US 7,355,109 B2Granted

Separate automatic player driving keys and pedals of keyboard musical instrument

AssigneeYamaha Corporation

InventorsShigeru Muramatsu, Katsuo Ito

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Abstract

A separate automatic player is independent of a piano, and stands in front of the piano for an automatic playing; the separate automatic player includes a key driver unit, a pedal driver unit and a framework on which the key driver unit and pedal driver unit is carried; the key driver unit has an array of key actuators so as to selectively depress and releases the black and white keys, and a pair of side elevators and a rotary unit is provided between the framework and the array of key actuators; the side elevators bring the plunger heads of the key actuators into contact with the upper surfaces of the black and white keys, and the rotary unit makes the plungers vertical to the upper surfaces so that the key actuators exert force on the black and white keys at the magnitude exactly equivalent to pieces of music data.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A separate automatic player independent of a keyboard musical instrument having a fore-and-aft direction, a lateral direction crossing said fore-and-aft direction at right angle and an up-and-down direction normal to a plane defined by said fore-and-aft direction and said lateral direction, comprising:

a key driver unit including
a key actuator unit having an array of key actuators selectively driving keys of said keyboard musical instrument for producing tones,
a first regulator connected to said key actuator unit and moving said key actuator unit in said up-and-down direction so as to make said array of said keys in parallel to the upper surfaces of said keys, and
a second regulator connected to said key actuator unit and rotating said key actuator unit about a lateral line extending in parallel to said lateral direction so as to vary an angle between centerlines of said key actuators and a virtual plane defined by said lateral line and a vertical line normal to a floor where said keyboard musical instrument stands;
and
a pedal driver unit selectively stepping on pedals of said keyboard musical instrument.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.