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The piano is the worst invention ever. Discuss.


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I was thinking of laser engraving some of the keytops with the standard notation "A-G with 'black keys' marks" (because the keytops are actually removable, hence subjected to be customisable), but I could not use any more time on the laser engraver, so I left it for next time I could have my hands on such a machine. The problem is my keytops are dome shaped so the laser engraver must be setup properly for the job, etc. with some initial test iterations.

 

So for now it is only custom annotation.

 

I am trying to create a software application to translate normal/standard midi files from and to my Plain Notation System (or Pashkuli Notation System), PNS for short.

In essence it is like a heavily modified TAB (as for guitars and fretted string instruments), if you have seen the .pdf excerpt of the aforementioned notation (PNS) earlier in this thread.

So I am using a source-code from 'PowerTAB 2.0 (alpha)' to try and modify it, although I have never coded in my life before. Time to learn new skill, I guess.

 

If I succeed (any help would be much appreciated), then learning the PNS would become much more accessible and available of course online and as a user customisable Music notation, such that every user can use their own alphabet symbols for noteheads.

Translation would be a matter of just opening the file and choosing an option. English (Latin letters) are really not that great for singing (neither is the original solfege system with its church psalm based syllables for the white keys).

 

Music nomenclature/notation really needs an update. It is old... weak and needs assistance or uplift.

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I'm going to get doubly-nerdy here for a second, let's talk about video game controllers. I'm not sure how many people here are gamers, but this discussion reminded me of something in the world of game console controllers. My favorite game controller was the one developed for Nintendo GameCube because every button is shaped differently. The industrials designers did a study and found that by making every button a different shape and size, it lead to less accidental button presses. With conventional controllers, you have 4 buttons and 4 shoulder buttons, each of which are the same shape and size. With the buttons laid out in the standard "+" pattern, the brain will occasionally hit "left" when it means "right", or "top" when it mean to press "left" (both longer reaches for the thumb), which are have neurological similarities. Even after thousands of hours, identically shaped buttons will lead to miss-fires. The GameCube used two round buttons of different sizes, and then two "jelly bean"-shaped buttons, which are rotated by 90deg from each other, so they feel like different shapes to the thumb. The two levels of shoulder buttons are fundamentally different shapes. I could tell when playing that my brain was making much more immediate tactile connections between a button and the action it performs.

 

Drawing a parallel to piano keys: visually, the piano key layout with its zebra striped 2-3 pattern of black keys is helpful, and to some degree, the white keys have subtly different shapes that can aid in mental connections. The black keys lack tactile distinction, but their 2-3 groupings provide each note with some distinction in relative position. I have a keyboard accordion with bass keys, and it's been fantastically hard to remember and keep my hand position over the uniform grid of bass buttons. I've almost given up on the instrument multiple times, because there's just nothing for my brain to latch onto. Conversely, I picked up the Ukulele over the past few months after NEVER having played a chord-based string instrument in my life, and I found myself learning chord shapes extremely quickly.

 

So in closing, I'm a strong proponent of instruments where their notes provide some immediate tactile delineation, I believe it builds much more solid neurological connections with less chance of ambiguity when playing. Even for advanced players, sometimes that beginner ambiguity comes back to haunt us when playing complex passages where our "lizard brains" are practically having to take over.

Puck Funk! :)

 

Equipment: Laptop running lots of nerdy software, some keyboards, noise makersâ¦yada yada yadaâ¦maybe a cat?

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It is the size and the shape... not the uniform layout that can be quite cumbersome to master the bass buttons in an accordion. Some are concave (sometimes different in colour) actually as I remember, giving some tactile orientation and differentiation to the convex bass buttons.

 

Game controllers have almost nothing in common to piano keyboards or music keyboards, so I am afraid I do not quite understand the analogy. Also I use PC to play games, so I am pretty much used to use standard uniform PC keyboard by default.

I may unintentionally hit another button, but that is because of being distracted or quickly having a snack mid action of the game.

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I"m a little surprised that you don"t understand the direct parallel between game controllers and musical instruments. The very fact we refer to them as 'controllers' should be enough to take note. All of this gets back to having a tactile action that performs a function. On an instrument, that"s a note (or chord in some cases), on a game that"s a particular action. Be it a sound or an 'attack', the brain is creating neurological connections between what it wants to do, and how it tells the fingers to move. The fact that one is an instrument, and the other a toy isn"t very relivsnt, the neorlogical process is the same. When discussing the hangups in tactile missfires, they both are confronted with some of the very same problems.

