The piano is the worst invention ever. Discuss.

[xKnuckles]

P.S..... pianos are all too big though. Even playing octaves is never easy, and anything more is out of the question for me. Shame they don't come in different sizes....

[Ed A.]

The limitations of synths at the time (mid "80"s) couldn"t have handled it, so it never came to fruition.

But I wonder what about now?

 

Expressive E Osmose.

 

I was really interested in Osmose, but it won't be in stores until winter of 2021, maybe. If you were lucky enough to pre-order, you might get one at the end of 2020, if they don't continue pushing the date back.

I'm hoping that some innovative company (Korg maybe?) releases something like it much sooner.

[skipeb3]

"I play the accordion. So...."

 

I used to do that. But my drink kept falling off...

[Mighty Motif Max]

"I play the accordion. So...."

 

I used to do that. But my drink kept falling off...

 

Reminds me of this...[video:youtube]

 

 

I also play accordion. Balkan music is heavily based on it and that's NOT polkas and waltzes lol. Far from man's worst invention.

 

 

 

That (dis)honor goes to the Zurna.

[video:youtube]

[bfields]

And everyone knows the QWERTY typewriter keyboard was designed to slow down the typist, because the early mechanical typewriter would jam all the time, so they slowed the typist.

 

I've heard that too, I wonder what the origin of that story is. I don't think there's any real evidence for it. Smithonian has a history of the development. It's a complicated story:

 

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/fact-of-fiction-the-legend-of-the-qwerty-keyboard-49863249/

 

"The Kyoto paper also cites the Morse lineage to further debunk the theory that Sholes wanted to protect his machine from jamming by rearranged the keys with the specific intent to slow down typists"

 

I doubt QWERTY is optimal, but I also doubt there's much to be gained by switching. Certainly not enough to justify the collective price of switching all the world's qwerty users.

 

The same probably goes for the piano keyboard....

[Mark Schmieder]

The zurna is one of my favourite instruments; I use it in many genres! I was thinking of buying one, but don't think I could master the required circular breathing techniques.

 

At least we agree that the accordion, used properly, is an excellent choice, and doesn't suffer the apparent issues with the piano that I never noticed until now.

 

Agreed on chocolate being the best invention, but take it from someone who knows: chocolates and pianos do NOT mix!

[jazzpiano88]

Does it have aftertouch?

That's not the right question.

 

Many of the other obvious and well-known keyboard or pianist touches, such as: UnderTouch, InternalTouch, PriorTouch, OralTouch, SimulTouch, CravenTouch, and SvenTouch

are all way more relevant than any "aftertouch".

 

How could you possibly account for all of these touches in the development without experimenting with each of them one by one?

[Mighty Motif Max]

The zurna is one of my favourite instruments; I use it in many genres! I was thinking of buying one, but don't think I could master the required circular breathing techniques.

They're pretty cheap though. Do you have any recordings? I'm mainly familiar with it from some Middle Eastern music. It's quite dreadful blasted through a massive line array system with pounding drums and chants though (at a big multi-cultural event I work at). A friend of mine plays in pit orchestras a lot, and apparently they were doing a production of the Nutcracker. The Arabian part apparently is actually written for two zurnas in unison and not for oboe, but once they got two of them on the stage and mic'd up, it was too much for half the orchestra to handle!

 

At least we agree that the accordion, used properly, is an excellent choice, and doesn't suffer the apparent issues with the piano that I never noticed until now.

 

Heck, accordion is actually my primary instrument, believe it or not (at least from a skill level side). I've played accordion for a little over ten years and have had about eight and a half years of lessons (there was a year and a half gap between teachers). Piano on the other hand I've played for sixteen years, but I've only had about four and a half years of lessons, and only about five months of those were proper classical training (long story). I've applied the music theory and techniques from my accordion lessons to the piano so I've continued to progress somewhat with the piano.

[TommyBoy]

Heck, accordion is actually my primary instrument, believe it or not (at least from a skill level side). I've played accordion for a little over ten years and have had about eight and a half years of lessons (there was a year and a half gap between teachers). Piano on the other hand I've played for sixteen years, but I've only had about four and a half years of lessons, and only about five months of those were proper classical training (long story). I've applied the music theory and techniques from my accordion lessons to the piano so I've continued to progress somewhat with the piano.

 

I've only had accordion lessons - maybe ten years of them. I'm a hack piano player. I've played piano in restaurants when I was younger but was never what I would call "professional". The main issue is that I can't read bass clef well at all. Accordion music usually has the treble clef and then just "C Maj" or "D 7th" for the bass clef. So I relied on basically octaves or slash chords for my left hand piano playing. My right hand is proficient and could usually fool people in restaurants after a few cocktails.

