Searching for the best Kbd layout of them all?

[jjj]

Normally, I would have never thought of joining a concertina forum... (There, the expert Richard Morse put me right.) http://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php...rt=0#entry69004 because my musical sound fascination stems from bandoneon-, accordion-, organ sounds and other polyphonic music instruments, such as orchestral music. But I did, because I wanted to analyze their keyboard layout and compare it to the Janko layout to which I adapted my Synth.
I was almost disappointed to discover that their Wicki concertina keyboard (not my beloved Janko) layout was the easiest to learn & play of them all *) There I also found out that the C & B system button accordion and bandoneon layouts were inferior to Kaspar Wicki's 1896 patent. Actually it's now called Wicki-Hayden, because Englishman Brian Hayden claims to have invented (and patented ) it in 1986 ! He might as well patent the ...wheel ( ! )
As kid I fell in love with the accordion/ bandoneon sound.
The fist time I heard live accordion music was in East Germany (aged 9) and I still remember having emotionally perceived the chords as a 'tickling sensation' in top of my head... and that was it. My parents were poor and so, I had to wait until I was able to buy a 2nd-hand accordion at age 16, from the lousy trade apprenticeship pocket money I was allowed. It wasn't long when I realized the absurdity of having to learn to play the accordion 12 times in major and 12 times in minor!

That's when I already thought out and built my own mechanical keyboard transposer (slider) via a wooden keyboard on an aluminum frame with ball bearings on v- rails. That allowed me to play all scales in either C-major or A-minor.
Later on (in late sixties) I built my first electronic organ. If I would have known of Wicki's layout... that surely would have been my choice!
All that is left say now is: "Better late than never".
Thus far, only the (not yet available) Thummer & Jammer took up this Wicki keyboard layout idea, but there it won't come cheap.
Knowing the advantages of the Wicki layout makes me hate the traditional "zebra" (piano) keyboard. I feel like having been conned and robbed of emotional creativity! (...By who? -> Read last sentence, below!)
*) It was quite a bit of a battle to gain this conclusion so, here's your chance to check it out for yourself and benefit from it:


In the meanwhile I also developed a (Klavarskribo-style) notation for it:



I already ordered 135 pushbutton switches for this purpose from:
http://www.alltronics.com/cgi-bin/item/96B...yboard%2DSwitch
With basic, technical skills anyone can cheaply build it as a plug-in unit and connecting it in parallel with the Synth switches. I need only to connect one switch to each key, for I plan controlling the dynamic volume and tremolo changes via a homemade breath controller; i.e. controlling the soundcard's stereo outputs via a LDR circuit.
Is it worth it? Apart from the advantages you already spotted, allow me to mention only one more: To be proficient on the zebra keyboard one needs about 12 years of tuition. The same level of proficiency is reached in only 3 years tuition on the Wicky keyboard!
Do you still wonder why music teachers and conservatories prefer going zebra?

[Steve Conner]

My head nearly burst trying to figure out that diagram.

Am I right in thinking that the point of it is, that there's always a major scale under your fingers, and the fingering is the same for every key, you just need to move left and right to change keys, like on the guitar?

I can see how it adapts to minor keys (eg, use the C major scale when playing in A minor) but what about the pentatonic and modal stuff we guitarists like, does it still work for that? Could you play the blues on it?

Music schools probably don't teach it because it makes the theory too easy and would be considered cheating. After all, the "zebra" keyboard was good enough for Grandpa Bach, right?

[Enzo]

I notice myself playing different in other keys. Obviously C is the basic scale, the first one we learn. But if you are used to playing in C, sometime just start messing with the black keys, and BOOM - you just discovered where all Stevie Wonder got his licks. The "shapes" you play with your fingers are different, so different patterns emerge.

On the guitar, you get used to playing in E or A, knowing that the open strings are with you. But play in F or A flat or something, and it - for me at least, and I am not much of a player - puts the mind in a different place. Back down to the open string doesn't help.

There is something to be said for learning to play in other keys, instead of just transposing. Also something to be said for learning to play a couple totally different instruments, like flute and guitar, or keyboard and violin.

It's a bitch trying to bend a note on a piano, I've found.

[drlowlow]

I started out playing accordion as well. I have always been interested in how chromatic accordions are set up and this has shown some various options. I learned on piano accordions and for some types of music this wiki/hayden might be a superior system but I think alot of people might be relunctant to agree that sometimes it is the shortcommings of an instrument design that makes it sound like people like. It is difficult to make any gliss on a piano that isn't in the key of C or C#. What about with this system? It is easier to teach this system unless of course the learner is switching over from piano, organ, various pitched percussion instruments with the piano style layout. The music vocabulary of most listeners is based of hearing composers manipulate an inperfect system. I don't wish to take any merit away from the system. I think there is room for free reed instruments in other types of music than it has previously been included in and perhaps this is a direction it should take. I just think I will stay with the piano style that I have become accustomed to over the years.

