8 ms·

Demonstration of 4-Row Janko Keyboard (1986) [video]

92 points by vo2maxer 7y ago

bsaul 7y ago
I tried visualizing what playing a d major scale would look like on that keyboard, and it doesn’t seem any more obvious than on a normal keyboard...
- black_puppydog 7y ago
  The shape of it will look just like a C-major scale, or any other major scale. Of course, in the process you will traverse the same pattern of white/black keys as on a regular piano, so visually it will be different. I guess that is a trade-off that janko makes to stay closer to what people know. But once you know how to play any type of scale, the fingerings simply shift up/down the keyboard to choose the specific scale of that type. There are other methods of color coding keyboards. Here is an example of coloring a chromatone keyboard (very similar in concept) with multiple patterns: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAec7LyFJW0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAec7LyFJW0 In a different video, this guy phrased the appeal of these keyboards like this: it's like playing in the most awkward key you can imagine. But then there's only that one key to learn, and all others are just shifted. edited to add stuff and clarify. sorry, should really take time to re-read before posting. :P
- jacquesm 7y ago
  The point isn't that a single scale is 'more obvious', the point is that they are all the same. All of the patterns repeat, you can start any piece on any note and play it blind and it will work instead of having 12 different ways of doing it.
  - acqq 7y ago
    Also the "Muto Music Method": it's not just that the common keyboard finger positions aren't the same in 12 different scales, the notation could also be made without all these # and "b" (sorry HN filters out the flat sign U+266D from the text) and without the shapes of the melodies changing: https://muto-method.com/en/issue.html https://muto-method.com/en/issue.html "The problems with 5 line notation" I've found the page thanks to user mkl mentioning Chromatone keyboard here.
    - jacquesm 7y ago
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTRtCgaAEDE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTRtCgaAEDE is really neat
- coldtea 7y ago
  It's trivially more obvious. And when you've played it you can automatically play any other major scale.
mkl 7y ago
I have a Chromatone keyboard, with its 6-row Janko layout. The top row is really part of a chromatic run section at the top (you can just run your finger along and play all the notes). Looks like they're still giving them away for shipping only: https://www.chromatone.jp/online-shop/en.html https://www.chromatone.jp/online-shop/en.html I wrote a bit about it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19668900 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19668900 Quoting myself (no real updates since then - too busy with work): It looks like it has an enormous number of keys, but they are linked together, with each horizontal position being a note, and 3-4 "buttons" on the same physical lever for each note. This makes fingerings very flexible. The closer spacing of the key layout means you can reach bigger chords more easily - I can comfortably play a 10th, for example. The layout is isomorphic, so transposing is as simple as shifting your hands along. I have played (standard) piano for over 30 years, and this was immediately intuitive for anything melodic. I am far from an expert yet, but the biggest difficulty has been the lack of colours on the keys, which makes it hard to jump big intervals, or play the same note in different octaves in both hands. The lack of colours is because keys don't play a fixed note; the whole keyboard can be transposed by pressing a couple of buttons. Also, because the layout is isomorphic and they were trying to get away from the traditional note system. I am planning to try different colourings with masking tape or post-its, but I wish it had an RGB led for each key (not sure I can justify the effort of rigging that up). The layout itself is great, and is the reason to buy this. Everything else is less great, and really shows its age (I have the newer model, the CT-312, which dates from something like 2007). The biggest hardware deficiency is the lack of a sustain pedal input, but I expect I can find a way around that with MIDI out or by rigging something up with the (toggle!) sustain button on the control panel. The sound synthesis is also pretty poor, but again, MIDI out. The best thing about the Chromatone in comparison to all these other alternative keyboards, is that it's (1) Available, and (2) Free! They're clearing out old stock or something, so all I paid was shipping from Japan.
- jacquesm 7y ago
  > but I wish it had an RGB led for each key You only need an LED per column and you could simply put two strips on there, one along the top and another along the bottom. I also have a Chromatone, it got held up in customs for over 6 months but it finally arrived a few weeks ago but I have not yet had the time to put significant hours into learning to play it. But even the little bit that I did do was very intuitive.
jmiskovic 7y ago
I made an android app that implements isomorphic note layouts. They can be divided to hexagonal tiling (harmonic table layout, Wicki-Hayden layout, Janko) and rectangular tiling (bass/violin/mandolin fretboard). The app does not allow choosing between those layouts, because customization stands in way of creativity. You can still customize anything by modifying code and have it interpreted on phone without re-compiling anything. To recreate Janko, you would modify hexpad.lua and set NE interval to 1 and N interval to -1. Here's the code https://github.com/jmiskovic/hexpress https://github.com/jmiskovic/hexpress The appeal of isomorphic lauyout is that everything you learn (intervals, scales & modes, chords, progressions, riffs) can be applied across all keys. Some musical patterns become more obvious and learning becomes less tedious. Another nice benefit is that such layouts are mostly two-dimensional, so they make good use of small screens.
