Skip to content

Pianos (keys) are badly designed!

pianow

PASHKULI

that bosenforfer keyboard (i don't know if it's real or not) is something i'd love to try personally,


PASHKULI

pianow

Vocal cords are "built-in" as our fingers' length. I wish I had longer fingers, but…
I wish I had a bigger and girthier… but.

That Bösendorfer does not exist. It was a illustration (render) I did when contacted Bösendorfer at the time they got acquired by Yamaha (I did not know that), so the Director told me they now comply to Yamaha's policy regarding R&D. ANd I already had contacted Yamaha before that. The one you see, is slightly updated render from ~8 years ago.


PASHKULI

Oh, just to make it clear:
• there is no difference between a singer's (worldly famous or just a karaoke-pub famous) vocal cords and a total tone-def person's vocal cords (anatomically at least)
• as fingers – we all (usually) have 5 of those on each hand (some have 6 but that is another topic)

Yet, some people are craftsman others are not. Some speak fluetly, others have eerrs and uhhhms etc.
In this topic I discuss historically traceable problems. I would love all men could benfit form "bigger and gerthier" or all women to benefit from "bigger and jucier" both having perfect faces\skin but that is not going to happen.
It all comes down to inner feeling. There are many singers who can sing very good (right, correct), but they just sound generic. There are many talented instrumentalist, but their music is generic. And there are quite mediocre players who's music is great. Practice will make you a good "technician", not a great performer or entertainer.
And Music is all about entertaining and the spirit (inner peace or feeling).


Mindbullets

PASHKULI I do not buy this. At all.

Then don't use it. It's not there for anything other than communicating ideas from one person to another.

Playing the piano is a physical skill developed through practice, and it seems like you're stuck in analysis paralysis.

I don't know of advanced players that think in terms of note names as they play… they might happen to know those labels quite well, but I suspect most of us are just playing the tones that live in specific physical locations on the keys.

If you want to write a musical idea down, it's a common practice to use something like sheet music or talk about a specific tone using a commonly known names and tune to a common reference frequency.

Same reason most international communication is in English… it's not a very elegant language, but it's well-known, and that's inherently useful.


PASHKULI

Mindbullets

Never used it. Although had to learn some of it at one point to tell some "educated" musicians what to play which I could not play (on a piano). You know, things such as Cmaj7 and so on (no melodies, just chords) so I could play\sing on top.

The point is, this so called 'Music system' combined with the terribly designed piano (most of it because of pure ignorance and understanding of human\natural anatomy) is in the heart of the "academic" or "pro" or even "international" collabration\communication. It is pathetic from my point of veiw and mainly feeds itself like a ponzi scheme as teachers impose it on children and so on, conservatories on students, now over Internet.

English is quite good. Still has two main problems:
• phonetic ambiguity (many langues have this, most notably French… among European languages) – just read\pronounce 'Pacific Ocean' and tell me which sound 'C' represents in it?
• S suffix in 3rd person verbs – does not make sense! All other forms have lost the conjugation suffix, only this obnoxious (short and irritating) S suffix has remained (with the exeption of the verb 'can': He can, not He cans); S is enough to make noun(S) in plural and that is ok.
But to have it 'fixed' would require an Official Normalised accent for Official pronunciation of words which is quite difficult task. At one point Latin was sort of "international" language but that is gone. I think in 100~200 years same will happen to English. And no, English is not a successor of Latin.


Mindbullets

PASHKULI terribly designed piano

That's a very silly claim without a demonstration.

If your design is such an improvement, why not inspire a local pianist with your prototype, and they can demonstrate a quick virtuosic passage, perhaps after a little bit of practice? Or you could develop your technique on your new design and demonstrate yourself. Until then, I can't see how your design wouldn't get in the way on all but the most simple pieces, compared to the "terribly designed" piano.

This is no different than criticizing a common sneaker design before learning how to walk/run. Playing the piano isn't a mental exercise, it's a physical skill. You don't master it rationally/logically, you master it with your "lizard brain".

A demonstration is the only way to sell this idea, IMO.


PASHKULI

Mindbullets
I have. Had a young student of Music in Oxford and she recorded Scarlatti, Mozart and Chopin (but only MIDI) as she was not keen on recording video – besides – it is not a real acoustic piano, just a MIDI keyboard prototype.

An older pianist (~50ish) got it for a month but did not record anything at the end. Just said he could play some weird things and the black keys were slimmer and he was "expecting more 'meaty' black keys", which is understandable.

I gave it (both) to some other students just to get them returned with a snapped pedal cable, coffie\tea splatters on some of the keys and messed up settings, they managed to turn off velocity. Not giving it anymore despite the local shop owner asked me to have them upstairs in the rehearsal room for kids (hell no!)… but I suggested to have them on display in the showroom… to which he did not agree (of course).


Mindbullets

PASHKULI Cool. I hope you haven't given up on that -- despite my pessimism I am genuinely curious about this sort of thing. A video (even just of the hands -- the pianist could remain anonymous) of someone performing on your keybed would certainly help me draw some more informed conclusions about what only exists in my imagination right now.

Maybe you live close to @CyberGene ? He's a skilled pianist… maybe he'd give it a shot and provide some useful feedback for you and/or your target market?


