This is a keyboard, 'alternate' by some definitions

[Michael Johnston]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVbuIZ-5-8o

Can the new controller-only keyboards offer this? I do not understand
the accordion keyboard but I've seen an accordion in person. This
example on Youtube made me think of the demos of the newer keyboards
which always seem to point out how much faster in some areas they are.

If they are compared with the accordion keyboard, which is not much of
new thing, how do they fare? Is such speed plausible on a Janko, for
instance? Or a Thummer? Videos, anyone?

Cheers!
Michael
--
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[Doug Keislar]

Hi Michael,

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accordion#Button_accordions
The guy in the video is playing the "B" type of keyboard depicted there.
It is in fact an isomorphic keyboard (as are the Janko and Thummer) --
same intervallic shapes in all transpositions.

He's playing the Flight of the Bumblebee significantly faster than a
virtuosic piano performance that also came up on YouTube with that URL
you gave.
I suspect that the accordion is in principle a faster instrument than
the piano, because the distance of key travel is so much less.
I'm not sure how much the specific key layout has to do with it, but I
can't imagine an accordionist playing that fast with the standard
piano-style keyboard, even on the accordion. Anyway, isomorphic designs
are definitely "faster" in terms of learning time.

Regardless of speed, the accordion is definitely a better instrument
than the piano for conveying the sound of a bumblebee!

Doug

[Paul Vandervoort]

Michael-

I concur with Doug's comments below.

It's worth mentioning also that this kind of key arrangement works
better on an accordion than on a piano-oriented keyboard because one can
twist the wrist better when playing an accordion. You'll notice on the
video that Mr. Korsakov turns his hand quite a bit in the course of
playing the piece.

Paul V.

[Ken GM Rushton]

Alas, I don't have much time right now, but high on my "to do" list is to write up a keyboard comparison chart, for this group to suppliment and improve.

 

I thought he was using the simular "C-system", but no matter. If you first look at this little explanation of how the Janko and Wicki/Hayden system are related:

 

http://musicscienceguy.vox.com/library/post/building-a-better-keyboard-easier-to-play.html 

Then ask yourself "what would happen if I moved the top row in the 2-row Janko layout left one key", then you'd have the C-system. (on his accordian it's also rotated a bit onto the keys diagonally to be more ergonomic).  It has some advantages, I assume, over the Janko. I think it would be a fair bit faster. 

 

I think the W/H can be faster then the C-system for most pieces, and one also has the advantage that most chords need less fingers. But! we really need to experiment, not speculate.

 

Now, for the C-thru system, just take the W/H system and pull out the major seconds and put them on two rows of their own, below the root line row. It would be faster yet, but some chords would be harder to play.

Cheers, Ken.

[Andrew Wagner]

Your turn Paul! No pressure! ;)

On May 29, 2008, at 6:09 PM, Paul Vandervoort wrote:
>> He's playing the Flight of the Bumblebee significantly faster than a
>> virtuosic piano performance that also came up on YouTube with that
>> URL
>> you gave.
>> I suspect that the accordion is in principle a faster instrument than
>> the piano, because the distance of key travel is so much less.

...

[Dan Lindgren]

You can see that it is a B-system CBA if you look at how the
streaks of white buttons are slanted.

Besides key depression depth, accordion keys/buttons have
less inertia than regular piano keys. Piano accordion keys are
also less wide than on the piano; thus making jumps shorter.

Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee" on the piano
accordion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoPKL3FrvKA

How about this keyboard then:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgdBRxsuZQ0

:-)

Dan

[Doug Keislar]

Dan Lindgren wrote:
> [...] Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee" on the piano
> accordion:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoPKL3FrvKA
>
>
I stand corrected! That guy on the piano accordion is playing faster
than the button accordionist that Michael found.

> How about this keyboard then:
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgdBRxsuZQ0

It's just a piano-style keyboard with the white keys colored black, right?

Doug

[Paul Vandervoort]

Ah- The subject of how to design a keyboard so it can be played at a
fast tempo. I love this topic.

Dan Lindgren wrote:
> Besides key depression depth, accordion keys/buttons have
> less inertia than regular piano keys.

Yes. And they also have less touch resistance at any rate of
depression. And, as Doug pointed out, the distance of key travel is
less on an accordion than on a piano.

As you know from high school physics, energy is force X distance. The
amount of energy required to press a key is therefore proportional to
both the key dip, the touch resistance, and the amount of acceleration
(loudness) desired. The more energy required to press keys, the harder
they will be to play fast. So as far as these aspects are concerned, an
accordion can be played faster than a piano, all other things being equal.

Nevertheless, many musicians prefer a "weighted action" on an electronic
keyboard. Many also prefer a longer key dip (than an accordion). There
are, in fact several practical advantages of these features. A heavier
touch and a deeper key dip makes it less likely that the musician will
accidentally depress a key. Also, a heavier touch makes it easier for
the musician to feel the keys without depressing them (for
orientation). A more in-depth discussion of this principle can be found
in my Swing-Arm-Key-Action patent:
http://www.google.com/patents?id=RBkiAAAAEBAJ
I will summarize the conclusion: One way to approximate the "best of
both worlds" is to engineer the key action to have a decreasing key
resistance. That way, you can feel the keys without depressing them,
but the energy required to press the key through its full travel is
relatively small.

Getting back to the issue of fast playing, I feel compelled to mention
(at the risk of repeating myself ad nausem), that margin-for-error is
another important principle here. The larger the target, the easier it
is to hit. Janko keys provide more margin-for-error than button
accordion keys. Therefore, in this regard, with the same amount of
practice time applied, a case can be made that a Janko keyboard could be
played faster than a button accordion, all other things being equal
(which, as discussed above, they generally are not).

As many have pointed out, different keyboard players prefer different
key actions. You can't please all the people all the time. Even if you
could scientifically "prove" that a particular keyboard has optimal
action, there would be some who would find it unsatisfying.

Paul V.

[Paul W. Morris]

On May 30, 2008, at 6:44 PM, Paul Vandervoort wrote:

> A heavier touch and a deeper key dip makes it less likely that the
> musician will accidentally depress a key. Also, a heavier touch
> makes it easier for the musician to feel the keys without
> depressing them (for orientation).
>

> margin-for-error is another important principle here. The larger
> the target, the easier it is to hit. Janko keys provide more
> margin-for-error than button accordion keys.

This makes a lot of sense to me. I feel like the bodily kinesthetic
act of playing an instrument is a large part of what makes it
enjoyable. If it were just a matter of the sound produced, you can
easily just press play on the stereo. These days the process/means
are at least as important as the product/end. Getting your whole
lungs into it on a wind instrument, say. So I see the appeal of
instruments that are a bit more forgiving and allow for a freer range
of movement by requiring less physical meticulousness. (So, the
guitar rather than the mandolin, at least for my size fingers!) But
as you say different instruments appeal to different people!

It's good to see these button-field accordions in action, very cool!

Paul M.

[Jim Allan]

I would much prefer a full-size Janko keyboard (with MIDI out) so that
I can play existing classical/jazz keyboard music. I'm sure it only
failed to take off for commercial reasons (i.e. the weight and size of
pianos).

Janko's design got the endorsement of Franz Liszt and Artur Rubenstein
-that's good enough for me!

Regards,

Jim

[Dan Lindgren]

Yes, Doug, you are right! It was a trick question. It's the old
familiar piano accordion in disguise!

Dan