jacquesm 7y ago
I just built a 6 row Janko keyboard as a retrofit for an existing keyboard or piano. It was a lot of work to make a layout that can be used that way and that is mechanically simple and reliable. The Janko layout makes playing the piano as easy as playing the guitar, everything transposes with ease and patterns have to be memorized only once. That said, the piano/keyboard world is super conservative and people have literally invested a lifetime in the familiar layout so even if a Janko keyboard would be better on all measurable dimensions (and it isn't, though there really are a lot of advantages) it is an uphill battle to get any appreciable mind/market share. See also: Dvorak and driving on the left hand side of the road, imperial versus metric and more of those irrational and yet immovable discussions.
- dfcowell 7y ago
  I agree with most of these examples except for the side of the road one, which is truly arbitrary - at least in island nations. I’ve driven in both left and right driving nations, the experience is fundamentally identical.
  - reitzensteinm 7y ago
    It's my experience, being right handed, that it's easier to tackle spatial problems center/right than center/left. I've always assumed this was a common experience. If so, left and right hand drive are not identical.
    - sleepydog 7y ago
      But which hand would you prefer to shift with? Manual transmissions are still popular in many countries.
      - Shikadi 7y ago
        I'd rather shift with my left, so my right can steer. Back when I drove auto, I'd often drive with just my right hand on the wheel, it felt completely natural. It took me a while to get used to left hand only, and I'm much more likely to have both hands on the wheel now. Aside from the argument that maybe I should always use both hands, my point is just that it's probably better for right handed people to shift with their left hand since it requires less dexterity.
prvc 7y ago
On a traditional keyboard the second row of keys ("sharps", typically black) are not only displaced further away from the player than the white keys, they are also higher. This facilitates thumb crossings, playing passages in thirds, makes common chords more comfortable, and so on. It seems these advantages are lost with this alternative keyboard. Ease of transposition is not a big advantage for a trained musician, who should be able to do it well for other reasons (like reading orchestral scores), and the contexts in which it might be useful are pretty small (accompanying a singer, pretty much).
- fzzzy 7y ago
  Sharps are also higher in this keyboard, what makes you think they aren't?
  - prvc 7y ago
    All keys appear to be on the same plane in the video.
    - mkl 7y ago
      I think each row has a small step up here. Most Janko keyboards have a larger step up, and have the advantages you mention but more so, as the next row up is the same as the next row down.
- coldtea 7y ago
  >Ease of transposition is not a big advantage for a trained musician "Fast typing with QWERTY is not a problem for a trained touch typist". Only once the cost of training has been amortised, through endless hours of practice. This alternative design makes transposition trivial, and enables many other types of playing by offering more alternatives for chords, note relationships, etc. Aside from manufacturing difficulties, standardization, etc (which make sense as difficulties) I never could understand the Stockhold syndrome with the prevalent designs being considered good for what they are. They are not any kind of optimal or best-compromise, just historical accidents. >makes common chords more comfortable This reverses cause and effect. It's not like there are common chords people like and the piano makes it easier to play them. It's the reverse: the piano makes it easier to play certain chords, so people have resorted to using them more, making them more "common". They're common because the piano forces them on you. (Guitarists have similar common chords they prefer to write to, because the guitar design and standard tuning make them easier). This alternative design frees people from having to accept some chords as easier making all chords equally easy and equally transportable. In fact easier, as there are multiple fingerings to chose from. >and the contexts in which it might be useful are pretty small (accompanying a singer, pretty much). That leaves out jazz, which uses transposition all the time (singer or not), and of course downplays accompanying a signer, which is what 99% of professional keyboard players do. The world has more bands and honky tonks than classical pianists. And it's not like such a keyboard like Janko or the Chromatone is some wild design that only some inventor and 10 fans use. Historically tons of accordionists (in Eastern Europe and Latin America) play similar keyboard designs...
fzzzy 7y ago
I love the Janko keyboard. I made an iPhone version (never released) in 2009, and I still use a monome version I also created. The monome version doesn't have the staggered keys in every other row, but it's still quite usable and retains the same properties with chord shapes always being the same in every key.
bobbiechen 7y ago
This reminds me of the left hand buttons on the accordion (which play chords). They're arranged in the order of the circle of fifths, so you can instantly transpose to any key just by shifting your starting note and playing the same physical pattern - at least, until you run out of buttons at one edge or the other. It makes it much easier to play chords by ear compared to the piano (at least, for me).
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

