This invention allows a person to train a strumming and picking hand and fingers for improvement of guitar and stringed instrument playing.
An initial device variant was discovered plucking small molded tabs on a fast-food cup lid. These tabs or stubs provided tactical and acoustic feedback upon finger plucking. A guitar has linear and parallel direction strings. Circular orientated ‘cup-lid’ tabs were less than ideal for guitar training of fingers. This inspired design investigations. A device variant was built having linear and parallel guitar picks sandwiched between wood blocks; picks were half exposed to provide parallel oriented tabs representing guitar strings. This device was built to at least partially embody REGION 101 of
Many training devices are commercially available to help guitar players improve their skills. Available devices can be categorized in several groups, including electronic devices, miniature guitars and/or minimized guitars, truncated fret-board devices, fret-finger dexterity tools and finger strength trainers. Some of these devices include actual guitar hardware, which may include a neck or partial neck, frets, strings and more. Guitars and other stringed instruments are generally composed of a base or body, neck, strings, and hardware. Hardware can be used to attach parts together, tune strings, and facilitate sound amplification. Stringed-instrument necks generally extend a distance from a body or base-feature to facilitate a required scale length which allows typical frequency for string vibration and sound for that instrument. Necks typically provide fret features for strings to be finger-clamped or fretted; this changes frequency and or tone for string vibration. Physical size and sound volume of a guitar can dissuade a user from practice in many situations, including a tightly packed bus or airplane. Neck length is a primary reason for physical size of a guitar. A guitar training device without concern for a neck or neck features may be significantly reduced in physical size, allowing users to practice relevant guitar techniques in many areas and situations where a guitar is not practical.
Playing a guitar generally involves utilization of two hands: including a Hand-1 and a Hand-2 and their associated fingers. Finger duties for a Hand-1 include picking, plucking, and/or strumming string(s) generally in Region 101 of
Miniature guitars, minimized guitars, and travel guitars will be referred to collectively as miniature guitars; they usually involve both hands to operate. Truncated necks and fret-finger trainers have a fret-region and string features to train Hand-2 duties on Region 102 in
Finger strength training devices make no attempt to represent guitar features. Devices used to build finger strength can be beneficial for guitar, rock-climbing, and many other activities. In summary, many training devices exist that are useful for guitar players to develop finger and hand strength for Hand-2 duties.
A training device for the user's Hand-1 can allow practice of strumming, finger picking, plectrum picking, syncopation, rhythm, endurance, and much more. These skills can be useful for many stringed instruments such as guitar, bass, banjo, harp, violin, and more. In general, a guitar user conforms and orients a Hand-1 to allow finger and hand motion-paths which are substantially perpendicular to the strings. This strumming motion path allows dynamic engagement and release of string-features. A guitar provides acoustic response and strings provide tactical feedback to the use's fingertips. Practice on a guitar or training device allows a user to develop unconscious muscle memory for these Hand-1 duties.
Guitars and bass guitars have string-features that extend through both regions 101 and 102 of
Many Hand-2 devices do not have features to attach onto a person. Holding a Hand-2 device uses a HAND-2 guitar fretting lobster pinch-grip method, which does not lend itself well for user-attachment. Many devices exist for improving Hand-2 capabilities.
Consumers looking to improve their Hand-1 capabilities for guitar REGION 101 of
No training device has been found which focuses exclusively on improving a guitar player's strumming or picking hand and fingers. Patent literature search has found a description of a rhythm device. This patent describes a device for practicing rhythm and strumming. The specification for this tunable device provides abundant detail for screws and string tension adjustment features. Further, legal claims require screws or adjustable tension. This literature described device follows in paradigm with virtually every guitar and/or stringed instrument commercially available: adjustable tension strings are mandatory. A Hand-1 training device which does not require string tension adjustment is not available to consumers. The added complications of screws for adjusting string tension, or even the fact of having adjustable string tension is complex and degrades from the simplicity of a training device. Lack of commercial availability for the “literature described tunable rhythm device” indicates low practical utility.
