Pianos (keys) are badly designed!

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.

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.

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).

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?

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.

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.

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”.

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.

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?

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.

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)

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

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)?

Midi channels

Just ask chatgpt…

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!

If you output your handware keyboard to channel 2, just copy its NoteMapper preset (uploaded above) in the UI to channel 2 in the plugin and save it (same name).
Bliss!

Of course, the keyboard (digital in this case) should have a bit different design – as such:

Left hand plays high notes. Right hand (especially thumb) plays low notes! All respective chord shapes betwen hands are the same for either hand – that is how Nature has designed our hands to be – symmetric!

Global Pitch and Mod Weels go dead center for quick access by either hand (or can be assigned to foot\pedals controller – better option). Similarly, drum pads go in that centre as well for quick access.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_yIgrkSNzE
and how am I suppose to play that?

ambrozy

This has been written on the current layout. I can not tell unless transcribed for the symmetrical one.
I can try but I am not a pianist and you will always say – it is wrong.

I have that performance in .mid (midi) file format as I was a memeber of Rousseau's YouTube channel.
Unfortunately, as manny other (99%) of such files on the internet the hands (notes performed by each hand) are not separated into different channels – iti s very difficult to "decode" them (as a non pianist) or tell what finger playes what on each hand. I can see on the video but note for note separation will take me months to do that!

The great thing about thy symmetric piano layout is that the notes of both hands will be separated… for the most part… unless the pianist wants to play close together notes at very high (left tier) or very low (right tier) section of the keyboard.

Finding properly separated hands for many baroque, classical, romantic works is tough. I have some but they are from Synthesia.
I hope you know what I am talking about.