Patent ID: 7332669
Filing Date: 2008-02-19
Classification: G10H

Abstract:
1. A piano apparatus comprising: a piano body; an action; a harp plate; pinblock mounted on the piano body; a musical keyboard with keys connecting to the action; hammers connecting to the action; strings connecting to the harp plate, positioned adjacent to the hammers, and arranged in different groups of strings according to respective principal frequency ranges, each of the different groups of strings being associated with a respective one of a plurality of different groups of the keys of the musical key board; a soundboard connected to the piano body and positioned relative to the strings; a MIDI sensor strip mounted beneath the keyboard for detecting movements of the keys; a plurality of buffers for selectively muting at least one of the plurality of different groups of the keys of the musical keyboard from generating sounds via the respective one of the plurality of groups of strings; and a plurality of pickups relatively positioned between the soundboard and the different groups of strings for picking up string vibration frequencies from each of the different groups of strings when one or more of the respective different group of the keys are not selected to be muted by an associated one of the plurality of buffers, the picked-up string vibration frequencies being provided to amplifiers for various speakers, when any one or more of the different groups of keys are selected for muting, the MIDI sensor strip detects the movements of each muted key and effects a generation of associated MIDI sounds via the various speakers.