Upright piano for constant key-touch regardless of manipulation of soft pedal
AssigneeYamaha Corporation
InventorSatoshi Inoue
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A jack on a whippen incorporated in an upright piano drives a hammer assembly to rotate toward musical strings for producing sound, and a soft pedal causes the hammer assembly to become closer to the musical strings, wherein the upright piano comprises an adjusting mechanism operative to move the whippen upon manipulation of the soft pedal for eliminating gap between the jack and the butt as well as modifying rotating distance of the whippen, and a driving link assembly coupled between an associated key and a damper mechanism so that the whippen moved by the adjusting mechanism has no influence of action of the damper mechanism, thereby keeping key-touch ordinary under the manipulation of the soft pedal.
Claims4
An upright piano comprising:
- a) a keyboard having at least one key rotatable with respect to a center axis, a first capstan button projecting from said at least one key;
- b) at least one set of musical strings provided in association with said at least one key;
- c) at least one hammer assembly having a butt, and rotatable from a home position toward said at least one set of musical strings for striking said at least one set of musical strings when said at least one key is depressed;
- d) at least one key action mechanism having a rotatable whippen, a whippen heel attached to one surface of said whippen and a jack coupled with said whippen and held in contact with said butt, and operative to drive said at least one hammer assembly for rotation toward said at least one set of musical strings when said at least one key is depressed;
- e) at least one damper mechanism having a rotatable damper lever held at a home position while said at least one key is released, and a first absorber supported by said rotatable damper lever and held in contact with said at least one set of musical strings while said rotatable damper lever is held at said home position, said damper lever allowing said first absorber to be spaced from said at least one set of musical strings when said at least one key is depressed;
- f) a pedal mechanism linked with a soft pedal, and having a damper rail associated with a second absorber, said second absorber being spaced from said at least one hammer assembly while said soft pedal is released, said pedal mechanism causing said at least one hammer assembly to become closer to said at least one set of musical strings when said soft pedal is depressed;
- g) an adjusting mechanism linked with said soft pedal, and having g-1) a second capstan button projecting from said at least one key and closer to said center axis of said at least one key than said first capstan button, g-2) a drive button spaced from said whippen heel when said soft pedal is released, and g-3) a transmission means slidable on said second capstan button and allowing said drive button to urge said whippen heel in a direction to increase distance between said first capstan button and said whippen heel when said soft pedal is depressed;
- and
- h) a driving link assembly driven for rotation independently from said whippen, and transmitting a key motion produced upon depressing said at least one key to said damper lever in a direction allowing said first absorber to be spaced from said at least one set of musical strings.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.