User:MusicScienceGuy/Peter Davies (inventor)

Peter Max Crofts Davies, a skilled luthier, is the inventor of several musical inventions, notably the Note Tracker, a slide rule for determining the musical notes in a given chord, and the sonome, all based on the melodic table concept. The sonome combines several musical innovations in a novel way and is perhaps most notable for being designed in accordance with modern music theory, ergonomics and psycho-acoustics.

In addition, he has worked with major artists including 10cc, Joan Armatrading, Deacon Blue, Aztec Camera, Paul Rodgers and Queen, for whom he created ¾ scale replicas of Brian May’s self built guitar and John Deacon’s Fender Bass for the 1989 Video ‘The Miracle’. He has worked with artist Monika Danneman, fiancee of Jimi Hendrix and guardian of Hendrix’ favourite black Fender Stratocaster, ‘Black Beauty’, regarding its care. Davis also contributed to the biography ‘The Inner World of Jimi Hendrix’.

Davies plays guitar in a 5 piece blues-rock band and runs a workshop where he continues his trade as a guitar repairer, but now rarely builds guitars so as to devote more time to building custom sonomes.

Inventions
Davies originally produced the note layout in 1983 [ref] from analysis of the interval arrangement of the guitar fingerboard, and called it the ‘Melodic Table’, now referred to as ‘Harmonic Table’ His invention of musical instruments and other devices followed.

Mr. Davies originally applied for international patents under his own name in 1990 while building the first prototype sonome keyboard the same year. In 1992 he shared his patent, assigning it to Notepool Ltd., the company that currently holds the patents. Two kinds of sonome are being produced each by C-Thru Music and Davies's own company, The Shape of Music.

Peter’s sonome is listed on ‘Tiem’, Taxonomy of Realtime Interfaces for Electronic Music Performance, Compiled by Jon Drummond and Garth Paine.

It is in use for ongoing research into microtonal scales by music researchers and composers, in particular Carlo Serafini, Elaine Walker and Dr. Richard Boulanger.

Peter works with electronics engineer Jim Wills, who designs software, electronics, mechanical solutions and menu system expertise.