<story><title>Pianists for Alternatively Sized Keyboards</title><url>http://paskpiano.org/about/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>thomastjeffery</author><text>&amp;gt; How do you look at that and figure out where C is?&lt;p&gt;The same way you know which C is &amp;quot;middle C&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, color the keys differently.&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, shape the keys differently, or add a distinguishing part to some, like the nubs most computer keyboards put on f and j keys.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; We need some patterns in order for our brains to be oriented to the instrument.&lt;p&gt;Yes, but they don&amp;#x27;t need to be messy ones. Consider a guitar: excluding the two thinnest strings, each string is tuned exactly 5 semitones up from the last. Each fret is one half-step up. Guitar players don&amp;#x27;t get lost!&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; You seem to think that making the keyboard more symmetrical, or more uniform, or different somehow, makes it easier to learn.&lt;p&gt;Yes, and for good reason. It means the student can skip learning 11&amp;#x2F;12ths of the required muscle memory. That&amp;#x27;s a very significant, and very measurable gain.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; The field of music and music instrument technology is alive and well and waiting for your invention.&lt;p&gt;That remains to be seen. In fact, the very article we are discussing shows how difficult it is to make the world-changing introduction of &lt;i&gt;a piano with slightly smaller keys&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Also, altered dominants and the various minor modes, in addition to the major scale modes I mentioned. Yes that adds up to probably 300 or 400 scales. Which takes a lot of work, regardless of whether you have a standard keyboard or a WWWWWWWWWWWW keyboard.&lt;p&gt;And then you multiply that 400 by &lt;i&gt;twelve&lt;/i&gt;, and you learn just how much muscle memory is required to play the piano.&lt;p&gt;Since you seem to think this is such an impossible task, note that it has already been accomplished: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=cK4REjqGc9w&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=cK4REjqGc9w&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;The only way Janko&amp;#x27;s keyboard is not fundamentally superior is that it isn&amp;#x27;t widely available.</text></item><item><author>sporkologist</author><text>&amp;gt; Everything is made more arbitrarily complicated when it&amp;#x27;s represented by its departure from the Ionian mode. It would be much more efficient to use the chromatic scale as a base instead.&lt;p&gt;Your approach is simply not feasible. Let me demonstrate.&lt;p&gt;Here are some options:&lt;p&gt;The newly chromatic keyboard is all white&amp;#x2F;black&amp;#x2F;white&amp;#x2F;black alternated keys, WBWBWBWBWBWB for one octave.&lt;p&gt;How do you look at that and figure out where C is?&lt;p&gt;Likewise, a new keyboard can be all white keys. WWWWWWWWWWWW&lt;p&gt;How do you know where anything is?&lt;p&gt;We need &lt;i&gt;some&lt;/i&gt; patterns in order for our brains to be oriented to the instrument. The pattern of WBWBWWBWBWBW (standard 12-note sequence on keyboards), is a well-understood one that makes it practical for keyboardists to make music.&lt;p&gt;If there exists a 3rd option which makes orientability and fast muscle memory easier than it is, it needs to be innovated.&lt;p&gt;You seem to think that making the keyboard more symmetrical, or more uniform, or different somehow, makes it easier to learn. It doesn&amp;#x27;t work that way. However if you in fact have an improvement not obvious to those in the industry, many players would be thankful for your work. The field of music and music instrument technology is alive and well and waiting for your invention.&lt;p&gt;Now to address your mode concept..... Your presumption that everything is just Ionian mode transposed is absolutely incorrect. Each different mode (Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian and Locrian (those are all modes of &lt;i&gt;just&lt;/i&gt; the major scale)) has its own identity.  I&amp;#x27;m surprised that you as a musician are unaware&amp;#x2F;blind to this, or consider it &amp;quot;needless complexity imposed by the vain professional musician community&amp;quot;. Also, altered dominants and the various minor modes, in addition to the major scale modes I mentioned. Yes that adds up to probably 300 or 400 scales. Which takes a lot of work, regardless of whether you have a standard keyboard or a WWWWWWWWWWWW keyboard.</text></item><item><author>thomastjeffery</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m coming from a place where I &lt;i&gt;do&lt;/i&gt; know the jargon. That doesn&amp;#x27;t mean I have to like it.&lt;p&gt;There is obvious room for improvement. The syntax is not nearly as efficient as it could be.&lt;p&gt;Everything is made more arbitrarily complicated when it&amp;#x27;s represented by its departure from the Ionian mode. It would be much more efficient to use the chromatic scale as a base instead.