Pashkuli Keyboards: discussion + demos

[EvilDragon]

Jazz is not a niche style of music. It is huge just like rock or electronic music is, for example.

[JCJR]

I only gave a jazz example. From 50+ years experience as mediocre pro musician what I described is generally valid to pop, rock, blues, country, bluegrass, dixieland and many folk styles.

I have classical and jazz friends and long ago actually took some college music courses but am generally not good enough to play classical or serious jazz in public. Actually nowadays am too rusty to play much of anything in public

It is not that inversions are musically unimportant. Of course voicings are musically important.

It is just a detail which rarely needs discussion between musicians working up an arrangement.

It is expected that the player will choose voicings that work in context of the song. That is part of the musician knowing his job-- Playing changes that don't suck.

I hate complicating it even more, but very commonly if any chords are written down at all they might only be a "rough outline" and you might hear additional passing chords in the performance that nobody bothered to write down. Everybody involved expected passing chords or reinterpretations but it was just too much trouble to write down and maybe we'll do it a different way next time so why write it down?

And the fellas who have to talk about the chords at all are not in the higher echelons. The better players don't have to discuss it very much. They just do it. Talking about music is like dancing to sculpture or whatever.

So working with some folks maybe they think you are hopeless if they even have to tell you the song chord progression. Can't you hear the progression and instantly play along? Geez we shoulda hired somebody who knows what he's doing.

[Pashkuli]

I haven't made a research on what music genres are most popular or least entertained. Something tells me that China-India-Indonesia won't be so inclined into Jazz. But, again - those are just assumptions.
There are so many wrong practices in Music. Sometimes I even think to myself, I shouldn't have left Music around mid 2000s, when I put my keyboard (and the other) ideas in the cupboard.

Sometimes, when I open a lesson or instruction video on YouTube regarding those subjects and I just sit, watch and...

[BertKoor]

Trying to solve problems in a field which is not your expertise is dangerous. Before you know it you mistake the features for bugs and vice versa.

[Pashkuli]

BertKoor,
are you an expert then? Whose expertise is it and have they done anything to make it better? There are three main (and somehow related) things that have to be addressed here:
1. The piano keyboard
2. The Nomenclature of (western) Music elements
3. The Notation system (Staff)
They have their own features, but those are rather ambiguous, incomplete, "special cases" and inadequate.
I am ready. Bring me the expert.

[BertKoor]

Some experts on certain subjects, such as biographies of composers, recide at wikipedia. Regarding the injuries of the hand of Schumann, they write:

During his studies with Wieck, some stories claim that Schumann permanently injured a finger on his right hand. Wieck claimed that Schumann damaged his finger by using a mechanical device that held back one finger while he exercised the others—which was supposed to strengthen the weakest fingers. Clara Schumann discredited the story, saying the disability was not due to a mechanical device, and Robert Schumann himself referred to it as "an affliction of the whole hand." Some argue that, as the disability appeared to have been chronic and have affected the hand, and not just a finger, it was not likely caused by a finger strengthening device.

Playing a piano keyboard is not as dangerous as playing football or rugby. Especially for your fingers, playing volleyball is far more hazardous than playing the piano.

You shouldn't need fake news & scare-monger stories to sell your ideas. That is, if that is your strongest argument, it's rather weak.

Janko and your keyboard have some good points, but also drawbacks. Extended range is good! An octave being 7 instead of 8 cm when width of a key remains the same.

The other bonus (being chromatic) however also has its drawbacks. Boomtown Rats - Don't Like Mondays. Impossible to play if the black keys aren't there. But you get back whole-tone (dreamy) and chromatic glissando's.

How do harp players handle glissando's on different scales? I think they call it pedals, even though operated by hand.

At highschool we had an organ with a chromatic glissando bar. A tiny key strip of small tubes, easy to slide.

The whole charm of the piano keyboard IS the inequality of black & white keys.

[to be edited / continued, have to go now]

[Forgotten]

An observation on the discussion so far...

