In a piano action, a damper lever, pivoted intermediate thereof and with its damper biased toward the string, has a tab portion extending in the side opposite to the damper side. A sostenuto block, rotatably supported beside the tab portion, has a lip portion rotatable against a biasing force and resting on a stop. The rotation of the block causes the lip portion to come near and away from the tab portion. When the block is rotated while the damper is brought away from the string upon depression...

A harmonica in which a slide is shiftable for placing openings of a mouthpiece in communication with selected chambers formed in a body of the harmonica and communicating with reeds carried by reed plates which extend over the body chambers. The slide is in direct slidable contact with the mouthpiece and body and has a low coefficient of friction with respect thereto, so that no guiding structure is required to guide the slide. The reed plates are situated between covers which are formed with so...

A time-detecting system for a digital interval timer comprises a plurality of detecting wheels mounted for rotation independently of each other upon a detection shaft. The time-indicating wheels of the timer are also mounted for rotation independently of each other upon the detection shaft and each timing wheel is positioned on the shaft adjacent one of the detecting wheels. Each detecting wheel includes a set of projections which extend toward its associated timing wheel and each timing wheel h...

A lock for a piano tuning pin comprises a metal collar having a set screw for attachment to a desired pin. A plurality of heavy spring wire arms extend substantially radially outward from the ring to engage adjacent pins and prevent the selected pin from rotating under the influence of the stressed piano wire. The foregoing abstract is not to be taken either as a complete exposition or as a limitation of the present invention. In order to understand the full nature and extent of the technical di...

An optical organ of the type which shines light through the tracks of a rotating optical record onto photocell apparatus and which utilizes depressable keys to play selected tracks, wherein only one or a few photocells are required. The keys are connected to slideable rods that deflect small light control members positioned between the record and photocell. In one organ, the deflectable members are pivotally mounted shutters with corrugated side walls that interfit one another to prevent the lea...

A quartz controlled timekeeping device such as a chronometer or watch comprises a high frequency quartz oscillator which is coupled to a divider which reduces the quartz frequency to the required output frequency. The divider output is connected to a polarity changing driver which energizes a polarized motor. The driver changes the polarity of the driving current after every driving impulse and drives the rotor coil of the motor between alternate positions thereby driving the index system direct...

A visual-aural combination: the visual component embodied by a playing board having a plurality of positions formed to receive a plurality of movable members representing consecutive musical units, the aggregate of all the musical units when positioned on the playing board forming a composite musical design; the aural component, closely correlated with the visual component, embodied in a phonorecord capable of reproducing by selection individual musical units, groups of musical units, and finall...

A device non-integral with the keyboard instrument with which it is used is activated through sheet, card or substitute keyboard means to activate in turn indicating heads mounted over the keyboard of an organ, piano or similar instrument and which designate the keys to be played by lighting or solenoid controlled means. The control sheet or card may utilize raised, indented, or apertured sheets or cards detected through various type contact or photocell means which feed the signal through an el...

The disclosure is of a chromatic, multiple stringed, musical instrument having features of conventional banjos, and also features of the sitar of India. As best employed, it comprises a five stringed instrument with each string tightened or loosened to play in any chord. After the strings have been tuned to a chord, a mode is played on a melody string (one of the five). By arranging the strings in a sequence of gauges and by employing a pitch raising peg means critically with relation to string ...

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 corres...