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; It&amp;#x27;s complex, because simple music is for children.&lt;p&gt;Oh, I&amp;#x27;m a child now? I&amp;#x27;m talking about &amp;quot;simple&amp;quot; music? Get of your high horse. I wish I could say that your attitude was rare in music. Unfortunately, it represents the majority in professional circles.&lt;p&gt;The &lt;i&gt;status quo&lt;/i&gt; is protected by this vain professionalism at a heavy cost.</text></item><item><author>sporkologist</author><text>&amp;gt; The same goes for notation and theory verbiage. It&amp;#x27;s like we&amp;#x27;re stuck in a codebase that was started centuries ago, and everyone is too afraid to commit a bugfix, let alone a major refactor.&lt;p&gt;There is no simple way of saying Gbmin7&amp;#x2F;B. It&amp;#x27;s just complex. It takes years of learning. The syntax is as efficient as it can be, it&amp;#x27;s not like millions of musicians aren&amp;#x27;t thinking about this stuff. It&amp;#x27;s complex, because simple music is for children. Music has its jargon, as does medicine, geology, or programming, and you should stop thinking about it like it&amp;#x27;s a secret language meant to keep you pesky programmers out of it.</text></item><item><author>thomastjeffery</author><text>Where are the pianists for nonstandard keyboards?&lt;p&gt;The traditional layout is terrible for so many more reasons than size. In order to become a proficient pianist, you must learn (create muscle memory for) every scale and chord 11 unnecessary times. 1 pattern for C, 1 for C#&amp;#x2F;Db, one for D, and so on.&lt;p&gt;If we dropped the &amp;quot;white keys are for C Ionian and black keys are for &amp;#x27;accidentals&amp;#x27;&amp;quot; layout for a chromatic one, a pianist would only need to learn every scale and chord once, and playing in a different key would involve nothing more than moving their hands.&lt;p&gt;The same goes for notation and theory verbiage. It&amp;#x27;s like we&amp;#x27;re stuck in a codebase that was started centuries ago, and everyone is too afraid to commit a bugfix, let alone a major refactor.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sporkologist</author><text>&amp;gt; Guitar players don&amp;#x27;t get lost!&lt;p&gt;What an extraordinary claim.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Yes, and for good reason. It means the student can skip learning 11&amp;#x2F;12ths of the required muscle memory. That&amp;#x27;s a very significant, and very measurable gain.&lt;p&gt;That seems to make sense. Unfortunately you can&amp;#x27;t provide any proof or evidence. I could claim that my one-key keyboard with 88 transposition buttons was superior, but I don&amp;#x27;t, because it&amp;#x27;s not.</text></comment>
<story><title>Pianists for Alternatively Sized Keyboards</title><url>http://paskpiano.org/about/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>thomastjeffery</author><text>&amp;gt; How do you look at that and figure out where C is?&lt;p&gt;The same way you know which C is &amp;quot;middle C&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, color the keys differently.&lt;p&gt;Alternatively, shape the keys differently, or add a distinguishing part to some, like the nubs most computer keyboards put on f and j keys.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; We need some patterns in order for our brains to be oriented to the instrument.&lt;p&gt;Yes, but they don&amp;#x27;t need to be messy ones. Consider a guitar: excluding the two thinnest strings, each string is tuned exactly 5 semitones up from the last. Each fret is one half-step up. Guitar players don&amp;#x27;t get lost!&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; You seem to think that making the keyboard more symmetrical, or more uniform, or different somehow, makes it easier to learn.&lt;p&gt;Yes, and for good reason. It means the student can skip learning 11&amp;#x2F;12ths of the required muscle memory. That&amp;#x27;s a very significant, and very measurable gain.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; The field of music and music instrument technology is alive and well and waiting for your invention.&lt;p&gt;That remains to be seen. In fact, the very article we are discussing shows how difficult it is to make the world-changing introduction of &lt;i&gt;a piano with slightly smaller keys&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Also, altered dominants and the various minor modes, in addition to the major scale modes I mentioned. Yes that adds up to probably 300 or 400 scales. Which takes a lot of work, regardless of whether you have a standard keyboard or a WWWWWWWWWWWW keyboard.&lt;p&gt;And then you multiply that 400 by &lt;i&gt;twelve&lt;/i&gt;, and you learn just how much muscle memory is required to play the piano.&lt;p&gt;Since you seem to think this is such an impossible task, note that it has already been accomplished: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=cK4REjqGc9w&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=cK4REjqGc9w&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;The only way Janko&amp;#x27;s keyboard is not fundamentally superior is that it isn&amp;#x27;t widely available.