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Abstract

A key signature actuator for a musical keyboard eases playing from music written with difficult key signatures by automatically actuating the sharps or flats in the key signatures. The keyboard has five back digitals per octave span, like the traditional keyboard, except that the back digitals are de-emphasized as landmarks by making them light gray, and musical notes are associated with movable landmarks, rather than with fixed digitals. When in written music a key signature is indicated, the landmarks are electronically shifted so that the key note of that key signature is played by a tonic digital (a fixed front digital to the immediate left of a group of two back digitals). At the same time the tonic digital is made to sound the key tone corresponding to that key signature by adjusting the overall pitch of the musical output by means of a uniform pitch changer. The number of electrically changeable landmark elements is minimized and binary coding is used to simplify the electrical connections. Apparatus for moving the landmarks mechanically is also disclosed.

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First Claim