Puck Funk! :)

 

Equipment: Laptop running lots of nerdy software, some keyboards, noise makersâ¦yada yada yadaâ¦maybe a cat?

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Not quite that common only because we would use the term "controller". Most music instruments are not controllers, including keyboard ones.

A game controller should be comparable to a controller such as "guitar hero" or alike. The way a game controller and a music keyboard controller are used is totally different.

Hence the shape needed to execute an action. Maybe comparing the game controller to a dial pad or button panel with a pad wheel (on a music keyboard/controller) would be more suitable and not to the actual music keyboard and its design (keys to play).

 

I really can not see the connection/analogy you give.

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Ok, let me try. The parallel I see is in the idea of having different tactile surfaces for different functions, which that specific game controller does have, and how those work with the brain for learning.

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Control the game, control the instrument. Maybe interface would be a better term for both. I have very very mild synesthesia, so my brain assigns colors to each key, the colors match the colors my brain has linked to the letters of those notes. I don't know if this extra detail of differentiation helps me or not, but keyboards do have 2 colors, harps have 4. The visual queues are there, but tactile key identifiers could help. Accordions use them, but they only have 2 or so textured buttons per 60. It would really help me play an accordion if I could feel what bass note I'm touching.
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I dunno what most accordions have, but my 60s Italian accordion only has the C button concave... just the one button. Everything else is convex and identical. Thanks for Nutball for re-explaining my point better than I did! :)

Puck Funk! :)

 

Equipment: Laptop running lots of nerdy software, some keyboards, noise makersâ¦yada yada yadaâ¦maybe a cat?

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Also, I am....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).

 

This one sort of slipped through highly polished, Dali-like hockey stick of the goalie.

 

A guitar player who doesn't like notation? Unheard of!

 

This does explain why you seem to be "solving" problems we don't really have, as keyboard players. There are aspects of the design of the keyboard that make the apprehension of theory a little sloggy for beginners. But those are not the playing challenges.

 

Just curious: why did you start with an instrument you don't play? Why not redesign guitars or drums, whose quirks and requirements would be known to you?

Now out! "Mind the Gap," a 24-song album of new material.
www.joshweinstein.com

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At the moment I am focused on developing the software for the notation.

Long story short, when I was 14 I was studying drums. My teacher wanted me to start with jazz/latin beats right away, when I showed how can I play rock beats (learning from the TV, concerts and beats off of CDs).

The teacher told me I should go to a Music school and the admission process would be a breeze for me.

The problem was they had some piano solfege component in the exams, so I had to at least get some basic knowledge on the piano and score. I had seen a piano only on TV, concerts, never got my hands one one.

I found an old full sized keyboard from the 70s, fixed it as some keys were dead (basic faulty soldering or rusty broken connectivity).

 

I tried to learn it... and I tried... As my personality is quite witty and explorative, I started to dig deeper into a research about the design of the piano keyboard, the score...

When I found out how ridiculous and even stupid it was... I had to do something.

 

I had no time to waste learning something I thought is sluggish, broken, ambiguous. So I did not go to a Music school, rather Language/Math/Physics school. Around mid 2005 all the concept for the aforementioned keyboards and notation were pretty much done.

But I had to put them in the cupboard, because of uni, work, family.

 

More info regarding the motivation is in this thread:

 

Pashkuli is trying to develop a Notation Software

Pashkuli keyboards: keyboards for players
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I"m a little surprised that you don"t understand the direct parallel between game controllers and musical instruments. The very fact we refer to them as 'controllers' should be enough to take note. All of this gets back to having a tactile action that performs a function. On an instrument, that"s a note (or chord in some cases), on a game that"s a particular action. Be it a sound or an 'attack', the brain is creating neurological connections between what it wants to do, and how it tells the fingers to move. The fact that one is an instrument, and the other a toy isn"t very relivsnt, the neorlogical process is the same. When discussing the hangups in tactile missfires, they both are confronted with some of the very same problems.
+1. I remember a comment from years on this board: the way to win at Guitar Hero or Rock Band is to route the visual input through "the part of your brain used to sight-read music"

 

Cheers, Mike.

