Pianos (keys) are badly designed!

PASHKULI In my almost 20+ years of research I have found pianists (pro and hobby) absolutely ignorant on what instrument they play and how it came to be as such.

I think this is a view that just fails to see the issue from the only perspective that matters, and that is a musical perspective.

Anyone who has witnessed a superlative musician on a piano (whether in person, or via some kind of media) cannot possibly conclude that there is anything intrinsically wrong with the piano keyboard in its current state. Musical expressiveness, power and emotion is possible that surpasses all other instruments. This is across a wide range of musical genres. A player, whether good or bad, doesn't need to know the story of piano keyboard development.

As no doubt others have stated, you are trying to solve a problem that does not exist in anyone's mind but your own.

PASHKULI as @EssBrace pointed out, you're trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist. That's why I have really low motivation to even read anything in this thread, watch your videos, let alone argue based on some pictures. Make a hammer action prototype. Play something for us. Even better, play something well known and compare it against a regular keyboard, so that we can see why you struggle with the regular one and not with yours. Then I can comment again.

EssBrace

I have only shown how to make the widths equal. It has been the goal for centuries, yet they (name a brand) all do it differently (shown). It was a compromise. I came up with a solution.

Then, I was reading a book on Chopin. It struck me how meticulous he was in his explanation (the author cited Chopin's here and there). Chopin was (in my opinion) even a better pianist than Mozart… but no need to have a dick measuring contest here. Today probably any high-profile pianist from a renown conservatory of Music is better (technically).

As an engineer I care about all possible scenarios, not just special cases; and compromises should be the last resort (if a solution is not found). I am a hobby musician though: I play drums and guitar fairly good. I am mostly oriented towards noe-classical metal, progressive metal but also (at the moment) I listen to Nat King Cole and Duke Ellington.
I can not play piano the way I would love to. I never found it suitable to me somehow (obviously).

CyberGene

This thread is not about my piano skills though. It is about why I think pianos (keys) are badly designed.
That is all. I do not have to learn to play Debussy, Liszt so you can see it in action.
I have built a proof of concept.
A few times I tried to convince some piano workshops here to rent their tools and such to build a small (mayse two renovas\octaves) hammer action but they wanted to know why. I only showed them the equal widths… and they sent me away. I can not afford to build a piano workshop in a rented flat myself just to prove a point.

PASHKULI I didn't mean to undermine or ridicule your skills. What I'm saying is, you obviously think the standard layout is not good enough. So, find a piece where the standard layout is somehow hampering you, even if it's a very easy piece. Then demo how your layout makes it easier for you to play it. Otherwise, you're trying to solve a "problem" that is not empirically proven, but is only theoretically expressed in terms of some widths, dimensions, etc. Unless you can prove why that is wrong, the issue doesn't exist. This is exactly Russell's teapot, the burden of proof why standard keyboard layout is bad is in you, you should not expect us to disprove your proposal.

CyberGene
It is not a problem of exercises and getting used to a specific layot or shapes.
People play on all kind of instruments and a gifted\skillful performer can be recognised regardless.

This is not a performance\skills issue. It is merely a 'scientific' approach, actually it is engineering.
Piano is really poorly designed. Not because music written on it throughout the centuries is also poor. It is not (well some of it at least). Piano (acoustic) is stagnating… and has been for ~300 years by now.

Maybe the only true and genuine development on it was done by Clarence Hickman (Hickman's action) 100 years ago.

PASHKULI What makes you think then that legato and virtuoso right-handed guitar players shold use their right hand as your logic suggests? They do not. Right handed guitar players use ther left hand to do the fretboard passes, phrases, legato flows. The right hand is picking, responsible for dynamic volume\picking\strum.

Right-handed guitarists use both hands, as do left-handed guitarists. Pianists use one finger for each note.

PASHKULI Who ever (in History) said that piano notes should ascend from left to right? Why? What is the logic behind it?
It does make sense mostly if you are a left-handed player.