</text></item><item><author>sporkologist</author><text>&amp;gt; Everything is made more arbitrarily complicated when it&amp;#x27;s represented by its departure from the Ionian mode. It would be much more efficient to use the chromatic scale as a base instead.&lt;p&gt;Your approach is simply not feasible. Let me demonstrate.&lt;p&gt;Here are some options:&lt;p&gt;The newly chromatic keyboard is all white&amp;#x2F;black&amp;#x2F;white&amp;#x2F;black alternated keys, WBWBWBWBWBWB for one octave.&lt;p&gt;How do you look at that and figure out where C is?&lt;p&gt;Likewise, a new keyboard can be all white keys. WWWWWWWWWWWW&lt;p&gt;How do you know where anything is?&lt;p&gt;We need &lt;i&gt;some&lt;/i&gt; patterns in order for our brains to be oriented to the instrument. The pattern of WBWBWWBWBWBW (standard 12-note sequence on keyboards), is a well-understood one that makes it practical for keyboardists to make music.&lt;p&gt;If there exists a 3rd option which makes orientability and fast muscle memory easier than it is, it needs to be innovated.&lt;p&gt;You seem to think that making the keyboard more symmetrical, or more uniform, or different somehow, makes it easier to learn. It doesn&amp;#x27;t work that way. However if you in fact have an improvement not obvious to those in the industry, many players would be thankful for your work. The field of music and music instrument technology is alive and well and waiting for your invention.&lt;p&gt;Now to address your mode concept..... Your presumption that everything is just Ionian mode transposed is absolutely incorrect. Each different mode (Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian and Locrian (those are all modes of &lt;i&gt;just&lt;/i&gt; the major scale)) has its own identity.  I&amp;#x27;m surprised that you as a musician are unaware&amp;#x2F;blind to this, or consider it &amp;quot;needless complexity imposed by the vain professional musician community&amp;quot;. Also, altered dominants and the various minor modes, in addition to the major scale modes I mentioned. Yes that adds up to probably 300 or 400 scales. Which takes a lot of work, regardless of whether you have a standard keyboard or a WWWWWWWWWWWW keyboard.</text></item><item><author>thomastjeffery</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m coming from a place where I &lt;i&gt;do&lt;/i&gt; know the jargon. That doesn&amp;#x27;t mean I have to like it.&lt;p&gt;There is obvious room for improvement. The syntax is not nearly as efficient as it could be.&lt;p&gt;Everything is made more arbitrarily complicated when it&amp;#x27;s represented by its departure from the Ionian mode. It would be much more efficient to use the chromatic scale as a base instead.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; It&amp;#x27;s complex, because simple music is for children.&lt;p&gt;Oh, I&amp;#x27;m a child now? I&amp;#x27;m talking about &amp;quot;simple&amp;quot; music? Get of your high horse. I wish I could say that your attitude was rare in music. Unfortunately, it represents the majority in professional circles.&lt;p&gt;The &lt;i&gt;status quo&lt;/i&gt; is protected by this vain professionalism at a heavy cost.</text></item><item><author>sporkologist</author><text>&amp;gt; The same goes for notation and theory verbiage. It&amp;#x27;s like we&amp;#x27;re stuck in a codebase that was started centuries ago, and everyone is too afraid to commit a bugfix, let alone a major refactor.&lt;p&gt;There is no simple way of saying Gbmin7&amp;#x2F;B. It&amp;#x27;s just complex. It takes years of learning. The syntax is as efficient as it can be, it&amp;#x27;s not like millions of musicians aren&amp;#x27;t thinking about this stuff. It&amp;#x27;s complex, because simple music is for children. Music has its jargon, as does medicine, geology, or programming, and you should stop thinking about it like it&amp;#x27;s a secret language meant to keep you pesky programmers out of it.</text></item><item><author>thomastjeffery</author><text>Where are the pianists for nonstandard keyboards?&lt;p&gt;The traditional layout is terrible for so many more reasons than size. In order to become a proficient pianist, you must learn (create muscle memory for) every scale and chord 11 unnecessary times. 1 pattern for C, 1 for C#&amp;#x2F;Db, one for D, and so on.&lt;p&gt;If we dropped the &amp;quot;white keys are for C Ionian and black keys are for &amp;#x27;accidentals&amp;#x27;&amp;quot; layout for a chromatic one, a pianist would only need to learn every scale and chord once, and playing in a different key would involve nothing more than moving their hands.&lt;p&gt;The same goes for notation and theory verbiage. It&amp;#x27;s like we&amp;#x27;re stuck in a codebase that was started centuries ago, and everyone is too afraid to commit a bugfix, let alone a major refactor.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sporkologist</author><text>&amp;gt; messy&lt;p&gt;God forbid that complex things are messy. They are, until you learn the system and can have mastery over it. You only have 1&amp;#x2F;12th the work to do as us normal musicians, so it should be much easier for you.</text></comment>