After a brief discussion of the construction and operation of a typical stringed instrument, such as a guitar, a melody chord constructor therefor is shown which includes a base unit having located thereon symbols denoting the instrument's musical notes which are arranged in rows and columns corresponding to the fingerboard's strings and frets. A transparent member is relatively slidable on the base unit and has located thereon a plurality of numerical symbols arranged in rows and columns corresponding to those of the base unit. In one position, the symbols "1" on the slide member register with note symbols on the base unit corresponding to the root notes of an arbitrarily chosen scale, such as G. The remainder of the numerical symbols correspond to the major scale degrees useful in melody chord construction, that is, the 3, 5, 6, 7, b7, 9 and 11 degrees, and register with the corresponding notes of the G major scale on the base unit. By translating the slide member relative to the base unit, the notes corresponding to the root and degrees of any other major scale can be readily ascertained. Additional slide members having the various minor scale degrees thereon can be interchanged with the major scale slide member.
Method and apparatus for indicating finger pattern information for a musical stringed fingerboard instrument comprising at least one type of first indicia in a fingering pattern specified by pairs of coordinates representing allowable locations for fingering the stringed fingerboard instrument to sound musical tones of a chord or scale, and a repositionable string stop series for selecting a correlation of the ordinal number of at least one string stop of the stringed fingerboard instrument with the indicia of the fingering pattern.
The invention relates to a device intended to facilitate play on a musical string instrument by transfer of the notes for a tune to be played from the conventional note sheet onto a note sheet where the tones are indicated so as they are to be found at predetermined places on the individual strings of the instrument by the fingers of the hand acting on the strings. The device consists mainly of a preferably rectangular, flat, elongated slotted slider and a preferably rectangular, flat, elongated slide member housed in the slot so as to allow mutual sliding displacement. The slide member is provided with longitudinally extending parallel rows of conventional tone designations by characters, the number of said rows equalling the number of the strings of the instrument. The tone designating characters are in each row positioned according to their subsequent locations on the string. The slide member is formed with one or several apertures disposed according to a specific pattern so as to be capable of uncovering groups of tone designations belonging to either the same key or the same chord. The opposite side of the slider and slide member device may be formed with tone designations on the slide and apertures in the slider grouped so as in predeterminable setting positions relative one another to lay open the chords and keys belonging to the specific keytone of each of the strings of the instrument. By means of this device a note sheet can be prepared which renders possible immediately to read off the positions of each finger of the hand acting on the individual strings for producing the tune in consideration. This novel note sheet has groups of parallel horizontal lines the number of which equals the number of the strings of the instrument and the notes are marked on the lines only, with an adjacent annotation of the number of the finger to be pressed against the string at the location indicated by the position of the note, the general location of the hand with its four fingers relative the strings of the instrument being determined by a separate illustration beside the groups of lines. The desired tune can be played from the novel note sheet by a player with the normal training for playing the instrument in consideration.
A note aid transposer for guitars and other instruments has a plurality of independent slides in a frame holding them parallel; each slide represents a separate string of an instrument; parallel with the slides but at the top of the frame a numbered fret array indication co-acts with equally spaced one-note measures therebeneath on a scale displaying the notes and below them the corresponding names of the notes; along the left side of the frame a slide retaining strip at a right angle to the fret array and overlying a portion of the slides in a position aligned with the left edge of the zero fret position has a separate open string notation for each slide; a similar strip lies to the right edge of the highest fret position but provides a different open string indication for the respective slides, which can project from either side of the frame for adjustment to the desired open string tuning position and thus indicate resultant note values at all fret locations.
Apparatus for composing and indicating finger pattern information for a musical stringed fingerboard instrument comprising a plurality of alignably repositionable first series of first indicia, each first series representing at least one course of said stringed fingerboard instrument, the locations of said first indicia forming a mapping image of allowable locations for fingering the respective courses of the stringed fingerboard instrument to sound musical tones.
Disclosed in a system for instructing note and chord finger placement on a stringed instrument having a plurality of strings and frets arranged along a fingerboard comprising at least one instruction element adapted to be positioned adjacent to the fingerboard of the stringed instrument and having thereon a first indicia corresponding to the frets and a second indicia corresponding to the strings and frets, said second indicia denoting notes capable of being sounded by the instrument when a string depression is made at a corresponding location on the fingerboard.
