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You have to ask yourself what should feel more natural: transposing songs or actually playing them. I don't know much about why the piano was designed like this

You have to ask yourself what should feel more natural: transposing songs or actually playing them. I don't know much about why the piano was designed like this, but I can see your idea wouldn't be useful: - Black keys are a reference. Either by touching them or by looking at them, you can always know where you are. Not so easy with all the keys being the same. - The size of the keyboard is more or less adapted to our hand size. The distance between whole tones is similar to the distance between our fingers. A fifth is as wide as my hand, and I can play an octave without much effort. Making all the notes the same shape would change that and those common intervals would be more difficult to play. - Our hand is not flat. The fact that some notes are higher than others makes playing more comfortable. - Range. Same-shaped notes would occupy more space (unless you make them smaller than white notes, which would be uncomfortable) so either you get way bigger pianos (as if they were small) or pianos with less range. There are probably more reasons why the black keys are there, these are just top off my head.

amelius 11y ago
Thanks for your explanation. I think there is another advantage (to merely having the white keys) besides just transposing being easier. And this is that the same intervals will always have the same spacing on the keyboard. I guess this should be my main argument for this type of layout being more natural.
- gjulianm 11y ago
  Yes, they would be the same spacing, but that spacing would be extremely uncomfortable and lots of pieces would become impossible to play. Making the black keys the same size as the white keys, a 8th would become a 13th. I don't have small hands and I can barely reach a 11th interval. Basically, a lot of simultaneous notes could no longer be played. A solution would be to make the keys smaller, but then you wouldn't be able to play semitones because your fingers wouldn't fit comfortably. To fix that, you could raise some keys, so basically you would end up with the current setup.
  - amelius 11y ago
    Good points. But I really don't understand why the keys need to be that big. People are used to typing on smartphones, where the sensitive area of a key is like 30% of the width of a finger. Of course, making them that small would be a little extreme, but I think piano keys could be much slimmer.
    - PepeGomez 11y ago
      Typing is 1-0, you either press the key or not, there is no need for as much precision.
    - normloman 11y ago
      Have you seen anyone try to type on a smartphone? Slow, and riddled with typos. Keep piano keys the width they are, unless you want slow, error prone pianists. Besides, we already have the ideal chromatic keyboard layout: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=hexagonal+music+controller&t=lm&ia=images&iai=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.c-thru-music.com%2Fimages%2Faxis64-01.jpg https://duckduckgo.com/?q=hexagonal+music+controller&t=lm&ia...
QuercusMax 11y ago
This is absolutely true. I find it quite difficult to play music in C without looking at my hands if I'm moving around a lot - if I'm in a key with a couple sharps or flats, it's much easier for me.

amelius 11y ago

Thanks for your explanation. I think there is another advantage (to merely having the white keys) besides just transposing being easier. And this is that the same intervals will always have the same spacing on the keyboard. I guess this should be my main argument for this type of layout being more natural.

gjulianm 11y ago
Yes, they would be the same spacing, but that spacing would be extremely uncomfortable and lots of pieces would become impossible to play. Making the black keys the same size as the white keys, a 8th would become a 13th. I don't have small hands and I can barely reach a 11th interval. Basically, a lot of simultaneous notes could no longer be played. A solution would be to make the keys smaller, but then you wouldn't be able to play semitones because your fingers wouldn't fit comfortably. To fix that, you could raise some keys, so basically you would end up with the current setup.
- amelius 11y ago
  Good points. But I really don't understand why the keys need to be that big. People are used to typing on smartphones, where the sensitive area of a key is like 30% of the width of a finger. Of course, making them that small would be a little extreme, but I think piano keys could be much slimmer.
  - PepeGomez 11y ago
    Typing is 1-0, you either press the key or not, there is no need for as much precision.
  - normloman 11y ago
    Have you seen anyone try to type on a smartphone? Slow, and riddled with typos. Keep piano keys the width they are, unless you want slow, error prone pianists. Besides, we already have the ideal chromatic keyboard layout: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=hexagonal+music+controller&t=lm&ia=images&iai=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.c-thru-music.com%2Fimages%2Faxis64-01.jpg https://duckduckgo.com/?q=hexagonal+music+controller&t=lm&ia...

QuercusMax 11y ago

This is absolutely true. I find it quite difficult to play music in C without looking at my hands if I'm moving around a lot - if I'm in a key with a couple sharps or flats, it's much easier for me.