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Amusingly, I've been on a 2D note layout Wikipedia reading spree lately. I'm really digging the idea of isomorphic layouts, and I've been thinking of picking up

Amusingly, I've been on a 2D note layout Wikipedia reading spree lately. I'm really digging the idea of isomorphic layouts, and I've been thinking of picking up something to help me see the chord patterns better in whatever music I'm already familiar with. Any thoughts on the Exquis? Any VSTs worth looking into as well? Linnstrument looks cool too.

wahnfrieden 3y ago
Check the Striso Board.
notfed 3y ago
Hey, I've been on a similar spree! It all started when I asked myself why I still suck at guitar and piano, despite a decade of on and off playing. On piano, jumping between keys/modes is non-trivial, unless you have an extensive amount of practice building memory and muscle memory. And guitar...guitar is just so much work to play, even with years of practice. In both cases, the result is that your playing is biased due to memory and finger-strength constraints. I've realized now that both piano and guitar are (very) unnecessarily difficult. It only took me 15 years of failure to realize it. What's really odd is that I look around and see very few people also realizing this. Instead I see many people struggling to play their instruments, especially on guitar with people generally sticking to 3-chord songs. I ended up getting a Linnstrument. Best decision I've ever made. I feel limitless now, musically. The device is high quality, has lots of buttons (I got the larger version), and is fully programmable (it uses an Arduino). It may seem pricy, but you're dealing with something one-of-a-kind here, totally worth it. The feature that sold me is that you can choose what scale you want to be in, and it will light up only those notes in the scale. This works out of the box, but if you're willing to do some C programming, you can extend it however you want. (I programmed mine to use a different color for each note.) From what I've seen, both piano and guitar communities tend to be snobs about lighting up scale notes: "lights are for children", "lights are a crutch, learn the scales without them". These people are ignorant. I've gone from 0 to 100 very quickly due to being able to light up scales. I also drive with a GPS. Exquis looks pretty awesome, too!
- zozbot234 3y ago
  > On piano, jumping between keys/modes is non-trivial, unless you have an extensive amount of practice building memory and muscle memory. If you learn your circle of fifths it is quite trivial, because nearby scales on the circle (i.e. scales that have tonal centers a fifth apart) only add or remove a single black key. F to C (Bb becomes B) to G (F becomes F#) to D (C becomes C#) etc. is very easy and a lot of music will stick to those. Learning scales on guitar (or indeed on an isomorphic keyboard, for that matter) is only slightly harder, the trick there is knowing your solfège so that you can find your way around the semitone intervals and (for guitar) what to expect when you shift to a nearby string.
  - onionisafruit 3y ago
    For me there is a muscle memory component. I can easily switch between keys that I regularly play in, but going to something like c# is difficult because I don’t have the muscle memory for it. I mainly play by ear and chord notations too. I have never been able to read sheet music real time.
    - nickpeterson 3y ago
      C# can be overwhelming without some assistance, I’d recommend Visual Studio
rwmj 3y ago
The Synthstrom Deluge (even more expensive, around $1200) has an isomorphic keyboard mode which is a lot of fun to play.

wahnfrieden 3y ago

Check the Striso Board.

notfed 3y ago

Hey, I've been on a similar spree! It all started when I asked myself why I still suck at guitar and piano, despite a decade of on and off playing. On piano, jumping between keys/modes is non-trivial, unless you have an extensive amount of practice building memory and muscle memory. And guitar...guitar is just so much work to play, even with years of practice. In both cases, the result is that your playing is biased due to memory and finger-strength constraints. I've realized now that both piano and guitar are (very) unnecessarily difficult. It only took me 15 years of failure to realize it. What's really odd is that I look around and see very few people also realizing this. Instead I see many people struggling to play their instruments, especially on guitar with people generally sticking to 3-chord songs. I ended up getting a Linnstrument. Best decision I've ever made. I feel limitless now, musically. The device is high quality, has lots of buttons (I got the larger version), and is fully programmable (it uses an Arduino). It may seem pricy, but you're dealing with something one-of-a-kind here, totally worth it. The feature that sold me is that you can choose what scale you want to be in, and it will light up only those notes in the scale. This works out of the box, but if you're willing to do some C programming, you can extend it however you want. (I programmed mine to use a different color for each note.) From what I've seen, both piano and guitar communities tend to be snobs about lighting up scale notes: "lights are for children", "lights are a crutch, learn the scales without them". These people are ignorant. I've gone from 0 to 100 very quickly due to being able to light up scales. I also drive with a GPS. Exquis looks pretty awesome, too!

zozbot234 3y ago
> On piano, jumping between keys/modes is non-trivial, unless you have an extensive amount of practice building memory and muscle memory. If you learn your circle of fifths it is quite trivial, because nearby scales on the circle (i.e. scales that have tonal centers a fifth apart) only add or remove a single black key. F to C (Bb becomes B) to G (F becomes F#) to D (C becomes C#) etc. is very easy and a lot of music will stick to those. Learning scales on guitar (or indeed on an isomorphic keyboard, for that matter) is only slightly harder, the trick there is knowing your solfège so that you can find your way around the semitone intervals and (for guitar) what to expect when you shift to a nearby string.
- onionisafruit 3y ago
  For me there is a muscle memory component. I can easily switch between keys that I regularly play in, but going to something like c# is difficult because I don’t have the muscle memory for it. I mainly play by ear and chord notations too. I have never been able to read sheet music real time.
  - nickpeterson 3y ago
    C# can be overwhelming without some assistance, I’d recommend Visual Studio

rwmj 3y ago

The Synthstrom Deluge (even more expensive, around $1200) has an isomorphic keyboard mode which is a lot of fun to play.