[jjj]

Steve Conner:
I can see how it adapts to minor keys (eg, use the C major scale when playing in A minor) but what about the pentatonic and modal stuff we guitarists like, does it still work for that? Could you play the blues on it?

The layout is pentagonic! It has it all! I'm used to play the Stradela accordion bass, but now have to learn this super simple bass, terz & chords system...

Hi Enzo (...long time no see!!!) You helped me a lot, last time, but now that I discovered this (best of all) Wicki keyboard, I am going to forget about learning the Janko keyboard layout (..which I build: http://www.live-styler.de/home/Janko%20Project.pdf) and connect the Wicki to my Synth.

The "shapes" you play with your fingers are different, so different patterns emerge.

With Wicki (and Janko) you need only to learn one pattern in C-major and onle pattern in A-minor, in order to be able to play all 24 scales! Wheras with the traditional zebra (piano) keyboard layout you have to learn and keep practicing (scales) the piano 24 times! It's, because of its irregular keyboard pattern. Follow my (jjj) battle in the concertina forum: http://www.concertina.net/forums/ind...showtopic=7131 and here: http://www.concertina.net/forums/ind...showtopic=7328

drlowlow: I started out playing accordion as well.

Look at the above links as well. It might save you lots of research. It shows how I battled myself to the insight of which keyboard layout is the easiest to learn & play!!! Forget about torturing yourself with zebra keyboards! There you'll also find out about the lesser C- & B-system button accordion layouts...

[Steve Conner]

I think I agree with the guys on the concertina forums. There's probably no single keyboard layout that will be "best" for all styles of music. Like Enzo says, try bending a note on a piano! (Tilting it like a pinball machine probably doesn't work.) But again, the inability to bend notes never stopped Count Basie, Oscar Peterson, or whoever.

The Wicki/Hayden layout strikes me as just right for playing diatonic music, which is a heck of a lot of Western music. All the major and minor scales, modulations around the circle of fifths and such like, look really easy.

It also strikes me as a great music education tool for the same reason. I'm really tempted to try building a MIDI version.

[jjj]

You better do, too. I already ordered the right SPST PB-switches, here: http://www.alltronics.com/cgi-bin/it...board%2DSwitch

That's almost you need if you have a Synth. In Sydney an electronics magazine paid me $30 for a wrapping type of wiring-up method, I thought up (not suitable for RF circuits):
Using a yarn coil on a small brass arm soldered to a thin brass tube/ pipe, I feed a hair-thin (but strong), enameled copper wire. Using UHU glue or similar, I glue all part with their legs up (like sexy chicks) onto a cardboard.
With that wiring tool I then "sew" up the whole circuit, by wrapping the the copper wire around part pins, then soldering the lot (burning off the enamel at the same time!) One can channel all the wiring around posts and a cable tree of 300 wires looks pretty slim.
To connect the switches to my Roland Synth I use signal diodes and a resistor for each switch/key, drag out the wires from the Synth's keyboard to sockets on the Synth's backside. The Wicki keyboard can then be pugged in via cable/s.
Most Synths use polymer conductive material a switches to reduce transients and clicks. I haven't got those and so, I just measured their resistance and use ordinary resistors. You can increase the resistance and find out at which resistance level the switches work reliably. I didn't hear any (sinusoidal) clicks or I would have to add a little earthed cap to each switch.
I only plan to connect the 'one' switch (of the 2 on each key), because I thought up a dynamic breath controlled volume controller, which controls the volume and tremolo variations of the soundcard's stereo outputs.

[Enzo]

jjj, I wouldn't try to convince you to change your idea, but in repsonse to above:

I have no talent. I have been playing the guitar for about 42 years or so. And in that time I have realized that I have nothing to say on the guitar. My talent lies elsewhere. I still enjoy playing of course, but I am no good.

Every time I pick up the guitar, the same stuff comes out. The same bluesy licks, it all sounds the same. Playing in odd keys forces me to rethink my play. Those different shapes I mentioned.

When I play on the black keys on a piano, different stuff comes out than when I play in C. And that was my point really. If I wanted to jam in B flat, the act of having to play on different keys is part of the magic. If all I had to do was finger as if in C, then nothing new would result.