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At the moment I am focused on developing the software for the notation.

Long story short, when I was 14 I was studying drums. My teacher wanted me to start with jazz/latin beats right away, when I showed how can I play rock beats (learning from the TV, concerts and beats off of CDs).

The teacher told me I should go to a Music school and the admission process would be a breeze for me.

The problem was they had some piano solfege component in the exams, so I had to at least get some basic knowledge on the piano and score. I had seen a piano only on TV, concerts, never got my hands one one.

I found an old full sized keyboard from the 70s, fixed it as some keys were dead (basic faulty soldering or rusty broken connectivity).

 

I tried to learn it... and I tried... As my personality is quite witty and explorative, I started to dig deeper into a research about the design of the piano keyboard, the score...

When I found out how ridiculous and even stupid it was... I had to do something.

 

I had no time to waste learning something I thought is sluggish, broken, ambiguous. So I did not go to a Music school, rather Language/Math/Physics school. Around mid 2005 all the concept for the aforementioned keyboards and notation were pretty much done.

But I had to put them in the cupboard, because of uni, work, family.

 

More info regarding the motivation is in this thread:

 

Pashkuli is trying to develop a Notation Software

 

I had to read that a couple of times.

 

What happened was, you were required to learn some basic piano, could not, and decided it was because of the piano itself. When you couldn't get in to music school, you instead decided to try to "fix" the design of an instrument you yourself never learned to play. Aside from my direct language about it, is that roughly accurate?

 

There are a host of obscurities written in to our current harmonic system and piano keyboard layout. I am no defender of the status quo, nor even of the piano's stubborn adherence to outdated harmonic agreements. But you have to know the instrument and the customs, to make useful proposals for changing them.

 

It sounds to me like you never completed that basic first step, before deciding the second one was necessary.

 

I applaud your resourcefulness and would be open to trying your arbitrarily Dali-esque keyboard. But IMO you might consider taking some time to first master the instrument and the language, before endeavoring to "fix" parts of it that those who do play it, might not consider broken, and might only have seemed broken to you because you just didn't learn them.

Now out! "Mind the Gap," a 24-song album of new material.
www.joshweinstein.com

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I'm going to get doubly-nerdy . . . My favorite game controller was the one developed for Nintendo GameCube because every button is shaped differently. The industrials designers did a study and found that by making every button a different shape and size, it lead to less accidental button presses. With conventional controllers, you have 4 buttons and 4 shoulder buttons, each of which are the same shape and size. With the buttons laid out in the standard "+" pattern, the brain will occasionally hit "left" when it means "right", or "top" when it mean to press "left" (both longer reaches for the thumb), which are have neurological similarities. Even after thousands of hours, identically shaped buttons will lead to miss-fires. The GameCube used two round buttons of different sizes, and then two "jelly bean"-shaped buttons, which are rotated by 90deg from each other, so they feel like different shapes to the thumb. The two levels of shoulder buttons are fundamentally different shapes. I could tell when playing that my brain was making much more immediate tactile connections between a button and the action it performs.
I've never thought about this, but this explains why I have so much more trouble with pressing the wrong button on a Super Nintendo than a Gamecube, even though both fell outside my prime childhood video gaming period and I've probably played both systems a similar amount in the years since (if anything, I've played the SNES more).

 

I was hoping to tie this comment back into music but really I just wanted to talk about Nintendo. :roll:

Samuel B. Lupowitz

Musician. Songwriter. Food Enthusiast. Bad Pun Aficionado.

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I had to read that a couple of times.

 

What happened was, you were required to learn some basic piano, could not, and decided it was because of the piano itself. When you couldn't get in to music school, you instead decided to try to "fix" the design of an instrument you yourself never learned to play. Aside from my direct language about it, is that roughly accurate?

 

But IMO you might consider taking some time to first master the instrument and the language, before endeavouring to "fix" parts of it that those who do play it, might not consider broken, and might only have seemed broken to you because you just didn't learn them.

 

No, maybe I was being too brief, so here is the chronology:

I had a passion for drums since I was 8. Also I liked guitars (because of flamenco music, which is... well quite percussive too).

At around the age of 13~14 I had the opportunity to take lessons at the local theatre (Music school as well) as my drum teacher happened to live right on the next street. I began officially studying drums with rhythm notation.

