My website on the symmetrical keyboard

[dominique.waller]

Hi all,

 

Maybe you’d be interested to know that my website www.le-nouveau-clavier.fr has now received more than 5 000 visits so far.

Not bad for such a confidential subject as the symmetrical (or bilinear) piano layout and if you remember that it was created only a year and a half ago.

At this rate, it’ll have reached 10 000 next year and even meet its goal eventually! Thanks again to Doug Keislar for helping me on the English translation (Doug I need your email adress)

Cheers ! Dominique

 

 

Garanti sans virus. www.avast.com

[dominique.waller]

Sorry for the incomplete link; it’s www.le-nouveau-clavier.fr ; it includes an English section. Dominique

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[Joseph Austin]

Dominique,

Thanks for the reminder.  I finally got around to reading your website.

I'm almost ready to try the new keyboard.  So where can i get one?

In your article, you mention a beginner method you used with the keyboard.

Would you care to disclose which method you used?

Joe Austin

[dominique.waller]

Hi Joe,

 

This keyboard is not manufactured yet. So everyone tries and do some twinkling to convert an existing keyboard. You can visualize the result in the photo gallery on my website.

The only person I know that sells sets of white keys for that purpose is Joseph Summers, see http://www.ebay.com/itm/262513426612  He lives in Florida. But you’ll have to buy a Behringer UMX610 (midi controler) first and  do the conversion yourself (unless you convince him to do it for you?). He explains how to proceed on YouTube (type https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSWohfQUj-Q)

 

> In your article, you mention a beginner method you used with the keyboard. Would you care to disclose which method you used?

 

I think you allude to a passage where I explain that the new keyboard is so simple (compared to a Janko precisely) that it doesn’t need a particular method. I was meaning that a usual method in TN can do the job, so to say, with the same fingerings or so. And to illustrate that, I mention that I’ve tried “La Méthode Rose” on my symmetrical keyboard, which is an old fashionned begginer’s piano method for children, in French translated as “Music in the Pink”. But I would’nt recommand it to everybody. It’s a very conservative approach, with no jazz in it, but which has some merits; but more exciting methods have been invented since, I guess.

Cheers, Dominique

[dominique.waller]

P.S. Many thanks to Luigi Usai and Paul Hirsh who graciously offered to power/propel my website last year so as to give it a better visibility on the net.

That was a nice example of friendly cooperation for a common cause. Cheers! Dominique

 

 

From: dominique.waller

Sent: Tuesday, October 10, 2017 12:59 PM

To: diyke...@googlegroups.com

[Joseph Austin]

Dominique,

Thanks for the info.  I was aware of the Behringer conversion, and considered it for a time, but I had tired so may "failed experiments" with other alternative keyboard solutions that i'm running out of space and money and patience.  I now own a piano, an organ, a couple Chromatones and Axis 49s, a Janko Glockenspiel, and various Arduino and Midi boards and relevant software.

Now I'm looking for something that is portable and comes with a manufacturer or dealer warranty.  Maybe a configurable button accordion??

As for methods, I started "converting" a method by G. Molineux, "The Junior Illustrated Piano Method", which I chose because it was Public Domain.

I had discovered that most beginner methods are primarily oriented to identifying and finding notes on the keyboard and staff.  And most "beginner" pieces and exercises depend on the C-scale being all white keys, that is, thumb-playable, contiguous, at the same level, with the whole- and half-steps in the right place! 

So I found very little that could carry over from a traditional method to an alternative keyboard and notation.  And if you want to throw in a 12-step nomenclature to replace A B C D E F G, you are really starting from scratch.

My present state of mind is that:

* A human being can learn just about any instrument configuration, notation, and musical style.

* While a consistent instrument design and notation may eliminate some frustrations, 

to actually learn to play music on an instrument (including voice) requires dedicated effort.

* To be successful, at some point a musician must acquire an understanding of the actual music, 

including the higher-order structures of melody, harmony, rhythm, and form,

but these tend to get overlooked in beginning lessons due to the overwhelming complexity of instrument and notation design.

* Traditional notation and typical paper-saving print layouts do more to obscure than to expose the higher-order "poetic" structure of music.

Joe