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Piano Keys

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Re: Piano Keys

#61

Post by Nition »

sambapa wrote: post #56
Nition wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Can you elaborate on your thinking here? I really feel C is the easiest (in standard major tonality - obviously C minor, blues scale etc are a different story).

Re: Piano Keys

#62

Post by derriz »

codyd51 wrote: post #54
derriz wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You are correct - my mistake.

Re: Piano Keys

#63

Post by javcasas »

prmph wrote: post #38

I guess I must be dumb or something, but I'm simply not seeing the problem. Imagine the piano had only white keys, no problem right? Now just place the black keys at the back, between some of the white keys, right in the middle, such that each black key takes like a quarter of the width of the sandwiching white keys. Now what's the problem with this again? Can someone explain in clearer terms? If the issue is that we…

> Pianists don't press the white keys all the way at the back, do they?

I do, and I'm not even a good pianist. Many chords will need it, just pick any chord that required the thumb or the pinky (or both) in black keys.

Re: Piano Keys

#64

Post by Macha »

Nition wrote: post #61
sambapa wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Can you elaborate on your thinking here? I really feel C is the easiest (in standard major tonality - obviously C minor, blues scale etc are a different story).

It's the easiest to learn because it's just the white keys in sequence.

It's not the most physically comfortable to play because your hand is not a rectangle.

Re: Piano Keys

#65

Post by bruce343434 »

mlochbaum wrote: post #34
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.

The point that the article is addressing (but you have to ignore the image and study the equations to see this!) is that this sort of shifting can't equalize everything. In the span of 3 white keys C to E at the front, you have 2 black keys at the back, so if you take r to be the ratio of back-width to white key front-width then you have 3 = 5r. But in the 4 keys F to B, you've got 3 black keys so 4 = 7r. No single r…

I don't see the problem... Use one unit of width per semitone. Then raise the black keys up a bit. Then for the white keys, elongate them and append some extra stuff on the sides of their fronts so the white keys' fronts' all have one same width as well. They are two separate "problems", not interdependent.

Re: Piano Keys

#66

Post by kazinator »

I suspect there is no such fussing about "back of white key widths" in actual piano design.

What's actually going on, when you look at any piano keyboard, is that the groups of black keys are given a substantially wider spread: they are not exactly centered on the dividing lines between the white keys.

What most likely matters to playability is the width of the black keys and this spread amount.

Now if you cover the front of the keys (e.g. put your fallboard felt over it) you can visualize the back of all the keys as a kind of barcode: alternating black and white strips, sometimes with two adjacent white strips. It so happens that these semitone strips do look about equal width, thanks to the sizing of the black keys and their spread. It might not be exact though.

A good starting configuration might be to start with a keyboard in which all the semitones are strips of equal width. Then we identify the C major keys, and paint them white, making the others black. Next, we shorten the black keys, and adjust the frontage of the white keys to be of equal width. Say, by keeping the division between every B and C exactly where it is and interpolating the others divisions. You will find that the E-F division does not fall exactly halfway between the surrounding black keys, Eb and F#. (That's what's observed on real piano keyboards!)

Re: Piano Keys

#67

Post by [deleted] »

yayitswei wrote: post #19
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.

I'm picky about layouts - I type in Dvorak, learned Janko via Chromatone, currently playing harpejji. Coming from a classical piano background, there was definitely a learning curve, but I feel like it was worth it. Every chord shape is identical across all keys (C major and D major would be played the same way), which makes it much easier to learn jazz voicings or modulate a song. If anyone ever builds a quality gra…

[deleted]

Re: Piano Keys

#68

Post by teo_zero »

bruce343434 wrote: post #65
mlochbaum wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point that the article is addressing (but you have to ignore the image and study the equations to see this!) is that this sort of shifting can't equalize everything. In the span of 3 white keys C to E at the front, you have 2 black keys at the back, so if you take r to be the ratio of back-width to white key front-width then you have 3 = 5r. But in the 4 keys F to B, you've got 3 black keys so 4 = 7r. No single r…

I don't see the problem... Use one unit of width per semitone. Then raise the black keys up a bit. Then for the white keys, elongate them and append some extra stuff on the sides of their fronts so the white keys' fronts' all have one same width as well. They are two separate "problems", not interdependent.

> Then for the white keys, [...] append some extra stuff on the sides of their fronts so the white keys' fronts' all have one same width as well.

There's no way you can achieve that.

Re: Piano Keys

#69

Post by ajuc »

amingilani wrote: post #48
yongjik wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> if you have trouble remembering how a knight moves, you can't be that good at Chess anyway. Non sequitur. It’s also still a valid question. I play the scales really well on the guitar. And because the frets are all laid out straight, shifting up by one fret means I’m just playing my chords and scales sharp. It makes transposing music incredibly easy. I still don’t understand why the piano can’t be laid out like tha…

Guitar still has the problem of last 2 strings being shifted 1 semitone down for ergonomics reasons, which makes them irregular. But yeah, it's better than piano keyboard.

Re: Piano Keys

#70

Post by ajuc »

tgv wrote: post #55
ajuc wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

C maj, F maj are the same, but C maj7 and Fmaj7 are not. Ultimately you have to remember which chords are the same and which aren't - which is about the same amount of information as just remembering all the combinations.

It's just an ugly irregular hack. I understand that you can get good at working around it, but eventually it's worth it to fix the underlying problem.

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