Pashkuli Keyboards: discussion + demos

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A very sad story...
One great pianist and composer... damaging his own fingers.
If only he could put his hands on the Pashkuli keyboard, we might have experienced the unlimited creative potential those great pianists and composers had, but couldn't play on the standard piano keyboard!

Pashkuli keyboard


Pashkuli Keyboard x.JPG
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Last edited by Pashkuli on Thu Jun 25, 2020 7:02 pm, edited 4 times in total.

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Good design is useful. Bad design is harmful.

Pashkuli standard keyboard.jpg
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Cool idea. :D
My solo projects:
Hekkräiser (experimental) | MFG38 (electronic/soundtrack) | The Santtu Pesonen Project (metal/prog)

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I guess it will be more expensive than a LinnStrument, but can do much less...
And update the video link, its broken...

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Thanks, guys! Sorry for the broken link. YouTube wanted verification over the phone.
No, it won't be so expensive as LinnStrument. I made it for £530. But if in production will cost probably half that price.
I will make video with its pitch bend functions and more wide chords, that you can not perform on any other keyboard instruments.
Last edited by Pashkuli on Mon Sep 09, 2019 5:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Tj Shredder wrote: Mon Sep 09, 2019 5:08 pm I guess it will be more expensive than a LinnStrument, but can do much less...
Apples to oranges. This seems to be different, rather than "less" :shrug:

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el-bo (formerly ebow) wrote: Mon Sep 09, 2019 5:37 pm
Tj Shredder wrote: Mon Sep 09, 2019 5:08 pm I guess it will be more expensive than a LinnStrument, but can do much less...
Apples to oranges. This seems to be different, rather than "less" :shrug:
You are correct, Pashkuli is a different beast. It is meant to serve the keyboard players who would like to have more expressiveness and great freedom of choice of voicing intervals in chords, scales, arpeggios, etc. I admire the work of Mr. Linn. My humbled opinion is that he is a genius! :tu:

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The marketing strategy could be improved. Your current approach is like, "Vote Totalitarian because Anarchists suck" (or vice-versa). Or trying to sell Macs by listing all of Window's faults (or vice-versa).

Or "Buy Chevy Vega because Ford Pinto Sucks." Show a video clip of a Ford Pinto exploding on the highway at 200 kph to demonstrate Ford Pinto faults. Then demonstrate the Chevy Vega's superiority with a video clip of Grandma easing the Chevy Vega down the driveway at 1 kph. "Obviously the Chevy Vega is safer and easier to drive." :)

Instead you could demonstrate the superiority of the Pashkuli-- Maybe have some ordinary-looking fellow rip out a series of multi-octave fast scales on the Pashkuli similar to this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB5rY2FHG_s
And then the testimonial: "I couldn't play at all last week but the Pashkuli keyboard is so easy I got this good in only a few hours of practice. On the other hand it would have taken years to get this good on a conventional keyboard."

That would be a "fairer comparison" with both the Ford Pinto AND the Chevy Vega at 200 kph highway speed. See if the Vega is any less likely to explode at high speed!

Actually, the conventional keyboard is incredibly easy to learn and play, simple music in the easier keys. So you need to demo the Pashkuli being easier to use "when the going gets tough" at high speed and complexity in "difficult keys".

====

I'm not arguing against your invention. Just waiting for evidence that it is actually better for non-trivial performances.

As Bert Koor earlier mentioned, modern electronic keyboards are easily transposed to any key, if a musician is lazy and doesn't want to learn to play in all keys.

In fact, in the key of C there are certain idiosyncratic playing techniques incredibly easier on conventional 88's than on any "balanced keyboard". Similarly, in the key of F# or Eb, or D or G or any other key, there appear different sets of "stupid keyboard tricks" that are incredibly easy to finger on 88's that would be more difficult (or in some cases near-impossible) on a "balanced keyboard" design.

So a "balanced keyboard" at least theoretically makes all keys equally easy. But the corollary is that it also makes all keys equally difficult to play. There are no tricks "easier to do" in C, or "easier to do" in F#.

So with a transposing conventional keyboard, if a song is "easiest to do" in F# and one is too lazy or incapable of some other key, just play it in F# and transpose it. But with the Pashkuli keyboard you don't have that option because all keys are at least theoretically "equally difficult to play in". So if a particular trick is difficult in F# then it will also be equally difficult in C, Eb, or G.

Here is a real dumb concrete example-- Great Balls Of Fire is pretty easy to play in C. The song can be annoying to play "note for note" in other keys. I would love to see a true note-for-note rendition of Great Balls Of Fire on a Pashkuli keyboard. Some of the "dumb piano tricks" that are "really easy" in the key of C on 88's would be "rather difficult" on the Pashkuli.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivS4kXvN6yM

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Hi, JCJR
Thank you for your comments. The analogy with those cars is entertaining indeed, but I tend to refer the comparison as incommensurate because:
  • everything you can play on Pianoforte, you can play it on Pashkuli
  • things you can play on Pashkuli, you would never be able to play on Pianoforte (unless you have 7 fingers on each hand and your span is ~10⅓" or 26cm)
The first video shows a guy playing the natural major scales in every key (if I am not mistaken).
Those are a breeze on Pashkuli... and there is no need to remember them or gain muscle memory for each key. You need to learn it once on Pashkuli, they are all the same across any root key.
But those are things from the first bullet point of the above list.

