6 ms·

Ever since I learned that the frequency ratio between adjacent keys on a piano is always a constant twelfth root of 2 regardless of whether you're going black-w

Ever since I learned that the frequency ratio between adjacent keys on a piano is always a constant twelfth root of 2 regardless of whether you're going black-white or white-white, I've been sort of frustrated with the way pianos are designed. Transposing a song to a different key could have been effortless if keys were structured differently, such as with uniformly alternating white and black keys, rather than the 2 black 3 black groups we have now. By optimizing pianos for C major / A minor, we've made everything else so much more difficult. And no other instrument does this afaik. String instruments don't obscure the constant ratios at all, so it's easier to transpose songs on them. I suspect someone may reply to this with "it'd be harder to keep track of what notes you're on if keys were uniform like that", but I don't think we actually rely on feeling the keys to know where we are. Would be willing to be proven wrong on that. But I suspect simply coloring/shading each fifth and octave differently should do the job, maybe also texturing them differently for the blind.

kaz-inc 4y ago
Guitar and stringed instruments are easy to transpose because there are no "blessed" notes (other than the open strings, but even those can be turned nonstandard).
myownpetard 4y ago
It is so annoying that standard guitar tuning isn't all perfect fourths and we've decided to throw in a major third between the G-B strings. Bar chords be damned, I want to be able to visualize it symmetrically and have chord shapes that work the same across the fretboard.
- CPLX 4y ago
  You also want open chords. There’s nothing stopping you from tuning the way you describe you’ll find it much harder to play harmony that’s musical if you do though.
- mikelevins 4y ago
  You might like the Linnstrument: https://www.rogerlinndesign.com/linnstrument https://www.rogerlinndesign.com/linnstrument As a longtime guitarist myself, I found it quite easy to learn. You can think of each row as a guitar string. In the default setup, each row is a perfect fourth above the row below. The green lights are the white keys on a piano; the unlighted keys are the black ones. The blue lights are C natural. Skip a square diagonally up and to the right for an octave. Chord shapes are uniform across the whole surface. Keys are sensitive to pressure, left-right movement, and top-bottom movement. In the default configuration, rocking left and right yields vibrato and moving top-bottom controls some other MIDI parameter (usually filter cutoff, but it's configurable). Sliding finger pressure to different keys to the right and left gives portamento. Sliding to the next row up or down gives legato. Once you get used to these parameters, it becomes super expressive. It's a MIDI controller, not a complete instrument, so you need a MIDI-controllable source of sounds. It's an MPE instrument, so, if you want the full experience, you want some kind of MPE-capable source of sounds (MPE is "MIDI Polyphonic Expression", and it means that multiple MIDI channels are dedicated to the instrument in order to give full, separate expression to each of several voices). MPE is a relatively new MIDI development that is not supported everywhere yet, so you have to pay attention to which sound devices support it if you want the full experience. I have one; it's my favorite electronic instrument that I've ever tried. I also have an Eigenharp Pico, and I like it, but I like the Linnstrument better. (It doesn't look as cool as an Eigenharp, though :-). When I decided to get one, I discovered that they're a bit hard to buy. Not very many places have them, and when I was looking, even Roger Linn didn't have any available. I eventually found one for list price at Detroit Modular (https://www.detroitmodular.com/ https://www.detroitmodular.com/).
  - sleightofmind 4y ago
    I watched the LinnStrumentalist video per your first link. Amazing stuff. And it does seem to reduce the amount of finger contortion required compared to most keyed or stringed instruments. It does, though, seem to demand that the player look at the keyboard. For an instrumentalist, this may not be a big deal. For a performer accustomed to connecting to his audience with his face, as do many singers, it seems like a big drawback. That said, color me amazed.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
I don't think real pianos are tuned precisely like that, and the use of a dominant key may have been about historical trade-offs in tuning between different keys, but that's mostly a guess. There's also the ergonomic aspects of key size and hand width.
waqf 4y ago
Transposing is effortless on most modern keyboard instruments: you press the transpose button. Now you have a choice of what key it sounds in and a choice of what fingering you find convenient. Isn't that better than your suggestion, where you're locked into one fingering?
- sideshowb 4y ago
  Unless you have good pitch perception in which case transpose buttons mess you up.
tejohnso 4y ago
You may be aware, but what you are describing depends on temperment[1]. [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well_temperament https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well_temperament Be sure to check out the "See Also" section if interested.
mkl 4y ago
The Janko layout does this and has been around since the 1800s: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janko_keyboard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janko_keyboard I have one, in the form of a Chromatone keyboard (https://chromatone.jp/chromatone/index.html https://chromatone.jp/chromatone/index.html, no longer available). The uniformity does make it harder to play by touch, but it otherwise has a lot of advantages. I have been experimenting with different colours and tactile markers (little rubber feet intended to stick on the bottom of things) but I haven't settled on anything yet. I have commented on this a few times before: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=janko%20by%3Amkl&sort=byPopularity&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... Others have too, and jacquesm has even built a Janko keyboard retrofit.
- beanlog 4y ago
  This is really interesting, thank you for sharing! I wonder if it would have been more successful if it had just two rows instead. The duplicate rows add more power, but at the cost of adding ambiguity when sightreading, as you have to impromptu figure out what fingering you want to use. And it also makes it more expensive and intimidating looking. I feel like two rows would provide the core benefits while being more accessible. But I could be totally off, as I've never touched this thing.
  - mkl 4y ago
    The more compact nature of the layout means you pretty much need more than 2 rows, or fingering some things seems to become very difficult. It feels like your fingers get tangled more easily if you stick to two rows (which you do at first, out of habit). I don't think it adds much to the cost (the different places to play the same note are all on the same physical lever), but it certainly makes it look intimidating, and the "playing by touch" issue is unsolved AFAIK. I think the physical size of pianos is why the first decent design "won"; you don't take your own piano to where you're playing, you play whatever's there. In the electronic age there's a chance for Janko to take off, as that's not universally true any more, but I'm not holding my breath.
sideshowb 4y ago
Pianist here. I see where you're coming from, but I definitely do also rely on the different shapes of keys to know where I am without looking. I've been learning to play the button end of an accordion and personally I find the uniformity makes it harder. But maybe that's just what I'm used to. As an aside, I find c major a horrible key to play in, again I think the uniformity makes it harder and less ergonomic, but the same thing makes it easier to teach to beginners hence why everyone starts there.
- jrh206 4y ago
  Absolutely. Another data point: I play the organ, which involves playing a large keyboard with your feet (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedal_keyboard https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedal_keyboard). The structure of black notes is crucial to being able to play without looking (which is important because you’re simultaneously doing various other things). Concretely, I couldn’t imagine playing the organ without being able to slam my foot into the right hand side of a B flat in order to know that my foot is on top of the B. If you watch an experienced organist’s feet you’ll see them do this all the time. I also find C major horrible.
- beanlog 4y ago
  This is pretty eye opening to me, I would have never thought anyone found C major more difficult to play in than other keys. To me, difficulty is directly proportional to the amount of stuff in the key signature, but that may be because I've never had proper education (~5 years of lessons as a child from a very casual teacher).
  - sideshowb 4y ago
    The way we happen to notate music doesn't help to endear people to f sharp major, certainly! If you keep practising all the scales and try to learn to do more by ear/improvise, I'm pretty sure you'll end up enjoying other keys more.
aasasd 4y ago
Aside from the Janko keyboard, there are instruments with the ‘harmonic table’ layout—a honeycomb of hexagonal keys: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic_table_note_layout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic_table_note_layout The general principle is called ‘isomorphic keyboard’: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isomorphic_keyboard https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isomorphic_keyboard

