Patent ID: 7598449

Claim:
A musical device comprising: (a) at least one pair of electrically conducting frets, each fret spaced from its pair fret and each fret electrically conductive along its entire length; (b) at least one electrically conducting string located so that the at least one string crosses the at least one pair of frets and is able to come into contact with one of the at least one pair of frets when a user moves a string into contact with one of the at least one pair of frets; (c) means for determining that contact has been made between the string and one of the at least one pair of frets; (d) means for correlating a predetermined activity with a determination by the means for determining that contact has been made between the string and one of the at least one pair of frets that contact has been made between a particular string and a particular pair of frets; and (e) wherein the means for determining that contact has been made comprises: (i) at least one sensor, each sensor having a light transmitter and a receiver pair capable of receiving the light produced by the light transmitter, each sensor located at a location defined by the intersection of a string with a space between a pair of frets; (ii) means for activating a light transmitter and simultaneously checking its receiver pair to see if the receiver is receiving light; and whereby light from the light transmitter is reflected off of the user's finger as the user moves a string into contact with a pair of frets which light is received by the receiver paired to the light transmitter and whereby the presence of the user's finger at the location of the string and the pair of frets is confirmed.