Again you're wrong. The piano keyboard gives right-handed players an advantage, although most pianists develop a high level of ambidexterity.

PASHKULI But what stops you from making your action (not the entire piano) in your flat? And see what good pianists think about it? All you need is wood, pins, felt, leather, capstans, springs, brackets, a drill, a jigsaw and sandpaper. You don't need any big tools tool for an action (like a bandsaw or a table saw). If you want you can buy every parts online. Another thing you can do is to find people with a piano in good condition apart from the action. You tell them you will repair/mod their action for free, and in return they will allow other players to play it. In this case you won't need to build your symmetrical action from scratch, but you would need to modify only the visible keys area a few mm.

Johnstaf
Dare to present any comparison as proof as I did.

I claim that current piano (as a construction for musical instrument) is more suitable for left-handed players.
But it also forces their meft-hand to play a non-suitable direction (in pitch) of the notes.

Pianissimo

I said exactly that to the landlord. They did not agree to such terms and the contract states it can be used only for residence, no workshops, electric tools, etc (not even an electric heater is allowed and no loudspeakers).

There is a piano techician\workshop just outside the town. I contacted him but he was not keen on the ideas unless I agree to his term which stated that everything I build using his tools, materials and workshop belongs to him and me.

PASHKULI when it comes to piano/action/MIDI DIY, you’re in the right place, this forum hosts a lot of useful DIY projects, one of which is about a 3D printed hammer-action Janko design. So, it’s perfectly possible to create a working hammer-action prototype of your layout. I really think without first having such a prototype, you’re just arguing for the sake of arguing because apparently nobody else is convinced the standard keyboard layout is “badly designed”. Arguing too much without any practical grounds, and thus causing forum stir, is no doubt a plausible explanation for why you got banned on other forums.

PASHKULI Dare to present any comparison as proof as I did

Proof of what exactly? What you said about the piano is wrong. I've already explained why. The treble in western music requires more dexterity. Saying otherwise shows your lack of understanding of the topic.

PASHKULI Your flat is more than enough to make a piano action. As I said, you don't need any fancy tool, just a drill, a jigsaw and sandpaper. You don't need to tell your landlord anything. Would you ask your landlor his permission to use a knife and fork, so you can eat? No. The same is for the piano action. It's all silent quiet work you can do at home, and your neighbours won't hear anything.

CyberGene

Mike and I are in contact. We discussed many things ragarding Hickman'l action and his (Mike's or Михаиʌ) 3d print + PCB built.
He is one very skillful engineer indeed!

Pianissimo

Obviously you have not built anything even remotly similar. Anyway, that is not possible at the moment.
I hak enoudh problems with my previous landlord where I built my two current prototypes. No point to explain.

PASHKULI How do you know, why are you assuming that I didn't build something even more difficult inside my flat? You sound rude, that's for sure, and this won't get you far.

Pete14 What about people with bigger hands, can’t they get a “bigger key size”?

Yes. The DS7.

Pete14 And while we’re at it, what about people with six fingers (per hand), what about them, do we just leave them hanging in the dark?

I always searched for one of them and see if they could play better chords. Unfortunately more recently they chop off the supernumerary fingers at birth (rather than celebrating it as the ancient native Americans did)

Pete14 I also think it unfair that none of you has ever shown any consideration for people with no hands/arms at all (how dare you), and why can’t we build a keyboard that’s better suited for their toes?

An intern of mine could play trumpet and solve the Rubik cube at the same time. But he did have hands. Many people can solve the cube with their toes. Yes, they deserve an ergonomic keyboard too (not just a pedalboard where they can play at most two notes at the time).

Pete14 I almost forgot, the people with neither hands/arms, nor legs/toes, don’t they matter? surely, we could accommodate a keyboard that allows them to play with their butts, but no, we simply push them aside, too!

