The invention relates to the teaching of music, and specifically, though not exclusively, to a music notation teaching device which can be used to provide physical representation of

! I 5 musical concepts and to assist music students in the understanding of principles and basic concepts of musical notation and relative time

-values associated therewith. It will be convenient hereinafter to describe the invention with particular reference to "note" and "rest" notation and symbols.

10 A number of problems have been encountered with respect to motivating and teaching students the concepts of music, in particular musical notation. At present, music concepts are often taught in an abstract, intellectual way using only written demonstration and examples. When learning musical notation

15 students must gain an appreciation of a number of crucial concepts.

One example is the concept that a note may have different values or relative values in different time signatures; another is the concept of length or duration of sound/silence representing various note/rest symbols, and the differing relationships therebetween according to

20 tempo. If basic concepts such as these are not understood by students at the preliminary stage, more difficult concepts are then not fully comprehended. Many music students find particular difficulty in grasping concepts of musical notation, and tend to become bored or to lose interest if these difficulties are not resolved

25 at an early stage.

It is a principal object of the present invention to provide a music teaching device in the form of tactile elements or models to assist students in understanding the concepts of musical notation. A further object is to enable a music teacher or tutor to 30 explain abstract concepts in a more tangible way.

These and other objects and advantages will become

apparent hereinafter.

The present invention in one aspect provides a music teaching device for demonstrating temporal relationships between notes, rests and time-signatures, including a plurality of elements of a first kind adapted variously to register or to be brought into correspondence with a plurality of elements of a second kind, said first elements being marked with one or more notes and/or one or more rests, said second elements being marked with a time signature, said first elements being of length proportional to the time occupied by the aggregate of notes/rests represented by the markings thereon.

The notes/rests/time signatures may be represented on staves.

The notes may include the semibreve or "whole note"; iriinim or "half note"; crotchet or "quarter note"; quaver or "eighth note"; or semiquaver or "sixteenth note", and the corresponding

"rests". Quavers, semiquavers etc. may be "grouped" in any conventional manner.

In a preferred embodiment the first elements are elongated prismatic or rectangular blocks of the same cross section but of variable length depending on the aggregate time-value of the note(s) and/or rest(s) shown thereon, and the second elements are receptacles defining elongated rectangular slots of the same or very slightly larger cross-section, to receive the blocks. For convenience and brevity, therefore, the "first" elements (i.e. elements of the first kind) are sometimes generically referred to hereinafter as "blocks", and the second elements as "slots".

A quaver or eighth note/rest may be taken as a basic unit or modular length, which is denoted by L. In consequence, for example:

(a) the length of a "crotchet" or "quarter note" block is 2L;

(b) the length of a "minim" or "half note" block is 4L; and

(c) the length of a "semibreve" or "whole note" block is 8L. The blocks may be of wood or plastics e.g. acrylic material.

Their respective lengths provide a physical visual and tactile representation of the duration of sound and/or rests corresponding to symbols shown thereon.

The second elements may be formed on cards or the like, each providing one or more slots.

Each slot may be marked with a stave, if desired, and with a time signature e.g. 2/4, 3/8, 6/8 etc. shown on the left or beginning of the slot, with numbers or other symbols shown at regular intervals along an upper edge of the slot to indicate beats, or groups of beats with the quaver as unit. Thus, for example, a slot marked with the time signature "2/4" (i.e. two quarter-notes or two "crotchets") is equivalent to 4 eighth-notes ("quavers") i.e. 4 units or modules.

Therefore it will be of length 4 L using the system described above, and will be adapted to receive or register with e.g. one "minim" block, two "crotchet" blocks or four "quaver" blocks. The 2/4 slot may be marked with four quaver beats in two groups of two e.g. as "1 + 2 +".

The time signature, and indeed any other markings associated with the slot, may be in any desired location vis-a-vis the slot e.g. within and/or above it. Sub-divisional markings could be shown only inside the slot, and the beat numbers could be shown only outside.

In general a time signature can be represented as S/T where S may be any number, very often a multiple of 2 and/or 3, such as 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 12 ... and T is generally a power of 2. It will be seen with this symbology that a slot identified with the time-signature S/T will be of length 8LS/T where L is the unit length referred to above.

For example a 2/2 ("allabreve time" - sometimes denoted by " £") will be of length 8L x 2/2 = 8L and will fit e.g. 2 minim notes/rests (each 4L) or one semibreve note/rest (8L).

Certain blocks may denote special rhythmic groupings of a kind well-known in music notation e.g. the triplet (three notes played in the time of two). Thus a block marked e.g.

would be of length 2L not 3L, and a block representing the

"septolet" (seven notes in the time of four or six) e.g. J J

7 (ostensibly seven sixteenth-notes or semiquavers) would not be of length 3% L but rather 3L or 2L depending as to whether the septolet was intended to be performed in the time of 6 or 4 respectively.

