Yamaha Corporation

Hirotsugu Suzuki

Ken Takahashi

Ichiro Osuga

Shunsuke Ichiki

Mitsuru Kitajima

Kento Ogawa

A keyboard apparatus includes a first key assembly, a second key assembly, and a third key assembly. The first key assembly includes a first key being slidably in contact with a first member at a first position and a second member at a second position. A first minimum distance between the first key assembly and the second key assembly at the rear ends thereof is larger than a second minimum distance between the first key assembly and the second key assembly at the second position within a range of rotation of the first key assembly. A third minimum distance between the first key assembly and the third key assembly at the rear ends thereof being larger than a fourth minimum distance between the first key assembly and the third key assembly at the second position within the range of rotation of the first key assembly.

Keyboard apparatus

A keyboard apparatus includes: a key; a frame; and a connecting portion configured to connect the key and the frame to each other. The connecting portion includes a flexible member having a rod shape and having flexibility that enables the key to pivot with respect to the frame. The flexible member includes a portion that, in entirety of a range of pivotal movement of the key, maintains a state in which a length of a line extending along a neutral axis of the flexible member between two points located on the neutral axis is greater than a length of a straight line connecting the two points to each other.

In a keyboard device, a frame function part is provided integrally in a frame to engage with a component of the keyboard device excluding the frame. Integrated continuous parts are formed at the frame and extend continuously over a key zone including a plurality of keys. The integrated continuous part receives external force directly or via the frame function part or allows a component constructed separately from the frame to mount on the integrated continuous part. A connection rib is formed in the frame such that the connection rib extends in a direction intersecting a direction along which the keys are arranged side-by-side. The integrated continuous parts are formed at positions deviated with respect to each other, when viewed from a side of the frame. The integrated continuous parts are connected to each other only by the connection rib.

Keyboard device

A keyboard apparatus having hammers each adapted for contact at its mass-unconcentrated half with a lower surface of an initial stopper that restricts initial pivot positions of the hammers, thereby reducing a contact force with which each hammer contacts the initial stopper, whereby the required thickness of the initial stopper can be reduced and height positions of key-depression surfaces of the keys in a non-key-depression state can be made uniform with ease. In the non-key-depression state, the hammers are in contact with the lower surface of the initial stopper mounted to a stopper mounting portion of the frame, whereby initial pivot positions of the hammers in a key-depression forward stroke are restricted and key-depression initial positions of respective keys are indirectly restricted, so that the height positions of key-depression surfaces of the keys are made uniform.

A plurality of keys are supported at a key support parts such that the respective keys are pivoted by a key-pressing operation of a player in a vertical direction, the keys being arranged in parallel to each other along a width direction of the keyboard device. A plurality of hammers are arranged in parallel to each other along the width direction such that the hammers correspond to the respective keys. The hammers are operatively connected to the corresponding keys to rotate about the respective hammer support parts, the hammers applying inertia to pivoting movements of the corresponding keys. A frame has an opening portion open at a front area which faces the player, and located more frontward than the hammer support parts, and the frame is constructed such that the hammer support parts are located between an upper limit position and a lower limit position of the opening portion in the vertical direction, and the hammers can be inserted into the frame through the opening portion from the front area when the hammers are mounted to the respective hammer support parts.

Growing community of inventors

Hamamatsu, Japan

Hirotsugu Suzuki