I don't think there is a lot of possibility to entirely replace the piano keyboard with this keyboard, as it's a different approach. It might improve on some difficult aspects of the conventional keyboard, but in other areas it makes things more difficult (quick visual recognition of notes, surface area of keys).

For some people this could be a huge benefit, particularly those starting out on the keyboard where they would not have to re-learn it.

Overall I think the comparisons between conventional keyboards and this one are not very valid ones. It would be better sold as a 'different' approach rather than a replacement.

[Pashkuli]

None talks about replacement. Franz Liszt once made a statement regarding Janko's keyboard. I do not think he has seen Dreschke's design though. Arthur Rubinstein also said similar thing about starting his career again (if could happen).

My target are 10 to 22 year old keyboardists. For the rest - it is too late (though not impossible). Only few of them really can comprehend the idea and "do it " (based on my conversation with such keyboard players).

~ my design is more close to Dreschke's although I have taken a small part of the "rounded edges" from Janko's design (oddly enough dismissed by his derivatives in the later years - a big mistake those designer got made... such a shame!)

[vurt]

im too old
i kinda like the idea, im crap at normal keys

[Pashkuli]

im too old
i kinda like the idea, im crap at normal keys

Well, me too. I still do not know how people even start learning music songs, using the standard keyboard. Yes, I am aware that Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Debussy (really like their Music, Ravel's also, de Falla too)... all composed and played that keyboard. Hence, their masterpieces are better suited for that black'n'white keyboard. I completely understand that.
Now I am really trying to learn how to play a keyboard instrument. And I really find it quite amusing how easy I can grasp on subjects like chord patterns, intervals, inversions... compared to what has been trying to play songs on the standard keyboard.

It would have been much convenient to find a real keyboard player, who might be inclined to try and re-learn some classics and modern tunes for demonstration purposes. Till I find one here in UK, I will have to learn it myself. Maybe that is even better.

[Forgotten]

Well, me too. I still do not know how people even start learning music songs, using the standard keyboard.

I think it's the same as any instrument - they subconsciously accept the awkwardness and non-intuitive elements of playing as a necessary part of learning the instrument, and once that's been absorbed it starts to become easier.

There are certain things you do on a piano that come from discipline and practice, but it's still difficult to play certain intervals in some keys because of the physical layout of the keyboard.

[JCJR]

I don't know if we see "completely self taught" musicians quite the same as in the past. Maybe so. Just before the internet, people might have access to some old beat up piano but no access to a teacher.

Especially maybe po blind little kids stuck at home all day with nothing accessible except an old radio and a falling apart piano.

I just noticed "completely self taught" pianists in the past. Some were quite good. Ragtime, dixieland, blues, country, rock or gospel.. Play great and not necessarily even know names of the notes and chords.

Among the ones I knew, it seemed maybe 50/50 their favorite key would either be F# or C.

So many of em naturally learned in F# I would hazard a guess that F# may naturally be about as obvious and easy as C on conventional keyboard.

People who play along with horns might naturally gravitate towards Bb and Eb, G, C and D, corresponding to the easier horn keys.

People who play along with geetars would gravitate towards the easier guitar keys. E, A, D ,G, C.

Before tv and the internet people didn't have to spend hours per day watching shows and posting messages and reading tweets and playing games.

Give a bored po kid an old radio and a beat-up piano. Nothing to do for hours except try to play along to the radio. Hell, learning to play in any key probably takes fewer hours per day than properly mastering a Nintendo.

[Pashkuli]

Every instrument (music or a tool) needs time and dedication for the user to be able to use it properly, creatively.
I could not do that with the standard piano keyboard. And I tried since I was 14... several times.
Had no problems with drums (percussion) and guitars (electric, acoustic, bass).

[Pashkuli]

And a bit of a "standard" piano keyboard I designed mid 2000s, though never finished it.

Pashkuli Keyboard A1 Labels.jpg

Pashkuli Keyboard C Labels.jpg

[BertKoor]

May I comment, even as a non-pianist?