I never attended the admission exam at the Music school. Not because I could not learn the piano and to read the standard notation (at least on a basic level). I am quite fast learner (confirmed by my drum teacher).

I just could not see myself having to waste my time in a Music school where piano was a part of the solfege classes and standard notation was... well, pretty much everywhere!

 

So I completely abandoned the idea of my drum teacher to continue my education at a Music school instead of Language school and Natural Science. It was never my intention to get myself educated in a Music school (my drum teacher suggested it).

 

When I started to ask my question to some of the other music teachers (solfege, piano, music history), they were thinking I was joking by trying to "reinvent the wheel", which they have been riding for decades and built careers riding it.

 

So after the summer I went to the Language and Science school and continued my occupation with music as a completely side thing (just for fun) and never dug up my ideas again.... until I finished uni around 2005.

By 2007 I had done all of the designs in a modern form, as a proper projects, not simply ideas to discuss. Older people (especially those with Music as a main occupation) find the ideas arrogant and cheeky, a waste of time.

Kids on the other hand love them.

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Another vote here for game cube, it was great. I was lost when it came to playstation.

 

But on another note...I just tied this back to music :)

 

 

Older people (especially those with Music as a main occupation) find the ideas arrogant and cheeky, a waste of time.

Kids on the other hand love them.

 

That's often the case with most things. Habits and such.

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@ Pashkuli,

It's telling that you were using a broken down keyboard you had to fix, not a proper piano. Part of the joy of playing the piano is playing a real acoustic piano. A good one with a big full sound and a well regulated action can be a delight to play. Esp from a grand piano, the sound is very immediate and immersive, full of nuance and dynamic expression. As a 12 year old I remember feeling great passion while playing some of the grand classical pieces I had learned. And now that is the measure of a keyboard for me, if I have a 'pianistic' experience, something that even some digital pianos can deliver, for me.

And if you'd had a teacher that inspired you, shows you with their playing what's possible, I suspect you would have taken more interest in the piano in its current form.

 

So, if you can't/won't supply a video demonstration of your keybed being played, please give a description of what it's like to play, what distinguishes it from a regular piano. What kind of player would choose your keybed? A beginner, cause it's easier to learn and relate to? A pro player, whether jazz or classical, because it's more expressive?

 

I've often been jealous of guitars because the piano is always one step removed, you're pushing a key which strikes the string, whereas the guitarist has their hands on the strings, and can therefore coax more expression from them. But the pianos, with its 10 independent notes and its linearity, laying the scale out before you, also has some compelling advantages. I'd be very interested in your new keybed if it gave you more expressive control of the sound. There are a number of new boards out that allow for pitch and vibrato from every key. And I would guess you have no idea if it made it easier to play complex pieces, 'cause you're hardly trained and don't have a point of reference.

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@ Pashkuli,

It's telling that you were using a broken down keyboard you had to fix, not a proper piano. Part of the joy of playing the piano is playing a real acoustic piano. A good one with a big full sound and a well regulated action can be a delight to play. Esp from a grand piano, the sound is very immediate and immersive, full of nuance and dynamic expression.

 

I've often been jealous of guitars because the piano is always one step removed, you're pushing a key which strikes the string, whereas the guitarist has their hands on the strings, and can therefore coax more expression from them. But the pianos, with its 10 independent notes and its linearity, laying the scale out before you, also has some compelling advantages.

Very well put, Randy

 

Thank you to OP, for a stimulating post. More power to you. Make the tool you dream of.

 

It dawned on me: I've been playing one interface, keyboards and AP, badly for 30 years, on and off, why not branch out a bit before I catch the covid? Pulled out the old clarinet. A violin, acoustic and electric guitars arrived. It is very invigorating. I collected and inhertited a bunch of sheet music (which has always been my crutch), and there is alot of folk revival material which I have always loved. I was about 5 when it first starting coming over the radios.

 

Anyway, I'm playing Shady Grove, etc, rudimentarly on all of them LOL Trying to be careful not to injure myself. Tonite a cello arrived.

 

My notation bandwidth is occpuied with stumbling thorugh simple piano arrangements right now. I love the imagination of your interface ideas. Kubrickesqe.

 

Intraface you, vant interesting interface: Look here:

[video:youtube]

 

I had never seen one till tonite! I want to see the "tenor" version of that thing. The register is off the hook. Gut frets. All you need is a goat, you got strings and frets. Future proof.

