3-row 6:6 symmetrical keyboards

[jigg...@hotmail.com]

 

Hi guys,

Last night I was trying to choose between learning music on a 6:6 keyboard or on a Janko/Lippens/chromatone keyboard. The inability to easily transpose complex chords and scales on the 6:6 was annoying me.

I thought I wanted a Lippens keyboard but comments from Guitarwilly, Fernando Terra, Joe, and Dominique are giving me pause.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/janko-chromatone/kQVh8OVNCOc

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/janko-chromatone/HEuV7RC8bjA

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/diykeyboard/vandervoort$20dominique|sort:relevance/diykeyboard/mO_aMxv7pN8/ojPLRDf_RHAJ

 

I was blu-tacking things onto my keyboard (mainly to rule out the Dodeka) as an option, when I hit upon the design of giving the wide(white) keys an extra row above the thin keys. It seemed pretty playable though it needs slightly longer keys (but then so do Jankos). The worst case scenario seems to be transposing a chord with your middle finger on the bottom row in between two keys up to middle finger on the middle row in between two keys. There’s an up&over or slotting-in movement.

 

It’s such an obvious design that I figured someone must have thought of it before and it looks like Jose Sotorrio of MNP fame did

http://musicnotation.org/system/bilinear-notation-by-jose-a-sotorrio/

though I can’t quite tell whether Sotorrio’s design actually has 3 rows or only 2

 

I found his defunct myspace and his defunct website:

https://myspace.com/sotorriokeyboard/photos

https://web.archive.org/web/20080501000000*/http://www.spectralmusic.com/sotorriokeyboard/bilinearchromatickeyboard.htm

 

 

Is this the best of both worlds? Or does it fall between two stools?

Is a 3 row 6:6 better than a five row Janko?

Are there any members who have played this design?

Are there any proficient pianists in the group who can point out problems and limitations with the design?

Then there’s the deeper question of which instrument is easier to learn vs which is easier to master.

I’ve seen very talented people play very well on janko-style instuments but I’ve not yet seen a virtuoso or a child prodigy shred Rachmaninoff on one. This guy seems to have a fluid playing style though he has modified his Chromatone with a different row of keys at the bottom:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mibeZUQtw-Q

 

 

The crux of the issue is the trading of vertical area on keys in exchange for horizontal area,

the trade-off between the awkwardness of thin keys, the finickiness of striking between keys, and the mindfulness required for flattening out and pointing your fingertips

vs

the awkwardness not being able to strike a key all the way along its surface and the mindfulness required for a visually complicated design.

 

 

There are other advantageous practical considerations that I’m not so interested in like:

-cheaper cost

-ease of modification from a standard piano

-ease of transition from piano

-ease of finding a teacher

-ease modification into a Roli seaboard style instrument

 

 

 

Cheers,

James

[Jigg...@hotmail.com]

I just found Mr Keisler weighing in on the design over on the MNP

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/musicnotation/R55DgHr6WO4

"Some people have designed three-row 6-6 keyboards that have a row of a 
wide front keys, with narrow keys for both the middle and the back row.   
The back row might be physically connected to the front row. This 
three-row approach allows a pattern to be played identically in all 12 
keys, but on the other hand it again introduces the possibility of more 
than two shapes for any intervallic pattern. And it still has the 
ergonomic disadvantage of having to place the finger between narrow 
keys, so I'm doubtful that it's a better approach than Janko.

So overall I tend to believe that Janko is a better approach than using 
two (or three) interleaved rows.  I don't know of anyone who has 
substantial experience playing both designs; such a person would be in a 
better position to judge." 

[Alexandre Oberlin]

On Tue, 02 May 2017 14:47:06 +0200, <jigg...@hotmail.com> wrote:

> finickiness of striking between keys


The space between black keys is a problem for big fingers on 6-6
bilinear keyboards. A curved bilinear (portable?) keyboard might help
since the black keys would lie towards the outer diameter.


--
Ⓐ Alexandre Oberlin
alexandr...@migo.info
http://migo.info/music/

[dominique.waller]

Hi James,

 

I looked in my archives and found out that you had build a symmetrical keyboard with various colours some times ago (photos attached for everyone to see).

Seems you are dissatisfied with the two-row 6/6. Could you tell us more about your experience with this keyboard?

    In fact the three-row has been invented as early as the 17th Century as you can check in my historical section on http://www.le-nouveau-clavier.fr/english/. I’ve no experience  with it, but I suppose one has to learn the two possible shapes of every chord to benefit from it  - like on the two-row. So it’s not sure you’d get the best of both of worlds with it.

    I have an experience with the Chromatone, and I think unless you are already an accomplished pianist, it’s simpler to play on a two-row, despite the necessity of learning two opposite shapes instead of just one. On a Janko, one has many fingerings choice to make, which is very complicated for an amateur player. 

 

Cheers,

 

Dominique

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[Jigg...@hotmail.com]

That's the kind of madcap genius that makes this group so great.

[Jigg...@hotmail.com]

Thanks Dominique,

I'd forgotten about that.

It might have been partly the build quality (the keys sliding around and scraping against each other and the lack of weighting) but I found it in general an awkward instrument to play. I'd had a year of piano lessons as a child and didn't find it so bad but having grown to 6"2 my fingers have lost some of their nimbleness and I found the exactitude required for certain keystrokes to be daunting. To make matters worse I'm getting over some muscular problems in my fingers and I'm probably too busy to learn properly. 

But anyway, I often seemed to be playing the very bottoms of keys: white with thumb and pinky and black with the middle fingers and then black with thumb and pinky and being forced to play in between keys or reach over keys. Or forgetting which fingers to flatten out and which to point. The traditional piano layout does make sense in its accommodation of the short fingers.

Then, when transposing chords, there's swapping between playing on the bottoms of large keys to in between keys or on top of black keys. Because of the keyboard's allomorphism, if my fingers were off-centre, I'd end up striking the side of a black key by accident. 

I also ran the numbers on possible chords and scales and I was a bit shocked by the massive amount. 4 fingerings for all these chords! ...and even more fingerings when you consider all the different spaces where you play on the keys ... I started rethinking everything I was doing. Likewise there was the same problem with the Twinline notation I was using. Initially I thought triangles and ovals would be a boon because they seem to aid sightreading and pair up nicely with the 6:6 symmetrical but they also destroy pattern recognition and then multiple patterns for a single chord also means multiple memorizations. I'm going to switch over to an isomorphic notation like Clairnote but maybe with red and black coloured noteheads instead of white/empty and black.

Likewise I'm ditching the 7:5 keyboard colouring for a 4-colour 3:3:3:3 that reinforces the Pertchik tricolor scale - maybe light-red, red, dark-grey, and black to match the notation.

I think the Chromatone must be the worst iteration of the Janko keyboard; its small keys forcing multiple fingerings. The Lippens has long and properly interwoven keys, I can't yet see the same problem occurring. But maybe I'm wrong about that too. 

-James