 

But whenever I would walk into any Nordstrom's and hear any pianist (back in the day when they used to have them) I'd marvel at how poor I really am at piano playing.

 

I really love the accordion, however. Being able to play a walking string bass on the left hand while improvising on the right hand is just a great feeling.

[Mighty Motif Max]

Accordion music usually has the treble clef and then just "C Maj" or "D 7th" for the bass clef.

That's only with lead sheets and some published music. The majority of written accordion music is written with both clefs. For the left hand, you have the bass note, and then the chord note is an octave above and on whatever note is the root of the chord, accompanied by a "M", "m", "7", or "dim" marking (or variations of such), indicating a major, minor, seventh, or diminished chord. That's the "American" notation style, standardized by the AAA years ago. In Europe and elsewhere, it's common to see the chord written out as it would be on piano, three to four notes etc.

 

My preference in notation is the American notation style with chords written above the grand staff, because it's handy for keeping track of your playing in the middle of a difficult solo, or for harmony voicings on the right hand.

[Mark Schmieder]

Huh? They miked the zurnas for the Nutcracker? They're already louder than an entire orchestra as-is, much less miked and amped! It's a big reason for not buying one, or a shehnai either. It's also why I sold my 5-string closed-back bluegrass banjo and then bought an open-back 4-string Irish tenor banjo without the resonator. It hurt my ears to practice the other one. A lot of older instruments were the winners of the Volume Wars from their own eras, when amplification hadn't been invented yet and people had to be heard outdoors above a lot of other stuff.

[David Emm]

There are many books on bold new designs for things that essentially went lead-balloon because they were so forward-looking, they were also too top-heavy. I finally got to try a Roli Block and really enjoyed it, once I turned of that damned side-to-side element. I especially liked the liquid string and brass-like sounds.

 

I also noted that the config curve, even within many of the presets, is quite steep. You can climb it, but its a big sea change from the usual AGO keys. You'll have to have a focused mission to get the best from the instrument; it won't gel overnight. Even with semi-hated mini-keys, you at least have that known base to start from.

 

Its easy enough to see a Roli-X as a superior SIDE instrument, but even if you can rock it where people see your hands, our general cultural indoctrination won't let more than a few really understand what's what, even in a smart-phone world. That's why you'll never see this keyboard on a Nord.

[Jim Alfredson]

Limitation breeds creativity. The piano keyboard has certainly bred plenty of creativity.

 

The greatest invention of mankind is vaccines. Or indoor plumbing. Or the transistor. Maybe the new transistorized COVID-19 vaccine with nano-toilet by Bill Gates.

[Pashkuli]

Hello to all participants in this thread/discussion,

I am the designer/inventor of the keyboards you discuss here and also the creator of the Plain Notation System (Pashkuli).

 

First, let's make some clarifications:

· I am not an Italian (it does not matter where do I come from)

· I do not question/challenge the piano as an invention (quite remarkable work by Bartolomeo Cristofori), rather â its keyboard and the design of its keys in particular (please, read carefully my words before posting thread topics such as "the piano is the worst invention ever" or "why the piano sucks"!)

· I propose also a completely new keyboard, which surpasses the standard piano keyboard

· I propose a completely new Music Notation System, which also surpasses the standard score notation

 

Now, to understand the need to "reinvent the wheel", I advise you to check out the works of design engineers such as John Trotter, Paul von JankoÌ and August Theophile Dreschke (there have been much more but those are the most prominent in my opinion).

 

The keys are not too glossy, they are not so "round" as they might look at a first glance. Of course, if you are a 'swetty palm' person, then nothing much can be done to help and assist from playing sloppy and slippery.

 

Yes, Salvador DaliÌ is a nice painter, but his work has nothing to do with inspiring me to design the shape as they are. The intention and "inspiration" was purely functional and nothing else! What I, as a design engineer, abide to is "function through design".

 

Yes, it's got an aftertouch and it's got Ã4 polyphonic "pitch bend" functionality.

 

QWERTY analogy is inadequate... and I know it has not been intentional, but such an analogy might be perceived as quite arrogant as well. Why?

Technically, I have changed the design of the shape of the keys, regardless of what symbols or where you might stick or engrave to them!

Also, English alphabet is not the only one. Plus, in Germany they use QWERTZ standard, some other countries use mixed symbols from Latin alphabet and so on.

And as a side note: Yes, QWERTY is not the most optimal alphabetic keyboard layout to type (in English at least, quite possibly in any other Latin based language script)! Of course "optimal" in this case would be strictly language dependent, so any "standard" is subjected to regional preferences of typing words, phonetic transliteration and so on.