Eliminating the concept of mechanically tuned strings can provide a simplified user experience; and can contribute to a lower device cost. Variants of the device described for this application can have either adjustable tension or fixed tension or zero tension string-features.
All hand training devices suffer from different disadvantages:
Besides the objects and advantages described in this patent application, advantages include:
101—H1 region
102—H2 region
103—string feature
104—connection feature
105—base feature
106—subdivision
107—string feature sandwiched by other features.
108—fastener
D1—base feature width
D2—base feature length
D3—a hand width
D4—string feature spacing
D5—string feature height
D6—String feature length
D7—String feature thickness
D8—Base feature height
Other variations will become clear when the present invention is understood from the description given and drawings. Features in drawings are labeled to provide a detailed understanding of the present invention. Repetitive features and associated dimensions can be clearly understood in the drawings by comparison with substantially identical labeled items. Variations in features are intentionally mixed to minimize drawings and show some of the possible variants for this application. Even more variants that are not shown can easily be imagined, after reviewing the drawings and descriptions in this application.
As can be imagined by these drawings and descriptions, any number of design variants can be constructed to deliver the functionality fora hand-1 training device. Description and illustration of variants herein will in-turn lead to other variants which can easily fall within the claims for this application.
Fingers, thumbs and picks may be used to interact with Guitar-device strings and/or string features. For this document, the term finger can include thumbs, fingers, picks and anything that might be used to pluck and/or strum a guitar. In addition, the definition for a user and/or person can include appendages and clothing items, belts, suspenders and other apparel involved with the user.
A hand-1 training device includes strings features. Preferred string-features have a primary linear dimension and provide finger tactical feedback roughly in a direction of finger motion. Finger motion is roughly perpendicular to the string-feature's primary linear dimension; string feature orientation is representative of Region 101 of
A string-feature may be a string or wire, or may be a protruding edge, a linear element, a linear profile, a protruding stub, or the like. Many qualities and quantities can help define string-features. Some of these qualities and quantities impart interaction, touch, sound, feel, and ultimately usability and satisfaction for a training device user. These qualities and quantities comprise material type, shape, thickness, length, width, stiffness, height, attachment, color, mass, quantity, spacing, sound and further items not explicitly listed. A training device having a single string-feature can be useful but is essentially of limited benefit. A Hand-1 training device being described herein has between two and ten string-features, with a preference of four, or five, or six. String-feature spacing and/or thickness has importance to a usability of this device. Commercially available guitars and stringed instruments utilize many different string thicknesses on a single instrument. String feature thicknesses of a device can be tailored to provide feel, or touch/tactical feedback representative of a guitar or bass, or other stringed instrument. Alternatively, some or all string-features may have a common thickness. This device is not defined by string thickness, however, string features having thickness between 0.003″ and 0.3″ (inch) provides satisfactory functional and/or tactical user feedback. Preferable string-feature thickness for this device described herein will be between 0.010 inch and 0.12 inch. String features for devices tailored for practicing bass guitar are likely to employ thicker string features as compared with devices tailored for practicing guitar. Thickness for a hollow string features is characterized by the external dimensions.
Generally, string feature shape dimension will comprise of length and thickness, and in some cases width. These feature-based dimensional quantities help to define some aspects for shape; however, these quantities are general in nature and may describe shapes which are relatively long and flat, short and flat, long and round, long with a cross-section, short with cross-section, and many other combinations not explicitly stated.
String-feature thickness, length, stiffness, size, mass and other items can provide for many device variants; effectively providing variations on tactile response, tonal response, and feel-response provided to the user's fingers. User's preference for string-feature thickness, stiffness, and size may result from the user's particular instrument preference and playing style. Stiffness is associated with material type, string-feature dimensions and shape. The dimensional contribution to stiffness is well documented in engineering literature for mechanics of materials. String-feature with soft stiffness can help provide a smooth feel and possibly less harsh experience for a device user. Conversely, stiff string-features provide a different user experience. Again, string-feature dimensions can result in multiple variants for hand-1 training devices; some hand-1 device variants may have string-feature dimensions similar with an instrument, such as a guitar, bass-guitar, or other instrument of choice.