 

What else we need is osmose articulaton ehancements in our familiar black and white format, applied to acoustics in a smaller form, like the clavichord, with modern materials and design capabilites. Something that does not need electricity.

 

Just in case......

 

PS The surprise new fun machine is my $120 Strat. I changed to the super light strings they came with back in the day. Plug it into my virus TI, which is killer amp. I never imagined it would be so much more friendly than the acoustics.

 

Other thing about guitars. You can play them in bed. Rode hard, put up wet, I literally need to get off my feet at times. I'm not sure I can play the cello in bed, but:

[video:youtube]

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Natal drums/congas etc & misc bowed/plucked/blown instruments. 

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@RandyFF

The piano as an instrument is irrelevant. I am challenging its keyboard design, the design of its keys... not the hammer action, keybed, velocity weight, etc.

 

My old synth was full sized and had some weight action. I only fixed some faulty soldering on the PBC board and replaced some of the resistors (got rusty and such). oh, and I changed he lead cable as it was broken too.

This old synth actually made me interested in the design of the keys, keybed, layout, etc.

I went to the local library (home Internet was pretty much a luxury back then) and found books and articles online about the piano, the standard notation... I learned everything I wanted to know to try and design one myself... well, actually two. Also my compact Music Notation followed up a bit later.

Next 10 or so years till 2007 I showed up my concepts to many players my age and older... most of them making fun of the shapes, sarcastic remarks that I can not even use my both hands to play a piano song for children, yet I have the audacity to criticise the piano keyboard played by Bach through Mozart, to Debussy, Duke Ellington till modern heroes such as Ray Charles, Herbie Hancock, Keith Emerson and Jordan Rudess.

Also to dismiss 600+ years of standard notation, developed by the Church and part of the education curriculum in every school around the world.

 

The thing is, I know what I am doing (have done so far)... and most importantly why I dare to do it.

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Pashkuli keyboards: keyboards for players
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@RandyFF

The piano as an instrument is irrelevant. I am challenging its keyboard design, the design of its keys... not the hammer action, keybed, velocity weight, etc.

 

My old synth was full sized and had some weight action.

 

If you ignore the design of the piano, and more importantly, organ, you can't understand the keyboard. "The piano is the worst invention ever!" No, you mean: "The Keyboard is the worst instrument interface, ever". If that was true you would not own any. The keyboard is over 2000 years old. It survived the dark ages. A shrill critique is unlikely to take it down, LOL Nero was likely playing his water organ on one while Rome burned.

 

You are starting in the electronic age. It's full of varied MIDI controlers, and nothing stops you from designing a new one.

 

"I have the audacity to criticise the piano keyboard played by Bach through Mozart, to Debussy, Duke Ellington till modern heroes such as Ray Charles, Herbie Hancock, Keith Emerson and Jordan Rudess"

 

Perhaps instead of tearing down the past and inciting dismay, which every rebel since the stone age has done to some degree, it's simpler, less distracting, and more productive to just make something good. Does your invention require we all stop playing keyboards?

 

Your emotional attutude is not unusual. Witness the contempt for "organs" in the synth community.

 

"Why are we doing it wrong?" Pretty evident "we" are doing many "wrong" things in many fields. It was ever thus, I fear.

 

What caused the invention of the bicycle?

"Drais built his machine in response to a very serious problem â a dearth of real horses. In 1815, Mount Tambora, in Indonesia, erupted and the ash cloud dispersed around the world a lowered global temperatures. Crops failed and animals, including horses, died of starvation, according to Smithsonian magazine"

 

When the horses die off....

Ahh, now I see why it's so important to you that we destroy the keyboards.

 

They are alot tougher than horses, so good luck.

RT-3/U-121/Leslie 21H and 760/Saltarelle Nuage/MOXF6/MIDIhub, 

SL-880/Nektar T4/Numa Cx2/Deepmind12/Virus TI 61/SL61 mk2

Stylophone R8/Behringer RD-8/Proteus 1/MP-7/Zynthian 4

MPC1k/JV1010/Unitor 8/Model D & 2600/WX-5&7/VL70m/DMP-18 Pedals

Natal drums/congas etc & misc bowed/plucked/blown instruments. 

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@uhoh7

Incorrect.

I completely understand the keyboard (not only the piano one): the standard "black'n'white" keyboard it is a triple special case.

