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Piano Keys

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Re: Piano Keys

#21

Post by ofalkaed »

brudgers wrote: post #18
moefh wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean equal-tempered? I never heard someone describe a tuning system as "untempered", but I guess it would mean something like just intonation -- which sounds really great for playing anything in a specific key but falls horribly apart if you try to change the key (which is why it has seen very little use since the renaissance).

An untempered instrument would be one that is tuned to maintain the perfect intervals of a specific root tone. Temperament is adjusting tuning for musical practicality. 12 TET is simply one set of compromises/benefits in a constellation of alternatives. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_temperament

Thank you for offering something clearer than the mess I made. Been 25 years since I studied this stuff and finally learned to just accept (and love) the modern standard.

Re: Piano Keys

#22

Post by ncake »

ajuc wrote: post #4

I never understood why the piano keyboard isn't regular. It forces players to remember different positions for the same chord transposed to start at different notes. Like why do I have to remember the shape for C major and D major chords? It should be the same shape just starting at C vs D. It's not even that hard to fix. There's 12 semitones in an octave. Just make it 6 white 6 black keys.

Same. I recently tried to find a MIDI keyboard like that for sale and got nothing. Apparently this is what it's called:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodeka_keyboard

Re: Piano Keys

#23

Post by madaxe_again »

o11c wrote: post #3
bruce343434 wrote: post #2

On my (accoustic) piano, the black keys are just as wide as the back ends of the white keys. This is achieved by shifting the position of the black keys a bit, instead of centering them right between the white keys.

Same, but I had to look. I wonder how badly this affects muscle memory?

In my experience, you fumble for a minute and then you adapt. I had a Young Chang that followed this model, and a Yamaha at school that didn’t.

Re: Piano Keys

#24

Post by moefh »

ofalkaed wrote: post #16
moefh wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean equal-tempered? I never heard someone describe a tuning system as "untempered", but I guess it would mean something like just intonation -- which sounds really great for playing anything in a specific key but falls horribly apart if you try to change the key (which is why it has seen very little use since the renaissance).

Equally divided octave (EDO) with no tempering which is distinct from Equal temperament. Tempered scales are generally EDO with tempering. Other methods like just intonation don't really need to be tempered and generally are not in my experience, but it has been years since I was into just intonation and may just not remember. Historically speaking, the advantage of justly tuned scales is there is no need to temper i…

I don't see how you can divide the octave equally and not end up with equal temperament: that's exactly what equal temperament is!

> Tempered scales are generally EDO with tempering.

That's not historically accurate. EDO wasn't used until very recently (about the middle of the 19th century I think), tempering was used way before that.

For example, the first widely used temperament (which became popular in the Renaissance) was the quarter-comma meantone, which shrinks each fifth (from the natural 3/2) so that the major thirds are perfectly 5/4. The name "quarter-comma" means that the amount of shrinkage is 1/4 of the "syntonic comma", which is the difference you get beteween going up 4 fifths (e.g. C->G->D->A->E) and a major third plus 2 octaves (C->E->E->E). Those final Es can only be the same if you shrink the fifth or stretch the third (or both). What this tempering does is shrink each fifth by 1/4 of the difference (so that going up 4 fifths closes it) and doesn't touch the major third. That means the major thirds are beautiful, and the fifths are a little off. For a chosen key, that is -- everything sounds horrible as soon as you try to change the key too far away from the chosen key.

In the Baroque period a lot of other temperaments were invented, the Werckmeister temperaments were very widely used in (what is today) Germany for example (a lot of people believe Bach had one of these in mind when writing the Well-Tempered Clavier). Those temperaments were also defined by how much each fifth is changed from the "normal" 3/2, but each fifth was to be changed by some different amount in some complicated way.

It was only much later that EDO (12-TET, or "equal temperament") started to be widely used. You can think of it (and people do!) as a "temperament" because it just means you shrink the fifth from the "normal" 3/2 = 1.5 to be instead 2^(7/12) =~ 1.4983, so that going up 12 fifths lands you exactly 7 octaves above (since 2^(7/12)^12 = 2^7). That also means that the octave is divided exactly equally, because going up 12 fifths goes through every one of the 12 notes before going back to the original note.