MacMacMac


PASHKULI

Mac, Mac… Mac
Politely… skip this thread, mate. It is above your cognitive and intellectual abilities.
No one forces you to read it, let alone to post in it some moronic posts.


MacMacMac

PASHKULI Mac, Mac… Mac
Politely… skip this thread, mate. It is above your cognitive and intellectual abilities.
No one forces you to read it, let alone to post in it some moronic posts.

Sorry, no. Trolling needs to be called out. And nonsense ought not be tolerated. And now insults? Sorry, no.

Your ego exceeds your intellect ... why else the endless, pointless ranting about piano defects from someone who doesn't play piano?

To everyone else: I stand by my assertion. Please don't feed the troll.


CyberGene

Just a heads-up. I’m going to tag this discussion with the “Personal” tag. This will keep it public (visible to non-registered members) but will hide it from the main list with all discussions. One can still browse to it through any of the other tags, “Pianos”, “DIY”, “Knowledge”.


PASHKULI

Yet, questions are still here for any participant who would like to chime in and THINK, INVENT their own answer.
Not the copy-paste words they have read from a book written by another copy-paste academic.

Calling me a troll is an insult and it will backfire (trust me, I have seen a Music professor getting angry at my questions). If you (anyone) have nothing in mind to discuss and bring to the discussion, this thread is not for you. I do not mind. It is intended as a "placeholder" on the Internet for the search engines (eventually) although I would prefer participant to really think about the problems presented. Oh, you do not think there are problems! Good. Please, move on. There is no need to participate. It will only make you look stupid and childish. You just can't help yourself but to shit on other's people no matter how crazy or uncomfortable (for you) quests.

The forum has an Ignore function. Use it. I allready did for the following morons:
revox, MacMacMac, Pete14
Khuja is one moronic post from it.


EssBrace

PASHKULI If you (anyone) have nothing in mind to discuss and bring to the discussion, this thread is not for you. I do not mind. It is intended as a "placeholder" on the Internet for the search engines (eventually) although I would prefer participant to really think about the problems presented. Oh, you do not think there are problems! Good. Please, move on.

I think therefore you have a problem. If you think the only worthwhile contributors are others who agree with your basic premise, i.e., that the traditional piano keyboard is conceptually flawed then it's likely there will be no other contributors! Throughout your endeavours you've been a lone voice and you'll continue to be that I'm afraid. How many more doors (real or figurative) have to be closed in your face before you might be able to face the truth?


CyberGene

PASHKULI It is intended as a "placeholder" on the Internet for the search engines (eventually)

To answer to that concern (and the same one you messaged me about), this discussion is only hidden from the main forum view, it's still indexed by search engines and its forum URL is still the same. If I search for it in DuckDuckGo, the first few results point to it:

And to elaborate more on my decision to tag it with the Personal tag and effectively remove it from the main discussion list. I believe this forum is for piano enthusiasts, that's in the main description and welcome page of the forum. It's not for people who are not pianists and who think "pianos are badly designed". Bumping it with new content would naturally annoy and irritate the target crowd of a forum like ours. It will just create negativity and you've already noticed it. This is effectively trolling, although it may not be by-the-book trolling. If someone is interested, they can still find this discussion browsing through the tags explicitly. I find this more than fair enough for you.


PASHKULI

It works!

Now I can enjoy and "be proud of my right-handedness" on such a badly, badly badly designed pianos you and all of us had to endure! I can have my right thumb on lower notes – exectly how it is on my guitar (right-handed) and play solos and melodies with my left fingers. Such a great find is this pree plugin called NoteMapper (for MIDI) by CodeFN42.
Too bad this forum is not Diversity, Equity, Inclusion of people from the non-ABCDFG+ community!
Ha. Ha. Ha.

https://www.codefn42.com/notemapper/

I've made two presens
• 61 keys
• 88 keys both split at the same notes (between E~F in the middle)

for Windows:
(presets go in
…Documents\CodeFN42\NoteMapper\Presets)

61-keys-midi-keyboard-split.bin
28kB
88-keys-midi-keyboard-split.bin
28kB

**********************************************************************************

Now… a bit more challenging question: Let's say I have two 49 key keyboards and want each on to dedicate to each hand. If I connect them on two diffrent USB ports maybe I can rout them to two diff. tracks\instances of NoteMapper. But, what if I have chained them both through a typical 5Din MIDI port (plug)? Can the MIDI data transfer protocol carry an info about the Device ID or something, so I can maybe tell the DAW to "see" them as separate devices (ID)?


ambrozy

Midi channels


ambrozy

Just ask chatgpt…


PASHKULI

Yes, channels but buth my devices are daisy‑chained. (not MIDI thru)

Korg → Midi Out → to MIDI in (Novation)… then (Novation) MIDI Out → MIDI In (Audio Interface, 5pin DIN slot)

I can see both keyboards triggering MIDI signal in my DAWs Track.
But how to tell the Korg to output on channel 2 (for example) whilst Novation to output on channel 1?
At least that is my logic. Maybe can be done from each hardware device respectively but I've never done it and am messing up settings here (might "break" something).

Or is it possible at all. Oh, never mind. Found it!
Fabulous! Many thanks, ambrozy for the suggestion!


« Previous Page Next Page »