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Piano Keys

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Re: Piano Keys

#51

Post by ajuc »

tgv wrote: post #47
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.

There still would be two "shapes": C vs C#. Transposing would only be easier by two semitones. But for most music and musicians it isn't that interesting. Transposing is rather niche. If it's too hard, an electronic keyboard can do it for you.

There would be 2 shapes instead of 12.

And the C shape would be vertically flipped C# shape.

Re: Piano Keys

#52

Post by ajuc »

yongjik wrote: post #42
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.

That's a bit like complaining that there are six different kinds of chess pieces and you have to memorize how each moves. The truth is, if you have trouble remembering how a knight moves, you can't be that good at Chess anyway. Remembering twelve different ways of playing a scale is a vastly small part of learning how to play a piano.

Criticizing chess for lacking elegance compared to for example go is very valid (and a good analogy here).

Re: Piano Keys

#53

Post by derriz »

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.

The geometric relationship between the note frequencies of a C major chord and a D major chord on the piano is not the same. The key of piece is responsible for some of its “feel”. So it’s not unreasonable that they have different “representations” on the piano although the differences may be subtle.

Re: Piano Keys

#54

Post by codyd51 »

derriz wrote: post #53
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.

The geometric relationship between the note frequencies of a C major chord and a D major chord on the piano is not the same. The key of piece is responsible for some of its “feel”. So it’s not unreasonable that they have different “representations” on the piano although the differences may be subtle.

I believe this is not the case in today’s ubiquitous equal temperament?

Re: Piano Keys

#55

Post by tgv »

ajuc wrote: post #51
tgv wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There still would be two "shapes": C vs C#. Transposing would only be easier by two semitones. But for most music and musicians it isn't that interesting. Transposing is rather niche. If it's too hard, an electronic keyboard can do it for you.

There would be 2 shapes instead of 12. And the C shape would be vertically flipped C# shape.

There aren't 12 shapes. My fingers say C maj, F maj and G maj are the same shape. D maj, E maj, A maj too. And A min is the same shape as C/F/G maj, but would be a different pattern on the proposed "regular" layout. That may not matter when all you want is transposition, but as I said before: transposing is not so important. And there are "shape" based keyboards, as mentioned frequently in the comments. You can even retrofit some on your own keyboard. They're just not popular.

Re: Piano Keys

#56

Post by sambapa »

Nition wrote: post #31
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.

With the irregular layout we have now, some keys are easy (e.g. C) and some are hard (e.g. B). If you make the layout regular, putting a black note between every white note, then every key becomes the same, but also quite hard, because every major scale is now played like this: https://i.imgur.com/6EmW8eU.gif It's not a particularly good tradeoff. If you got rid of the black keys entirely instead, you'd have to remem…

C is one of the hardest keys to play in on the piano

Re: Piano Keys

#57

Post by jacquesm »

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.

There are such things are Chromatic keyboards (for instance, the Chromatone synth had one), and there was the Janko piano keyboard and there are people that have made keyboards without the spaces in at the B/C and E/F at the back of the keyboard by alternating the white and the black keys such that those spaces just disappear.

The advantages are:

- you need less reach for the same chords

- transposition becomes trivial

The disadvantages are:

- your muscle memory will be invalidated

- the number of instruments set up like that is really small

- no accomplished pianist will want to switch

But if you really wanted to you could adapt an existing instrument to use a different keyboard and it isn't even all that complicated (medium complexity wood working project).

Re: Piano Keys

#59

Post by rollcat »

brudgers wrote: post #12
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.

It forces players to remember different positions for the same chord transposed to start at different notes. The piano was developed well before equal temperament came to dominate tuning. [1] So each musical key would have different harmonic relationships between the intervals within it. And musical keys were not thought of as equal. Generally, the musical keys based on “black keys”/“sharps and flats” would be farthe…

Somewhat related:

https://strandbergguitars.com/true-temperament/

Re: Piano Keys

#60

Post by kashunstva »

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.

> It's not even that hard to fix.

Except it would render a large swath of the repertoire from the common practice period (“classical music“) more difficult to play because it is written with the presumption that the keyboard is just so and that some future generations won’t try to optimize it.

The organization of the keyboard does necessitate certain fingering choices that are particular; but knowing this, composers have (usually) written in a way that respects that geometry.

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