Re: Piano Keys

#25

Post by ofalkaed »

ofalkaed wrote: post #16
moefh wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean equal-tempered? I never heard someone describe a tuning system as "untempered", but I guess it would mean something like just intonation -- which sounds really great for playing anything in a specific key but falls horribly apart if you try to change the key (which is why it has seen very little use since the renaissance).

Equally divided octave (EDO) with no tempering which is distinct from Equal temperament. Tempered scales are generally EDO with tempering. Other methods like just intonation don't really need to be tempered and generally are not in my experience, but it has been years since I was into just intonation and may just not remember. Historically speaking, the advantage of justly tuned scales is there is no need to temper i…

To offer something better than this mess and correct. Fretted instruments are tehnically unequally tempered do to the physics the string, the fret board is EDO but in fretting the string we stretch it and raise its pitch. Fretted instruments use various compensation tricks to lessen this effect but most notes are off from both 12EDO and 12TET, we get the open string and the 12th fret but the rest are off by varying amounts.

Re: Piano Keys

#26

Post by blobbers »

madaxe_again wrote: post #23
o11c wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same, but I had to look. I wonder how badly this affects muscle memory?

In my experience, you fumble for a minute and then you adapt. I had a Young Chang that followed this model, and a Yamaha at school that didn’t.

Generally speaking fumbling on a piano doesn’t bode well for performance… it’s a little bit like Olympic gymnastics, you only get one chance to stick the landing!

Re: Piano Keys

#27

Post by ofalkaed »

moefh wrote: post #24
ofalkaed wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Equally divided octave (EDO) with no tempering which is distinct from Equal temperament. Tempered scales are generally EDO with tempering. Other methods like just intonation don't really need to be tempered and generally are not in my experience, but it has been years since I was into just intonation and may just not remember. Historically speaking, the advantage of justly tuned scales is there is no need to temper i…

I don't see how you can divide the octave equally and not end up with equal temperament: that's exactly what equal temperament is! > Tempered scales are generally EDO with tempering. That's not historically accurate. EDO wasn't used until very recently (about the middle of the 19th century I think), tempering was used way before that. For example, the first widely used temperament (which became popular in the Renaiss…

EDO on fretted instruments goes back to at least the 16th century and was essentially the standard well before the mid 19th. Equal temperament is an EDO scale whose divisions approximate justly tuned scales. The western 12TET scale is not actually 12TET or 12EDO, we temper the scale itself and tweak some notes to make it work better unless you play fretted instruments and then it is up to the guitarist to make small adjustments in their playing technique so their untempered 12TET is in tune with the pianos tempered 12TET.

I admitted to making a mess in that post.

Re: Piano Keys

#28

Post by blobbers »

madaxe_again wrote: post #23
o11c wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same, but I had to look. I wonder how badly this affects muscle memory?

In my experience, you fumble for a minute and then you adapt. I had a Young Chang that followed this model, and a Yamaha at school that didn’t.

This is fascinating! I’ve never played a YC seriously, but I have played several Yamahas and currently play on a Kawai and Baldwin. I’ve often wondered if the Baldwin or Yamaha is laid out slightly differently than the Kawai because I feel like playing broken 4 note chords the fingering can feel off on one piano vs another. It’s a slight stretch but the 4-5 on the second 4 note chord can be uncomfortable on the Kawai and comfortable on the Yamaha. I never play them in the same room, one is at my teachers and one at home.

Very interesting! Is there a spec for this? Or a layout description? Surely something as precise as piano would note this.

Re: Piano Keys

#30

Post by Nition »

madaxe_again wrote: post #23
o11c wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same, but I had to look. I wonder how badly this affects muscle memory?

In my experience, you fumble for a minute and then you adapt. I had a Young Chang that followed this model, and a Yamaha at school that didn’t.

Interesting, my piano is a Yamaha (specifically a 1980 Yamaha YUA, basically a U3), and it does follow the model (same width everywhere).

Photo: https://i.imgur.com/ulsLUoG.jpeg

I also have a MIDI keyboard (M-Audio Hammer 88) which follows the same model.

I'd like to see a photo of someone's piano that uses a different system, really I thought they were always this way. It's a good system because it lets the black keys be spaced a little further apart, while also reducing the jump between black key clusters.

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