 

I have redesigned the same so called standard piano keyboard as shown above in the attached images.

It is better than the 2000 old """keyboard""" (pianoforte is not that old). The organs did not have a keyboard until the beginning of the 2nd millennium. They were using levers and buttons to open/close pipes.

Also as a special case in the past it did not have the "black keys" only "naturals" (actually diatonic to the so called "church modes"). The "black pentatonic" keys were added later (although the Pythagorean tuning had existed for millennia and a half by that time!!!), which makes it even more ridiculous, as they (all the 12 keys) can not be equally spaced (and they are not).

 

Yes, the "standard" piano keyboard, I repeat, the keyboard (its keys), are probably the most lazy job done to make a full range instrument (technically the keyboard instrument is a harp in horizontal position, with tripled or duplicated strings for bigger sound).

 

Yes, I have designed completely new keyboard (as a modern day synth), that allows you to play 'impossible before' wide chords, chords with simultaneous voicing, tremolo while still holding a chords, reduced size ("octave" span), etc.

 

Also, a simplified music notation system, reduced in size, unambiguous, translatable/customisable, etc.

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Pashkuli keyboards: keyboards for players
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Again, I applaud your ingenuity and your ambition.

 

You keep leaving one piece out of the "simplified" notation system: no matter how "simple" a language is, it's still infinitely hard compared to someone's first language, which they already know. You're not VHS vs. Beta, where two formats enter and one format wins. You're a second language in a world where the first language is so well-entrenched as to be familiar on sight even to people who have never played an instrument. Further, any time or work that someone spends learning your second language, has no return down the line, since they will be the only one speaking that language. That means that someone who learns your language, would still have to go off and learn the original, much more contrived one down the line, and much later than their peers. As a result, learning yours ends up being harder, not easier, at almost every stage.

 

It's a commendable intellectual endeavor, but it doesn't "simplify."

 

Here's an analogy that I think is pretty close. I knew a piano teacher who taught how to make chords by counting half steps. So a major triad in root position would be "1-5-8," since it was the first note of the scale, then the 5th half-step up, then the 8th half-step up. In a way, this is fool-proof. With very little trouble you can build any major and minor chord, with any root. It also really hammers home the distinction between major and minor triads, since you can see that the only difference between 1-5-8 and 1-4-8 is the middle number/note. So it works for teaching anyone to build a chord. But of course, the problem is, there is already a numerical system for describing how you build a major triad in root position--the 1, 3, and 5 of the scale. So instead of simplifying and making chord-building fool-proof, instead it introduced a "second" language that was at odds with the first one. The teacher's students were not set up for success. In fact, they were essentially sabotaged, though in a well-meaning and initially (though superficially) effective way.

 

The same is true for the keyboard design. I'd try it out and would be curious to see what's possible with it. But it's not a redesign of a piano. It's a new interface using some of the customs of the existing one. That's commendable and sign me up to be a beta-tester. But I wouldn't call it any kind of "improvement" of a piano. It's sort of, "piano-adjacent." I do think the piano could survive some design modifications. For one thing I think the keybed should arc slightly around the player, to avoid shoulder strain and wrist compression. I also think a slight "fall-off" in each direction, again accounting for the physiology of the shoulder and elbow, would be nice. And I don't see the problem in offering versions with smaller or larger keys, according to players' hand sizes and comfort.

 

But those are organic to the instrument and the challenges and realities of playing it. An interface that just sort of adopts but redefines the 2-3 pattern, is curious and cute, but isn't really solving a problem. It might prompt new types of music and approaches, and for that reason I'd be curious to try it. But it's not "solving" anything.

 

All MHO, not worth a thing in the long run.

Now out! "Mind the Gap," a 24-song album of new material.
www.joshweinstein.com

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Again, I applaud your ingenuity and your ambition.

All MHO, not worth a thing in the long run.

 

 

@MathOfInsects,

Analogies with VHS vs Beta are inadequate. I am not a company fighting against another company market products. I am just a hobby guy in his shed with two prototypes... and they have no application to... the porn industry.

 

Also, I am here to point out the wrong basis (teachings) not only with regards to the design of the piano keyboard (its keys in particular), but also the Notation System.

Your teacher was on the right track but at the wrong starting position... quite literally at the wrong starting position (regarding intervals). Why? It is explained in the .pdf attached in my earlier posts regarding PNS.