As a further refinement, the elements may be colour-coded or otherwise, such as to prevent their being assembled so as to represent an unallowable sequence or grouping of notes/rests. For example a compound time such as S = 6 must be two groups of three, not three groups of two. Therefore if S = 6 and T = 8, giving a time signature 6/8, a slot so marked could be coded or otherwise adapted to prevent reception of a block showing the group J J but to admit e.g. J ≠ J ■> This is an example of a commonly accepted principle that notes/rests must be grouped, combined or otherwise represented according to the natural divisions or beats indicated by the time signature. Also in 6/8 ("compound duple") time, one cannot normally have J≠ •»* »+ because the second group of quavers bridges the natural (half-point) division of the bar. However

+** "** is clearly a permissible grouping in 6/8 time. The

grouping *■» *<* *<* is proper to 3/4 and although of the same duration ("6L") as 6/8, is of a different pulse. If desired, the elements of the invention can be adapted to reflect these principles, possibly with elements of a third kind representing groups or grouping.

In order that the invention may be better understood there shall now be described by way of non-limitative example only a practical embodiment of a musical teaching device with reference to the accompanying illustrative drawings, in which: Figure 1 is a front view of slots showing time signatures 2/4 and 6/8 in registration with corresponding blocks;

Figure 2 is a front view of slots of Figure 1 without blocks;

Figure 3 shows the same slots with other blocks;

Figure 4 shows triple-time slots, the upper being 3 minims per bar (=12L) and how it corresponds in duration to four 3/8

(aggregate = 12L) slots;

Figure 5 shows firstly a compound triple (9/8) time slot, and two simple septuple (7/8) slots;

Figure 6 shows two "allabreve" (in this case 2/2) time slots and one 12/8 time slot consisting of four groups of three;

Figure 7 shows two 4/4 and two 3/4 time slots; and

Figure 8 shows examples of eleven "time signature cards" each having only one time signature slot.

The slots may be formed as recesses in a piece of whiteboard laminated cardboard with a whiteboard backing for the bases of the slots. Along the base of each slot may be drawn five equally-spaced lines representing a musical stave. The blocks may be similarly marked if desired, or may be transparent so that a stave drawn on the base of a slot may be visible even when the slot is completely occupied by blocks.

The slots of Fig. 1 are provided in cards measuring 305 mm

by 225 mm, each card having slots for two different time signatures. However in Fig. 8 the cards are (e.g. whiteboard laminated carboard) 305 mm by 55 mm, each having only one slot.

For convenience of handling and/or teaching and/or demonstration purposes the blocks and/or cards (slots) may be magnetic. Clearly, for classroom teaching or demonstration purposes, larger blocks and slots may be desirable.

However, it will be clear that when the invention is used for teaching note (and rest) values, rather than being concerned with the actual pitch of notes, a stave and clef are generally unnecessary.

It will be evident from the foregoing that the invention provides a simple, tactile teaching aid whereby abstruse concepts can be easily grasped, learned and understood. The device not only provides a means of physically representing the relationship between a note/rest value and bar length but it also provides an illustration of the length of a sound or silence represented by the various note/rest symbols. Additionally the device provides a demonstration of the value of each type of note/rest symbol measured in beats (the unit of measurement of note/rest length) in various time signatures.

The device of the present invention may lend itself for use as a game whereby a student can create a rhythmic pattern, and as such is conducive to increase student motivation and consequently the student's understanding of the concepts. In this regard, it is clearly within the scope of the invention, to provide unmarked slots of lengths in other multiples of L e.g. 5, 7, 11 etc. Thus the student might, for example, experiment with a "compound septuple time" represented by the time signature 21/8 or a simple heptuple time 5/2 etc.

As can be understood from the foregoing description, the

musical teaching device of the present invention is very easily manufactured and provides a means by which students can readily understand the often abstract principles of musical notation.

Whilst there has been described in the foregoing description a preferred embodiment of the musical teaching device incorporating the principal features of the present invention, it will be understood by those skilled in the technical field concerned that many variations or modifications in details of design or construction may be made without departing from the ambit of the present invention. One such modification is a braille musical teaching device wherein the note/rests appearing on the first elements (preferably blocks); the series of numbers positioned above each bar and the time signature are in braille form.

Another such modification is where the smallest value note/rest is the semiquaver rather than the quaver (as mentioned above). The first elements would be of a slightly different size to those appearing in the preferred embodiment. Preferably, these elements are slightly larger than those mentioned in the preferred embodiment so as to prevent accidental mixing of the various sets and possible incorrect counting indications.

Although the musical teaching device has been described above and represented in terms of tactile elements or models, one further modification would be the representation of this device graphically via a computer screen. The use of modern computer graphics could provide a suitable means by which students understand and appreciate the intricate concepts of musical notation.