A Hand-1 device which is roughly sized to a human hand is both compact and functional for multiple hand sizes. Length of a string-feature can be short, mid-length, or long. String-feature variants can extend to a substantial portion of a Hand-1 device length-dimension, partial portion of a device-length, or be minimal in length. Minimal tab style string-features can be positioned on a base-feature to match separate finger arc-paths, as shown in
String-features are not limited by shape nor material. As previously described, string-features can be actual guitar strings, guitar picks, or a multitude of shapes and/or materials. String features may be comprised of plastic, polymer, wood, paper, plant-base, animal base, rubber, cardboard, metal, glass, composite, and many other materials.
Guitar strings are relatively free to vibrate about proximate extremity connections on an instrument. Wire type string-features can be sandwiched, pinned, screwed, wrapped or otherwise fixed to the end connection features. End connection features can provide adjustment of string-feature tension or provide no-adjustability for string-feature tension. The device described here for application employs simplicity as a feature. Effectively hand-1 training device variants isolate tasks for finger and hand skill training. Skill isolation can simplify learning experiences for training device users. Device simplicity is a feature.
Clearly, by the variance of string-feature examples, qualities, and quantities, string-feature shape can be any one of a multitude of possibilities.
Generally, stringed instruments including guitars have multiple strings and these strings are separated by a distance or space between each string. This distance between strings is sized wide enough such that fingers can access strings individually. Further, these distances are minimized such that multiple strings are available to the proximity of a user's Hand-1 and associated fingertips. The term finger and fingertip will be used synonymously herein. Multiple string-features and their accompanying distance between string-features comprises the region 101 of
Over the ages, luthiers and manufacturers have refined stringed instruments to meet the satisfaction of users. While differences do exist, the majority of stringed instruments have string-spacing, otherwise known as distances between string features, which are substantially common. A user must be able to engage a single string-feature and also be able to access other string-features. String-feature spacing is generally less than one inch but more than ⅛″ for most instruments. A device variant with string features spaced greater than 0.75 inch is useful, however the wide spacing deviates from a target to represent region 1 of
A Hand-1 training device employs a base-feature and a connection means for string-features. A base-feature may be comprised of many materials, including materials listed above for string-features. Materials need not be common between base-feature and string-features. Or, other device variants may have similar or even common materials between string-features and base-features. Base-features can be comprised of more than one material. Certain variants have string-features which meld or transition into a body feature. A base-feature shape and size can provide function and style. A device that fits in a coat-pocket allows portability and easy storage within clothing pockets. Base-feature shapes may be substantially rectangular or other various geometries. They could be similar with recognized guitar shapes (reduced in size) or any other recognizable shape, such as a heart, or the state of Michigan. A preferred device variant is sized compactly and shaped simply to allow guitar Hand-1 picking practice with minimal required space.
Dimensional qualities including length, width, and thickness are relative terms. These terms being relative to a component, assembly, or reference frame. Length of base-feature and length of string-feature remain directionally consistent between each other. However, thickness of string-feature and thickness of base-feature are non-consistent in direction. String features are assembled to a base-feature in a manner which orients a combined multitude of string-feature thicknesses and string-feature spacings to substantially provide a base-feature width: D1 shown in
Base-feature thickness and string-feature height are dimensions which help to define a Hand-1 training device, as shown in the illustrations, including
Connection of string-features to a base-feature can make use of mechanical connections, including mechanical connecting elements, clamps, clamping, sandwiching, insertion, screws, traps, bolts, welding, gluing, melding, wrapping, and many other joining approaches. String-feature shape, size, and dimensions are important for determining how string features are connected to a base feature.