 

Makes me think how people such as Bruno, Copernicus, Kepler, Galilei must have felt like when trying to explain their views and findings to the inquisitive Church authorities. Heck, some of them were even imprisoned and killed.

Never said it was going to be easy... it might take 50 years even with today's info technologies... and it is only me at the moment.

 

I know what you mean by suggesting new keybeds... those failures have already been tried. Please, see the attached image.

On my keyboards you really do not need any such 'special case' arcs of the bed. Because of the shape/size of the keys... such arc really does not matter (problem solved!). And of course my redesign of the piano has several improvements over the flat (standard) one.

 

It is worth everything! :wave:

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Pashkuli keyboards: keyboards for players
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Your picture suggests it is only one in a series in which the missing images explain why those shown keyboards were failures. I'm not convinced that some curve in a keyboard is bad or unnecessary. It hurts my wrists and limits my finger span when reaching to a far end of a keyboard when I can't change my body's position to get me closer.
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Pashkuli,

Please re-read my post and question. Am really curious who you would recommend your keyboard to, what advantages it has to offer. With no video demonstration I would hope you would at least give us a verbal description of what it does better than a traditional keyboard. Another way of asking this question, what inspired the unusual design of the keys, what were you hoping to achieve?

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@Nutball

Curved bed does not solve the problem. Curved keys... well, that is how this problem should be approached. And I have solved it. Twofold.

 

 

@RandyFF

I would recommend the re-design of the standard piano keyboard to all standard piano keyboard players.

I would recommend the Pashkuli keyboard (uniform) to all young keyboard players (age 10 to 20 upper range 25 max.; for older players it will be a pain to rearrange their view)

The keyboards themselves do not do anything better... They only allow the players to perform better, do things in a better, more efficient way, heck even perform 'impossible before' things.

 

The shapes of the keys, the design of the keyboards... they all have been inspired by the human hand, Nature, and functionality with regards to performance on such keyboard instruments.

I hope to achieve some recognition and at least popularise those ideas I have on a small batch production scale. Just to let players know that there is a better solution, better way.

Yes, not on the market, not something that each one of them can put their hands onto... for the time being, but at least to know it has been made already.

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Hi Pashkuli,

 

Congratulations on your inventions. The keyboard looks interesting. It is always fascinating to see an alternative approach to anything which we take for granted. I would love to try it out one day.

 

The new notation system has, I believe, some fatal flaws which you may be unaware of. You seem to be approaching notation from a standpoint of having not found it easy to learn or particularly user friendly. I believe it is fair to say that it is indeed not particularly quick to learn, but once understood then it becomes not only user friendly, but also extremely beautiful in the way in which all aspects of it fit perfectly together. However, that is something which needs to be experienced rathter than discussed, so we need not delve into it.

 

What we can delve into, however, is that in your eagerness to make notation more simple, you have sacrificed some of its most important features. These are - funnily enough - ease of reading (legibility), and ease of playing. I could summarise them, in fact, as 'simplicity'.

 

Once the hard labour of learning the language of conventional written music has been completed, a musician can pick up a score and know at a glance what style of music it is; roughly what it will sound like; how difficult it is likely to be to play, and hundreds of other things. Some very experienced musicians will be able to silently 'read' the music and perhaps hear it play in their heads.

 

Looking at your score for Fur Elise, the first thing that occurred to me was that extremely good eyesight would be required. All of those nearly identical symbols! Good lighting, clear eyes and time to make out each symbol would be essential. In conventional notation it is possible for an experienced pianst to sightread a complex score involving lots of simultaneous notes at a fast pace. This is possible because standard notation is so very easy to read (once you know how). It looks like how it sounds. If the notes go up, the pitch goes up. So a pianist would be looking at not only the individual notes but also at the patterns and shapes created by them and between them. He would be further assisted by the key signature, which filters the notes down to seven main ones. If any of the other five are to be used then they come with an extremely visible 'red flag' known as an accidental (a sharp, flat or natural). This all serves to allow a pianist to use a combination of reading of notes, combined with looking at shapes (when the notes are going by too quickly to read) and noting the red flags (to hopefully avoid huge clams...)