[jjj]

Hi Enzo,

I understand you perfectly, because I too played for years only in C-major and A-minor scales... The point is not to be carried away by difficult "magic" scale fingering, but actually being able to play in all scales or change scales without being hampered by musical dexterity and or musical theory.
After some practice the Wicki keyboard allows you to play music the way singers sing their melodies, without even knowing/ bothering in which scale the melody is performed. That's real magic!
The same enjoy professional musicians (such as pianists) with 20- 30 years of academic training, whereas you can reach the same level of dexterity in about 3-4 years on the Wicki keyboard!
Isn't that worth a try? Imagine, now what fun that must be with Midi. Also important is to build the mentioned breath controller for volume & tremolo variation or else the tunes sound dead or robot-like...

[jjj]

Today I suffered one of those bright moments enabling me to improve my proposed Wicki notion using five colors to define the buttons/ notion. Here it is ... what you think of it? Any good?
So, the notation details say:
1) press buttons C & D & E from 2nd octave (at the same time)
2) then press button G, then E, then F#, then B from 3rd octave
3) then press button D#, then B, then F from 4th octave
4) then press button , then F#, then G, then B, then C from 5th octave

[David Schwab]

After some practice the Wicki keyboard allows you to play music the way singers sing their melodies, without even knowing/ bothering in which scale the melody is performed. That's real magic!

But that's true on any instrument. With enough practice you stop thinking about what notes you are playing, and you just play what's in your head. If you have to think about how to finger a scale, than you need to practice that scale more.

I'm not against these alternate keyboards, but surly you have to learn a new layout, and practice it, so how is that different from learning the scales and practicing them in the first place?

And you still need to know what key the music is in, just as on any instrument.

have you actually used this keyboard? I don't think it will be any more magic than any other. You still have to learn to play.

[jjj]

The uniformity of Wicki's button layout is that by learning only the patterns of one major and one minor scale, I'll be able (w/o additional scales practice) to play all 24 scales!
Whereas the physically unequal "zebra" ("traditional piano") layout requires learning the piano 24 times for right hand (or 48 times with both hands). That's alright for people, who have time and efforts to waste on this awkward layout.
The other great advantage is that the Wicki layout enables a hand span of 4 to 5 octaves, whereas the "zebra" layout only allows a hand span of only about 1 octave! Also, it takes only about 10% of learning the Wicki
layout, compared to the "zebra" layout. So, yes there's a huge advantage in learning the Wicki layout. Get all the info from professionals, experienced in both layouts, here:
http://www.concertina.net/forums/ind...rt=#entry70373

[Alex R]

1. They always used to say Thelonious Monk could bend notes on the piano. No I don't know what they'd been smoking.

2. I wonder if this is a bit like the diatonic harmonica. You can get to intuitive modal playing on the 10-hole harmonica pretty quickly, quicker than on just about any other instrument, by playing harp in the 'wrong' key - famously, in 'cross harp', using the draw notes on a harmonica a fourth above the key of the music, to play blues. There is a price to pay for this when you want to go just a little further, because the notes you need for, say, a jazzy tune, aren't immediately there. So what I'd wonder about is whether modal improvisation comes easy with this layout - like Steve said, can you play the blues on it, or does the ease with which you can get major scales on it get in the way of that?

[Enzo]

jjj if it makes you happy, then do it that way, I know we won't change your mind. The point we are making is you can either learn one scale, or you can learn an instrument. On a guitar, I can set a capo around the neck and finger like always for E but play in F sonically. That is fine, but I never learn any new patterns that way. All it allows me to do is play exactly the same stuff in other notes.

If you just want to play prescribed notes - for example Beer Barrel Polka - and you want to be able to transpose it, fine. But if you want the creative juices to flow, why limit yourself?

[jjj]

The point we are making is you can either learn one scale, or you can learn an instrument.
Yes, I want to learn to play my Synth and Elka E49 organ properly in all major and minor scales and discovered that the Wicki layout (not the "zebra" or traditional piano layout) offers me that at minimal efforts (at about 10% of what learning the "zebra" requires!) Apart from that Wicki allows a hand span of 4 to 5 octaves. Try that with the "zebra"...

On a guitar, I can set a capo around the neck and finger like always for E but play in F sonically.
But that doesn't work when the same song changes from major to minor or visa versa.

If you just want to play prescribed notes - for example Beer Barrel Polka - and you want to be able to transpose it, fine. But if you want the creative juices to flow, why limit yourself?
Wicki offers keyboard players the chance to gain proficiency in a couple of years, whereas the irregular zebra layout forces you to learn to play the instrument 24 times over & over (or 48 times for both hands!) Wicki has non of this nonsense. It took me ages to believe these facts, too.
Meet the Wicki experts (of all keyboard layouts) and my Elka organ here: http://www.concertina.net/forums/ind...rt=#entry70373