 

@ Tom Williams

Yes, the human hand (fingertips in a calm hand) is forming a simple spiral arc and each finger is a fractal extension of your arm. And that is an anatomical fact, like it or not.

Function through design. This is how Nature also works... just look at the animals, each one in its natural habitat. Nature, my friend, is the greatest designer (some would call it God and it is acceptable for me, anything else of that term is gibberish).

Please, look up to what I said about QWERTY and I hope this will improve your logic abilities.

Also, if you wish you could construct a custom layout of your own in that respect. Just do not be lazy, expecting some company (someone else) to do it for you. The trick is that you need a uniform shaped keys for your keyboard (if hardware) or a bit of knowledge for your specific software Operation System. (I've got 6 custom layouts, as I speak 4 languages).

[Pashkuli]

Here you can see the excerpt of the proposed Notation system and the old "reinventing of the wheel" designs.

 

Also, here is a link to the .pdf file of the above mentioned Plain Notation System (by Pashkuli):

 

Notation - excerpt in a .pdf format

[Pashkuli]

Here you can read how to design a decent keyboard instrument, the right way.

 

How to design a Music keyboard - explanation in a .pdf file

[Pashkuli]

And of course, here you can read the .pdf presentation I made an a witty and humorous way, to show what I've been working on...

 

Pashkuli - Presentation (keyboardss)

[Stokely]

The biggest problem with non-qwerty keyboards (which iirc was indeed made inefficient on purpose to slow typesetters down) is that any time you use another computer it's going to be set up with qwerty by default and changing it may be difficult or not allowed.

 

Some keyboardists would have that same issue, others would not.

 

Personally I like thinking outside the box, but then again I'm almost certainly among the least-trained pianists here and have less to lose ;-) It's not like playing something cool on a non-piano keyboard makes regular keyboards any worse. We've had quantized sequencing and arps for decades, AI-generated music is coming--not like anything you hear is necessarily what someone played as-is anyway....even live, considering all the tracks bands use.

[RandyFF]

Videos of playing the dali-esque keyboard, and a narrative of the advantages? Just looking at it it looks impossible to get your bearings.

[Nutball]

I have been open to seeing better versions of sheet music and keyboards. I think keys can be made more compact, closer together, and by using a similar curve as this new invention, make it easier to hit each key between the unnaturals while still having the keys closer. I enjoy messing around with my mini key Casio SA-46. I would like the black keys on it to get a bit shallower towards the back, and for the hinges to be a few inches behind where they are, then have such a keyboard in a 61 or more key version on a 3-4 manual organ. And maybe add in a slight curve to the boards to make it easier on the wrists when reaching to either end.

 

As for sweaty hands, how about natural finish wood keys or even textured with something: super thin velvet maybe?

[Tom Williams]

Upon a second review of the material, I admit I am a bit interested in the wiggly version, but not the modified Janko. Assuming the scale to be similar to (or with my little hands, a little smaller than) the standard 18-19mm key width, the former actually looks playable. Indeed, the concavity might add Z-axis aftertouch to the game. I'm always up for that!

 

@Pashkuli The problem is not that you have a new design. It's your use of math jargon that exceeds reality in your promotion. Add to that your making sure we know how bright you are, and the dismissal of several successful centuries of western music notation, and you should not be surprised that some of use are left mostly with an impression of narcissistic arrogance instead of a productive discussion about keyboard improvement.

[Pashkuli]

Videos are quite time consuming to make and I do not have a proper equipment to do it, unless you'd like to watch a shaky one hand demonstration with the other hand holding a smartphone.

Also, I am constantly improving the prototypes and trying to get to a small batch production test units to give to some experienced keyboard players (as I am not as such, as I play guitars and drums).

 

Any finish can be applied to the keys, not only wood or polished.

 

@Tom Williams

My design of the uniform keyboard has almost nothing in common to Janko's design. Unless you consider the rounded edges on the sides of the keys... and that's it. Nothing else in common.

My design of the uniform keyboard has quite a lot to do with the Dreschke's design. Of course mine is a great improvement as nowadays the state of the art in technology is much more advanced (electronics, sensors, plastics).

Math is how Nature can be described. Ok, it is actually Physics, using Math as a language. It is not a promotion, rather an explanation. I personaly do not care how many centuries a wrong/incorrect doings were executed over Music notation.

It involved the authority of the Church, which are infamous with their wrong explanation (especially back then).

I am simply offering new view on how those things came to be and what could be improved. No narcissism involved.

If you maybe refer to my sense of humour, it is a bit witty, I admit it.

[EricBarker]

The comment about different notes being different shapes reminds me of studying typography. Human brains respond best when there's variation. Our reading comprehension goes to hell if things are written all in upper case because characters being all the same height makes them less differentiated. I think key shapes are the same way. A chromatic piano where every key is the same shape would be a nightmare for the brain to latch onto where the hand is at any given time. The hexagonal piano posted would be similarly terrible.