92 points by vo2maxer 7y ago

I tried visualizing what playing a d major scale would look like on that keyboard, and it doesn’t seem any more obvious than on a normal keyboard...

black_puppydog 7y ago
The shape of it will look just like a C-major scale, or any other major scale. Of course, in the process you will traverse the same pattern of white/black keys as on a regular piano, so visually it will be different. I guess that is a trade-off that janko makes to stay closer to what people know. But once you know how to play any type of scale, the fingerings simply shift up/down the keyboard to choose the specific scale of that type. There are other methods of color coding keyboards. Here is an example of coloring a chromatone keyboard (very similar in concept) with multiple patterns: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAec7LyFJW0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAec7LyFJW0 In a different video, this guy phrased the appeal of these keyboards like this: it's like playing in the most awkward key you can imagine. But then there's only that one key to learn, and all others are just shifted. edited to add stuff and clarify. sorry, should really take time to re-read before posting. :P
jacquesm 7y ago
The point isn't that a single scale is 'more obvious', the point is that they are all the same. All of the patterns repeat, you can start any piece on any note and play it blind and it will work instead of having 12 different ways of doing it.
- acqq 7y ago
  Also the "Muto Music Method": it's not just that the common keyboard finger positions aren't the same in 12 different scales, the notation could also be made without all these # and "b" (sorry HN filters out the flat sign U+266D from the text) and without the shapes of the melodies changing: https://muto-method.com/en/issue.html https://muto-method.com/en/issue.html "The problems with 5 line notation" I've found the page thanks to user mkl mentioning Chromatone keyboard here.
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTRtCgaAEDE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTRtCgaAEDE is really neat
coldtea 7y ago
It's trivially more obvious. And when you've played it you can automatically play any other major scale.

mkl 7y ago

I have a Chromatone keyboard, with its 6-row Janko layout. The top row is really part of a chromatic run section at the top (you can just run your finger along and play all the notes). Looks like they're still giving them away for shipping only: https://www.chromatone.jp/online-shop/en.html https://www.chromatone.jp/online-shop/en.html I wrote a bit about it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19668900 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19668900 Quoting myself (no real updates since then - too busy with work): It looks like it has an enormous number of keys, but they are linked together, with each horizontal position being a note, and 3-4 "buttons" on the same physical lever for each note. This makes fingerings very flexible. The closer spacing of the key layout means you can reach bigger chords more easily - I can comfortably play a 10th, for example. The layout is isomorphic, so transposing is as simple as shifting your hands along. I have played (standard) piano for over 30 years, and this was immediately intuitive for anything melodic. I am far from an expert yet, but the biggest difficulty has been the lack of colours on the keys, which makes it hard to jump big intervals, or play the same note in different octaves in both hands. The lack of colours is because keys don't play a fixed note; the whole keyboard can be transposed by pressing a couple of buttons. Also, because the layout is isomorphic and they were trying to get away from the traditional note system. I am planning to try different colourings with masking tape or post-its, but I wish it had an RGB led for each key (not sure I can justify the effort of rigging that up). The layout itself is great, and is the reason to buy this. Everything else is less great, and really shows its age (I have the newer model, the CT-312, which dates from something like 2007). The biggest hardware deficiency is the lack of a sustain pedal input, but I expect I can find a way around that with MIDI out or by rigging something up with the (toggle!) sustain button on the control panel. The sound synthesis is also pretty poor, but again, MIDI out. The best thing about the Chromatone in comparison to all these other alternative keyboards, is that it's (1) Available, and (2) Free! They're clearing out old stock or something, so all I paid was shipping from Japan.

jacquesm 7y ago
> but I wish it had an RGB led for each key You only need an LED per column and you could simply put two strips on there, one along the top and another along the bottom. I also have a Chromatone, it got held up in customs for over 6 months but it finally arrived a few weeks ago but I have not yet had the time to put significant hours into learning to play it. But even the little bit that I did do was very intuitive.

jmiskovic 7y ago

I made an android app that implements isomorphic note layouts. They can be divided to hexagonal tiling (harmonic table layout, Wicki-Hayden layout, Janko) and rectangular tiling (bass/violin/mandolin fretboard). The app does not allow choosing between those layouts, because customization stands in way of creativity. You can still customize anything by modifying code and have it interpreted on phone without re-compiling anything. To recreate Janko, you would modify hexpad.lua and set NE interval to 1 and N interval to -1. Here's the code https://github.com/jmiskovic/hexpress https://github.com/jmiskovic/hexpress The appeal of isomorphic lauyout is that everything you learn (intervals, scales & modes, chords, progressions, riffs) can be applied across all keys. Some musical patterns become more obvious and learning becomes less tedious. Another nice benefit is that such layouts are mostly two-dimensional, so they make good use of small screens.

