainta... | 09/04/1984 |
| 4430918 | Electronic musical instrument An electronic stringed instrument which uses electrical resistance wires as strings to control the frequency of electrically generated sounds. By shorting a string at various points along its length a variable voltage output is obtained and converted into... | 02/14/1984 |