 

We're quickly finding that with many fine-motor controls, once you get past a certain stage of practice, the brain latches on, and "improvements" don't matter. Typewriter keyboards have been studied to death, with many theories that different layouts (DVORAK) would improve typing speed. However, no study has ever found that to be the case. The fact is, none of these details are difficult for the brain and hands to get around once it gets a bit of practice. Most of the hangups aren't actually in fine motor control, but processing speed and focus.

[Pashkuli]

Yes, practice makes the whole improvement on memorisation.

 

The hexagonal shape is only at the base to make the plane complete and tight as much as possible. You won't need any different shape to get acquainted with the orientation. Yes, it might be... different at first... but practice makes improvements.

Considering the otherwise "impossible" benefits (extended chord shapes, symmetric/mirror shapes for minor, major chords in general, less up-Z movement needed to transpose... actually no re-fingering needed for transposing a song, slides, chromatics, extremely wide interval jumps and developing melody in the upper voice whilst still holding a chord with the same hand, etc.).

 

And after all... it is a completely new keyboard instrument. Should not be compared to any counterparts or uniform derivatives as the latter (at least those available such as Daskin, Chromatone, Dedeka, Terpstra) suffer from many design drawbacks...

Because their design is only geometrical and has not taken into consideration the actual anatomy of the human hand.

 

Below I have attached and image comparing the sizes in a 1:1 ratio between a Pianoforte keyboard and the Pashkuli keyboard.

· Pashkuli keyboard might be a challenge to construct as an acoustic instrument (because of its compact size), but not impossible... will be quieter though and less expensive for sure.

[CowboyNQ]

Pashkuli, I can't decide whether you're Aristarchus of Samos or Don Quixote (apologies Sven) however I do admire your passion and ability to make this thread entertaining!

[BluesKeys]

Can you transpose everything C

[Pashkuli]

@CowboyNQ, I am neither of both, although I have unhealthy amount of interest in Astronomy and Math... and I also happen to speak Spanish, so... should not be that difficult for you to decide now (of course I know what you mean).

Yes, keep in mind that by the same time those "alternative" keyboard ideas came into being (patented) another instrument got designed as well. I'm talking/writing about the saxophone, which shape usually in many logotypes of the word 'JAZZ' takes the place of the J letter and named after its designer Adolphe Sax around 1840, who was establishing his music instrument business and was quite notorious for his design improvements on other music instruments.

Despite his work, his new instrument was suspended by the Music Academy in his country and France, but after 45 years made its way into USA. Long time of incubation period indeed.

Now no one can imagine a nice juicy love song without a sax, jazz recital without it, big band without this instrument... a logo of the word Jazz here and there without a stylised saxophone to represent the letter J. That is how life works.

 

I do not expect my ideas to find fruitful soil today. Maybe after 50 or so years, although nowadays we have the information tech. to support presenting anywhere around the world online. That is how I found this forum yesterday!

 

@BluesKeys,

you play everything C like you would play it if it originally had been written in Db... or C# (use of Db is more convenient, because it will have less "accidentals" on the clumsy and ambiguous standard score)

[cp-the-nerd]

Videos are quite time consuming to make and I do not have a proper equipment to do it, unless you'd like to watch a shaky one hand demonstration with the other hand holding a smartphone.

 

Bro, do you not have even one friend willing to hold a smartphone steady while you play or do a short demo? Youtube accounts are free and easy to use. Hell, I have even used a $10 suction cup mount meant to hold a phone up on a car windshield. If you really want to get people interested in your design, video is an absolute must-have.

 

Thanks for joining the forum to have a conversation with us about it, though.

[Pashkuli]

@cp-the-nerd,

yes, I do have an Yotube channel. i guess it was obvious (see some of the earliest posts here in the thread), also you can type in YouTube: pashkuli keyboard

that would be me as well.

Yes, I have mounted a steady hanging frame for my phone (birdeye view, from top)... but as i said... I am not a decent, actually I am below average keyboard player.

This is a new instrument and I am still learning it. I bet you would not like to watch me repeat scales for two hours or banging chords.

Trying to learn songs, some classical pieces. Takes time.

 

No, I moved to a different country because of my work, so technically I am on my own for the time being.

[cp-the-nerd]

You seem to be an eccentric guy with an eccentric passion project.

 

Do you have a Pashkuli keyboard with conventional A-G notes on it to help people better visualize the utility of the compact design? Otherwise, I just look at the keyboard and the arrangement is lost on me because you only use your custom notation. That's like writing a book that you believe will revolutionize literature, but you also wrote it in your own language.