Guitar players may use a strap to hold a guitar in relative position such that hands are free to perform their respective duties referenced earlier; including duties of Hand-1 and Hand-2. Alternatively, a guitar can rest on a leg or knee to locate a relative position. User connection features for guitar positioning allows both hands freedom to perform their Hand-1 and Hand-2 finger duties. Base-features are herein defined as to include straps and/or device base/body.
A user connection feature on a training device has significant benefit as allows Hand-1 duties, including picking, plucking, and strumming on a relatively stationary device. It allows a user freedom of a second hand to perform completely un-related tasks such as holding a book to read; a scenario which would be extremely challenging with a device unconnected to the user.
A relatively stationary device has minimal relative motion compared with a user's personal reference frame. A personal reference frame may be a user's hip, core, leg, arm, belt, suspender, pants, and/or other portion, and/or clothing attached to thereof. Examples of connection features include clips, clasps, snaps, u-bends, hook and loop fabrics, belts, articulating members, loops and many other possibilities. Quick connects are available for guitar straps. These mechanical actuated snap lock features are also applicable to a hand-1 type device. A connection feature can provide positioning close to a user or provide an offset such that the device is further outward from the user similar with how a guitar might position a hand. An adjustable connection feature allows a user to secure the device relative position which suits a user's preference.
A stationary reference frame allows a Hand-1 and/or finger-paths to remain oriented to the device and/or string-features during use. A device which remains relatively stationary allows a user to develop spatial relationship between fingers and string-features. Ultimately the device helps to develop muscle memory for hands and fingers which helps develop guitar playing skills. Given these facts it is clear a compact Hand-1 training device which incorporates at least one connection feature has significant benefits.
Variants of a hand-1 training device can incorporate string-features which originate and protrude from a base. Said protrusion can provide string-feature height similar to portions of
A base-feature variant can be comprised of one or more subdivisions which can provide for string-feature spacing. Combining sheet-material derived string-features together with base-feature subdivisions can provide for variants of a hand-1 training device. Base feature subdivisions may dimensionally provide for string-feature-spacing, Dimension D4 in a base-feature-width direction, Dimension D1. Said subdivisions have length which can provide toward a base-feature length direction, Dimension D2. A base-feature subdivision may have dimensional contribution towards a base-feature height, Dimension D8. A base-feature comprised of multiple subdivisions can form a combined singular base-feature with multiple spaced sandwich features (107) for accepting string-features (103); variants of this can be seen in
Some base features may not even appear to be base features, but effectively are. An example of this is a material connection between string features as shown in
Still yet other variants include a base-feature having string-features formed, molded, created, and/or extruded as part of said base-feature. String-features in this described variant are mechanically connected to a base-feature through material and/or material interfaces. Manufacturing methods exist where string-features and base-feature(s) can be processed together as a single material, or with different materials in a combinable process. Extrusion is a process that may have benefit for manufacturing a multitude of features fora Hand-1 type training device. The extrusion process benefits from substantially equal thickness regions. String features and base features may appear indistinguishable where no distinct transition is apparent.
Even yet another variant device utilizes thin plastic material with molded as tabs; tabs effectively being string-features.
A device can also have a hand-bridge. A resting spot for a hand-1 palm or partial palm to rest. Some guitar techniques utilize a palm placement on a guitar bridge. A hand-bridge feature would be dimensionally located at a proximate end of a device and provide a surface at or above string-feature height. This hand-bridge feature could be sized to much like a guitar bridge, providing a palm rest on string features.
As described above, a practicing guitar player has ample need fora compact picking/strumming hand and/or finger training device. No devices have been found to meet this need. Other devices all fall short of capabilities described herein the afore described hand-1 picking/strumming device.
Although embodiments of the present invention have been described in some detail by way of illustration and description for purposes of clarity of understanding, it is understood that many changes and modifications may be made within the spirit of the invention.