 

But your system puts equal weight on all 12 notes, so the pianist is not given the assistance which he recieved from conventional notation. There is nothing to distinguish scale notes from non-scale notes. Worse still, they look incredibly similar (particularly in bad light or to tired eyes ...) And worst of all: you have notes of different pitch residing on the same horizontal lines with nothing to tell them apart other than their tiny symbols. I am confident that, if we took a hypothetical sample of competent pianists who knew both systems of notation (and who had never heard nor played Fur Elise ...), they would all be able to manage it in conventional notation with very few mistakes. I am equally confident that they would struggle to play it from your notation and it would be riddled with mistakes. Those first 5 notes all look nearly the same!

 

Anyways, sorry to be a bit negative about something which you have clearly put a lot of work into, but I truly think that your new system - as it stands - will make it more difficult for musicians to read music, not easier. But good luck with all of your inventions. It is very impressive to hear such innovative ideas. :)

"Turn your fingers into a dust rag and keep them keys clean!" ;) Bluzeyone
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@xKnuckles

Yes, the PNS (music notation) is actually the biggest challenge in terms of acceptance to happen.

I have seen lots of people having tough times to guess what notes are in a chord from a standard notation (especially "jazzy chords" with close to each other intervals). But they just find them by habit... and logic.

Speaking of a habit...

 

You seem to be approaching notation from a standpoint of having not found it easy to learn or particularly user friendly.

No. I learnt the basics of standard music notation by the age of 16, 'cause most of my friends with whom I played had taken official music lessons and they had to use it. So I had to do it too.

PNS came a bit later, when I graduated high school and began studying Design Engineering, which had a side classes of Graphic Design and Art (although I am nowhere near an artist, painter or calligraphy master).

The fact is no one of my friends (some of which musicians) liked the solfege classes and having to learn the standard music notation. But they had to as the authority (incl. their parents) required them to do so.

 

Please, keep in mind that you have not spent at least half of the time practicing PNS, you have spent on a standard ("church") notation. If you have spent let's say 5 years on the 'standard', then at least 2.5 years on PNS should be desireable. Every comparison in that regard (practice) would be inadequate. Same applies to learning to play a music instrument or a language, game, etc.

Unfortunately, for the time being you should be practicing on your own, as I am trying on my own to learn how to code in order to provide at least a basic software app for my notation. And I just started to learn how to code a couple of days ago. So it might take time, as I work on my own (no budget to pay a skilful developer).

 

It looks like how it sounds

If the notes go up, the pitch goes up.

Of course it does not! The only music "notation" that "looks how the music actually sounds" is the so called MIDI-roll and its predecessors such as Klavarscribo. The downside is... they take huge space.

Regarding pitch... well, standard notation uses 8va, 15va as well, so technically it depends. For a general movement of pitch - yes. It is somehow informative to a certain extent (see previous sentence).

In PNS pitch is defined by shape and position on rows (with a chosen note as root/clef = row separator = renova 'octave' separator). Completely new concept, I do agree. Takes practice and time.

 

There is nothing to distinguish scale notes from non-scale notes.

There are so many scales, major and minor are only generalised tonalities anyway.

 

Regarding a pianist who would know both systems... I do not know which one would seem a better tool for a new side read composition. I tend to think it will be my system. Because the pianist will immediately know which key is where and how they will "light up" in their brain. It is instantaneous. Hardly ever would a clef note be needed actually. They will figure out the basic scale structures just by a looking at a few of the notes in a bar.

 

For more information, please read my arguments in this thread (quite funny thread):

Music Notation comparison

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Pashkuli keyboards: keyboards for players
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OK, Copernicus. You are a non-keyboard-playing, non-notation-reading developer asking for input from the people you'd be selling your device and notation system to, and roundly rejecting every bit of input. I wish you luck, and once again would be happy to be a beta-tester for your controller, should it see the light of day. Best to you.

Now out! "Mind the Gap," a 24-song album of new material.
www.joshweinstein.com

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OK, Copernicus. You are a non-keyboard-playing, non-notation-reading developer asking for input from the people you'd be selling your device and notation system to, and roundly rejecting every bit of input. I wish you luck, and once again would be happy to be a beta-tester for your controller, should it see the light of day. Best to you.

What input?

At the moment I need someone good enough in coding to help me release PNS as a basic software app (web-based, desktop, mobile, any would be sufucuent). Can not pay and to be honest a payment would make things more complicated (demanding and strict). It is supposed to be customisable.

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