kaz-inc 4y ago

Guitar and stringed instruments are easy to transpose because there are no "blessed" notes (other than the open strings, but even those can be turned nonstandard).

myownpetard 4y ago

It is so annoying that standard guitar tuning isn't all perfect fourths and we've decided to throw in a major third between the G-B strings. Bar chords be damned, I want to be able to visualize it symmetrically and have chord shapes that work the same across the fretboard.

CPLX 4y ago
You also want open chords. There’s nothing stopping you from tuning the way you describe you’ll find it much harder to play harmony that’s musical if you do though.
mikelevins 4y ago
You might like the Linnstrument: https://www.rogerlinndesign.com/linnstrument https://www.rogerlinndesign.com/linnstrument As a longtime guitarist myself, I found it quite easy to learn. You can think of each row as a guitar string. In the default setup, each row is a perfect fourth above the row below. The green lights are the white keys on a piano; the unlighted keys are the black ones. The blue lights are C natural. Skip a square diagonally up and to the right for an octave. Chord shapes are uniform across the whole surface. Keys are sensitive to pressure, left-right movement, and top-bottom movement. In the default configuration, rocking left and right yields vibrato and moving top-bottom controls some other MIDI parameter (usually filter cutoff, but it's configurable). Sliding finger pressure to different keys to the right and left gives portamento. Sliding to the next row up or down gives legato. Once you get used to these parameters, it becomes super expressive. It's a MIDI controller, not a complete instrument, so you need a MIDI-controllable source of sounds. It's an MPE instrument, so, if you want the full experience, you want some kind of MPE-capable source of sounds (MPE is "MIDI Polyphonic Expression", and it means that multiple MIDI channels are dedicated to the instrument in order to give full, separate expression to each of several voices). MPE is a relatively new MIDI development that is not supported everywhere yet, so you have to pay attention to which sound devices support it if you want the full experience. I have one; it's my favorite electronic instrument that I've ever tried. I also have an Eigenharp Pico, and I like it, but I like the Linnstrument better. (It doesn't look as cool as an Eigenharp, though :-). When I decided to get one, I discovered that they're a bit hard to buy. Not very many places have them, and when I was looking, even Roger Linn didn't have any available. I eventually found one for list price at Detroit Modular (https://www.detroitmodular.com/ https://www.detroitmodular.com/).
- sleightofmind 4y ago
  I watched the LinnStrumentalist video per your first link. Amazing stuff. And it does seem to reduce the amount of finger contortion required compared to most keyed or stringed instruments. It does, though, seem to demand that the player look at the keyboard. For an instrumentalist, this may not be a big deal. For a performer accustomed to connecting to his audience with his face, as do many singers, it seems like a big drawback. That said, color me amazed.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