They're working on brain implants for that (and with greater success than I thought I could see in my lifetime already!), but meanwhile everybody should do mental practice and see how the regular keyboard is great for that.

Pete14 You people are rude!

Yes we are indeed 🙁

Pianissimo So far I can't see any trolling

Not strictly trolling, but talking past each other for sure.

PASHKULI You are mentioning 'symmetry'. This is a really interesting topic and I have not finished my third video

Sorry for the offence, but I point at the moon and you look at my finger.

Think of playing something in F# minor (a beautiful key signature, both in the score, on the keyboard and in the sound, especially in non-equal temperament). Playing it on your keyboard is pretty much impossible unless one either plays at the edge and avoid going "back" in the keys (which is bad), or play something extremely simple, or just rely on muscle memory alone (which is the worse of all).

Your obsession with the spaces being equal is misplaced. Human beings are mammals and they thrive in irregular patterns. Heck, even pitch and rhythm itself can be irregular and the irregular ones are more interesting and easier to remember. Recent research on dementia place people in irregular environments with non-flat floors and lots of obstacle. But I digress….

Back to the F# minor example, playing that on a (even irregularly spaced) keyboard, with traditional "sticking out" black keys in groups of 3 or 2 is wonderful. Playing it on your keyboard would be a nightmare for the lack of reference in the back of the key. I can't comment on the curvature because I haven't tried it, but I suspect that would be a "neutral" thing (neither better nor worse). But I can comment on the keys being all identical in the back because you are removing the very soul of playing the piano at intermediate and advanced level. If you don't understand that, you are simply too much of a beginner. As others have said, you might get a use for such a keyboard in very limited settings, e.g. for doing chromatic glissandos, but those are just minor things which musically have almost irrelevant importance. I can't think of any major thing that intermediate or advanced players want to do on a piano keyboard that would be easier/better/possible on yours compared to the normal one. And you have not mentioned one either.

PASHKULI they are costructed to fit the dexterity of left-handed players!!!

🤣 -- As others have already pointed out to you, that is not true all. And by the way there are "mirror" pianos that are made switching the bass and treble. However you did get an intuition for a problem of piano which is greatly studied: namely that the more dexterous fingers (thumb, index and middle) are towards the middle of the instrument rather than the outside. Many pages have been written on the topic, and I think it's irrelevant to the conversation here, so I'll just mention one thing: semi-jokingly some teachers recommend to play with the left and right hands crossed, so the more dexterous fingers point outside (in this situation a "mirror" piano would be useful for right-handed people, so they can play the melody with their right). Obviously that's close to trivial to do with digital instruments.

I'm out of here, the thread is not anymore interesting to me

Johnstaf

I am sorry but you have no idea about human anatomy and what dexterity is all about.
Your body is symmetryc (I hope): limbs, fingers, toes… face of course they are not 1:1 exact copy (ala Egyptian statues are 1:1 symmetric) only topologically!

I will give you an example and I hope, oh man I really do hope, you can understand the correlation.

Left handed vs right handed writting (with a pen, pencil, rastrum)
Here is my claim:
Writing left to right direction is suitable for right-handed writers (people). (european languages)
Writing right to left direction is suitable for left-handed writers (people). (hebrew, arabic, parsi middle-eastern scripts)

Most people are right handed (by nature, you could say even genetically maybe).
Now… here in Europe we have about 10%~15% left-handed writers. See them how they write… yes "perfectly comfortable" (it is sarcasm – it is devastating for them).
But in the middle east most people are also right handed, yet they write from right to left… and it is a struggle.

Can you see why? (let's make it a discussion) And how this can be correlated to the piano?

RIP

I tried but found nothing valuable from your post to respond to.
Yes, there is one video (on Youtube) of a pianist playing such piano (swapped treble and bass = neversed direction of notes) and he called it: Left-handed piano
But who said the current one is right-handed??? Because I have prooven it is not! Same with accordions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIgO4LqvU-0&t=18s