jacquesm 7y ago

I just built a 6 row Janko keyboard as a retrofit for an existing keyboard or piano. It was a lot of work to make a layout that can be used that way and that is mechanically simple and reliable. The Janko layout makes playing the piano as easy as playing the guitar, everything transposes with ease and patterns have to be memorized only once. That said, the piano/keyboard world is super conservative and people have literally invested a lifetime in the familiar layout so even if a Janko keyboard would be better on all measurable dimensions (and it isn't, though there really are a lot of advantages) it is an uphill battle to get any appreciable mind/market share. See also: Dvorak and driving on the left hand side of the road, imperial versus metric and more of those irrational and yet immovable discussions.

dfcowell 7y ago
I agree with most of these examples except for the side of the road one, which is truly arbitrary - at least in island nations. I’ve driven in both left and right driving nations, the experience is fundamentally identical.
- reitzensteinm 7y ago
  It's my experience, being right handed, that it's easier to tackle spatial problems center/right than center/left. I've always assumed this was a common experience. If so, left and right hand drive are not identical.
  - sleepydog 7y ago
    But which hand would you prefer to shift with? Manual transmissions are still popular in many countries.
    - Shikadi 7y ago
      I'd rather shift with my left, so my right can steer. Back when I drove auto, I'd often drive with just my right hand on the wheel, it felt completely natural. It took me a while to get used to left hand only, and I'm much more likely to have both hands on the wheel now. Aside from the argument that maybe I should always use both hands, my point is just that it's probably better for right handed people to shift with their left hand since it requires less dexterity.

prvc 7y ago

On a traditional keyboard the second row of keys ("sharps", typically black) are not only displaced further away from the player than the white keys, they are also higher. This facilitates thumb crossings, playing passages in thirds, makes common chords more comfortable, and so on. It seems these advantages are lost with this alternative keyboard. Ease of transposition is not a big advantage for a trained musician, who should be able to do it well for other reasons (like reading orchestral scores), and the contexts in which it might be useful are pretty small (accompanying a singer, pretty much).

fzzzy 7y ago
Sharps are also higher in this keyboard, what makes you think they aren't?
- prvc 7y ago
  All keys appear to be on the same plane in the video.
  - mkl 7y ago
    I think each row has a small step up here. Most Janko keyboards have a larger step up, and have the advantages you mention but more so, as the next row up is the same as the next row down.
coldtea 7y ago
>Ease of transposition is not a big advantage for a trained musician "Fast typing with QWERTY is not a problem for a trained touch typist". Only once the cost of training has been amortised, through endless hours of practice. This alternative design makes transposition trivial, and enables many other types of playing by offering more alternatives for chords, note relationships, etc. Aside from manufacturing difficulties, standardization, etc (which make sense as difficulties) I never could understand the Stockhold syndrome with the prevalent designs being considered good for what they are. They are not any kind of optimal or best-compromise, just historical accidents. >makes common chords more comfortable This reverses cause and effect. It's not like there are common chords people like and the piano makes it easier to play them. It's the reverse: the piano makes it easier to play certain chords, so people have resorted to using them more, making them more "common". They're common because the piano forces them on you. (Guitarists have similar common chords they prefer to write to, because the guitar design and standard tuning make them easier). This alternative design frees people from having to accept some chords as easier making all chords equally easy and equally transportable. In fact easier, as there are multiple fingerings to chose from. >and the contexts in which it might be useful are pretty small (accompanying a singer, pretty much). That leaves out jazz, which uses transposition all the time (singer or not), and of course downplays accompanying a signer, which is what 99% of professional keyboard players do. The world has more bands and honky tonks than classical pianists. And it's not like such a keyboard like Janko or the Chromatone is some wild design that only some inventor and 10 fans use. Historically tons of accordionists (in Eastern Europe and Latin America) play similar keyboard designs...

fzzzy 7y ago

I love the Janko keyboard. I made an iPhone version (never released) in 2009, and I still use a monome version I also created. The monome version doesn't have the staggered keys in every other row, but it's still quite usable and retains the same properties with chord shapes always being the same in every key.

bobbiechen 7y ago

This reminds me of the left hand buttons on the accordion (which play chords). They're arranged in the order of the circle of fifths, so you can instantly transpose to any key just by shifting your starting note and playing the same physical pattern - at least, until you run out of buttons at one edge or the other. It makes it much easier to play chords by ear compared to the piano (at least, for me).

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]