I don't think real pianos are tuned precisely like that, and the use of a dominant key may have been about historical trade-offs in tuning between different keys, but that's mostly a guess. There's also the ergonomic aspects of key size and hand width.

waqf 4y ago

Transposing is effortless on most modern keyboard instruments: you press the transpose button. Now you have a choice of what key it sounds in and a choice of what fingering you find convenient. Isn't that better than your suggestion, where you're locked into one fingering?

sideshowb 4y ago
Unless you have good pitch perception in which case transpose buttons mess you up.

tejohnso 4y ago

You may be aware, but what you are describing depends on temperment[1]. [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well_temperament https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well_temperament Be sure to check out the "See Also" section if interested.

mkl 4y ago

The Janko layout does this and has been around since the 1800s: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janko_keyboard http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janko_keyboard I have one, in the form of a Chromatone keyboard (https://chromatone.jp/chromatone/index.html https://chromatone.jp/chromatone/index.html, no longer available). The uniformity does make it harder to play by touch, but it otherwise has a lot of advantages. I have been experimenting with different colours and tactile markers (little rubber feet intended to stick on the bottom of things) but I haven't settled on anything yet. I have commented on this a few times before: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&query=janko%20by%3Amkl&sort=byPopularity&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu... Others have too, and jacquesm has even built a Janko keyboard retrofit.

beanlog 4y ago
This is really interesting, thank you for sharing! I wonder if it would have been more successful if it had just two rows instead. The duplicate rows add more power, but at the cost of adding ambiguity when sightreading, as you have to impromptu figure out what fingering you want to use. And it also makes it more expensive and intimidating looking. I feel like two rows would provide the core benefits while being more accessible. But I could be totally off, as I've never touched this thing.
- mkl 4y ago
  The more compact nature of the layout means you pretty much need more than 2 rows, or fingering some things seems to become very difficult. It feels like your fingers get tangled more easily if you stick to two rows (which you do at first, out of habit). I don't think it adds much to the cost (the different places to play the same note are all on the same physical lever), but it certainly makes it look intimidating, and the "playing by touch" issue is unsolved AFAIK. I think the physical size of pianos is why the first decent design "won"; you don't take your own piano to where you're playing, you play whatever's there. In the electronic age there's a chance for Janko to take off, as that's not universally true any more, but I'm not holding my breath.

sideshowb 4y ago

Pianist here. I see where you're coming from, but I definitely do also rely on the different shapes of keys to know where I am without looking. I've been learning to play the button end of an accordion and personally I find the uniformity makes it harder. But maybe that's just what I'm used to. As an aside, I find c major a horrible key to play in, again I think the uniformity makes it harder and less ergonomic, but the same thing makes it easier to teach to beginners hence why everyone starts there.

jrh206 4y ago
Absolutely. Another data point: I play the organ, which involves playing a large keyboard with your feet (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedal_keyboard https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedal_keyboard). The structure of black notes is crucial to being able to play without looking (which is important because you’re simultaneously doing various other things). Concretely, I couldn’t imagine playing the organ without being able to slam my foot into the right hand side of a B flat in order to know that my foot is on top of the B. If you watch an experienced organist’s feet you’ll see them do this all the time. I also find C major horrible.
beanlog 4y ago
This is pretty eye opening to me, I would have never thought anyone found C major more difficult to play in than other keys. To me, difficulty is directly proportional to the amount of stuff in the key signature, but that may be because I've never had proper education (~5 years of lessons as a child from a very casual teacher).
- sideshowb 4y ago
  The way we happen to notate music doesn't help to endear people to f sharp major, certainly! If you keep practising all the scales and try to learn to do more by ear/improvise, I'm pretty sure you'll end up enjoying other keys more.

aasasd 4y ago

Aside from the Janko keyboard, there are instruments with the ‘harmonic table’ layout—a honeycomb of hexagonal keys: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic_table_note_layout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic_table_note_layout The general principle is called ‘isomorphic keyboard’: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isomorphic_keyboard https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isomorphic_keyboard