Now, regarding "Great balls Of Fire"... not only it can be played, but because of its simplicity, the song can be played on Pashkuli using wider chords voicing, impossible to achieve on Pianoforte! And those are things from the second bullet point of the above list.

And the transpose button does not help much the standard keyboards because natural major/minor are just a mere fraction of all the other scales and arpeggios available in the modern genres of Music.

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I haven't seen videos substantiating how easy it is to play fast multi octave scales on the Pashkuli. Only your claims that it is so. The only video demo I've seen are rudimentary stuff easy on conventional keyboard.

Yeah you can reach a wider one hand interval but that is also possible on accordion or minikeys. Obviously if the keys are smaller then you can reach more of them. Duh. Personally I wouldn't adopt minikeys just for a bigger interval reach. I reach "far enough" on full size keys and I find it hard to play mini keys. They are too-small targets to accurately hit

If you had shown video evidence of virtuouso performance done on this keyboard then I would not bother to dispute it.

I dispute claim that the keyboard is easy for complex music merely because some simple stuff can be hunt and peck played on it. Show us the fast complex playing it can supposedly do, not hunt and peck trivial examples.

How on Earth you would do even something as simple as a C major scale gliss down a Pashkuli (as JL Lewis does on Geat Balls of Fire)?

The only way to do that simplest part of the song would be to finger a very fast multi-row C major scale run down over several octaves, which would be more difficult than just running your fist down piano white keys.

I suspect you don't notice the key of C "stupic keyboard tricks" that make the song what it is, to so glibly claim you can duplicate it note for note.

There is all that sloppy fast smearing from black notes to white notes and boogie woogie smeared bass playing style, On 88 just don't obsess about accuracy and the style comes natural.

But on a multi row keyboard you would have to intentionally finger every one of those sloppy fast "stupid keyboard trick" accidents in order to exaxtly match the song. If it is so easy then show us a video of Great Balls Of Fire on Pashkuli! :)

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JCJR wrote: Tue Sep 10, 2019 11:08 pm The only video demo I've seen are rudimentary stuff easy on conventional keyboard.
That in the first post is the first video demo. Not possible to be played on standard keyboard.
JCJR wrote: I reach "far enough" on full size keys and I find it hard to play mini keys. They are too-small targets to accurately hit.
Exactly!
JCJR wrote: If you had shown video evidence of virtuoso performance done on this keyboard then I would not bother to dispute it.
This keyboard is a couple of months old. No virtuoso for now, sorry. It is just me and I can't play a single tune on a piano to save my life. I am just a Design Engineer (can play guitar and drums pretty well though). :oops:
JCJR wrote: How on Earth you would do even something as simple as a C major scale gliss down a Pashkuli (as J.L. Lewis does on "Great Balls of Fire")?
This C major is a "special case". He could have tried to do it if the song was in B major or D major, or Eb major, or... any other key either. What do you think... he would have used the same C major glissando, so out of tune... but keyboardists do it (John Lord).

Glissandos are possible, and they are true glissandos... chromatic.
Last edited by Pashkuli on Wed Sep 11, 2019 8:45 am, edited 2 times in total.

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"My spaceship design can go from sol to alpha centauri in a few days and it is trivially easy to fly but you will have to take my word for it because I am an engineer and not a space pilot." :)

In that situation wouldn't it be more realistic to say, "Possibly my spaceship design can go from sol to alpha centauri but we are barely into alpha testing."

Of course Great Balls of Fire is easiest in C. That is what I was trying to tell you. There are certain "
stupid easy keyboard tricks" special to every key. Some tricks are easier in Eb than any other. Some tricks are easier in F# than any other.

So you have a big collection of "easy ways to do certain tricks."

But in a "balanced keyboard" all keys are equally difficult so if a song just happens to be difficult to finger on your keyboard then there is no hope of finding an easier key to play it in because all keys are equally difficult.

Another thing maybe not appreciated-- Conventional keyboard gets played by many parts of the fingers and thumbs and the big keys are struck at different locations depending on what is easiest to do. Same as guitar. People don't play guitar just with fingertips.

Tiny keys in a chromatic button accordion arrangement mostly have to be played by fingertips only, greatly limiting what you can try. Forcing you to make sure nothing but fingertips ever touch the keys to avoid numerous mistakes.

This "claw like" cupped hand posture might result in worse repetitive stress injuries than conventional keyboard. It would need extensive statistical epidemiological user testing to rule out the possible RSI risk.

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I can't play a single tune on a piano to save my life.
Then I don't understand your wish to change the world at all, Don Quichotte. You have just now disqualified yourself completely. Such a shame...
We are the KVR collective. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. Image
My MusicCalc is served over https!!

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BertKoor wrote: Wed Sep 11, 2019 6:35 am Then I don't understand your wish to change the world at all, Don Quichotte. You have just now disqualified yourself completely. Such a shame...
I guess you are one of those people who could have said the same thing to Leo Fender (the designer of the Fender Guitars). Or maybe to Leon Theremin (the designer of Theremin, later inspired Robert Moog to make it as the first analogue synth). So...

I try my best to learn and play this Pashkuli keyboard (not the Pianoforte one). The hands in the video are mine.

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I don't guess, but am sure you're not doing yourself any favours here.
We are the KVR collective. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. Image
My MusicCalc is served over https!!

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