Pianos (keys) are badly designed!

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

PASHKULI Mike's or Михаиʌ

Ohh, is he another Bulgarian? Or a Russian?

RIP 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.

I was thinking of a “swing-type” contraption whence the pianist (with neither arms nor legs) could position his/her butt (fully exposed) whilst the rest of the body rests firmly within the swinging contraption….😊

The “pianist” would then use his/her body-weight to “swing” from left to right as needed to play the keys….

Note: the “keys” would have to be big enough to accommodate one-half-butt at a time, but I’m open to suggestions as to how to go about the whole thing (a work in progress)….

Surely, your idea (brain implant) could also work…..

CyberGene

He is from Moldova (by birth) but his surname is Filipov, so probably basarabian (have not asked him).
You can see it in his videos – on his PCB boards his name is there.

Pete14 I was thinking of a “swing-type” contraption whence the pianist (with neither arms nor legs) could position his/her butt (fully exposed) whilst the rest of the body rests firmly within the swinging contraption….

Excellent idea. We moved on the wrong direction (making the keys smaller, rather than larger) from the origins. From wikipedia

The width of the keys was slightly over two and a half inches, wide enough to be struck down by the fist

PASHKULI I tried but found nothing valuable from your post to respond to.

So you admit that with your keyboard playing in F# minor would be extremely difficult as I wrote, case closed, your keyboard is useful only for early beginners, then already at late beginner or at most early intermediate one would need to move to the normal keyboard.

RIP

That is what you think. Nothing is difficult to play. Show something then I can try and replicate it to the best of my piano skills abilities.

RIP Excellent idea.

Thank you!

I must say, I got the idea when I saw this guy (down here) struggling, so I thought: what if he was freely hanging/swinging from a contraption (fixed onto the ceiling), so that he could simply “glide” his weightless ass over the keys by using his body mass to create momentum that would propel him left/right as needed.

Of course this would be done in a very dignified manner, and as I said before, it’s a work in progress (I’m open to suggestions)……

https://youtu.be/AE2-0XU5cHU?si=vuGz1qBPxzLpC7Bx

PASHKULI 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?

Ok. Now you're just talking nonsense. The current piano keyboard is an advantage to right-haded players. If you disagree with this you haven't the lightest clue what you're talking about. You don't play, so you don't understand what is easiest for pianists.

The writing thing is irrelevant to the piano. People have trouble writing if their hand covers what they have just written making Western writing easier for RH people. This is entirely irrelevant to the piano keyboard. In music both hands move in both directions. Writing is irrelevant. Do you think pianists only move their hands from right to left?

You haven't really thought this through, have you?

Johnstaf
Ok, you somehow start to get the picture. Baby steps, I understand. Take your time.
So, you say… people have troubles im their writing hand covers (esentially would smear the ink or graphite) what they have just written. That is correct observation! Well done!

Yet… and here is the "mindblowing" part (not really) right handed people in the East have been hand-writing for ages\centuries from right to left before the modern digital devices came into picture. One can only wonder why would they (hebrew, arab, persian, turks – before Kemal's writting reform to use Latin script – and so many more) even think that writting from right to left was a good idea. INteresting, isn't it. But they did. They learnt, they practiced… and I can assure you non of them dared to flip the direction – humans adapt!

Just like left handed (european languages) writer write from above or tilt their papers to almost 90° counter-clockwise.
https://youtu.be/2i4CRw3DG-s?si=hyjzj50u_pV-x0Yl&t=206
So what should such left-handed (european lang.) writers do to make it less stessful on their hands?
Well one famous left-handed person did exactly that. Leonardo wrote most of his work with as… please read:
https://www.mos.org/leonardo/activities/mirror-writing.html

What an imbecil, right? How dare he! He was wrong. He could not write and was lazy to learn the correct way! He might have been ambidexterous but who knows. Same some say about Mozart and Beethoven (that they were rather loft-handed but probably ambidext.).

Do not worry, we'll get to the piano…

Yet, not many left-handed people could afford learning a "mirrored" writting. It does not matter today (well since computer\printers were invented) so no need to force them learn Leonardish.

The point is, hypothetically if I, let's pretend am an ambidext person (writer), would like to use my left hand to write in my european script, I have to do it the Leonardo way. Otherwise my abidexterity for writting with my left hand will be extorted, forced, will bring me fatigue, unnecessary stress upon having to uncover what I have written – even if the ink is instant dry and not susceptible to smearing!

Ambidexterity is only aplicable to non-sided activities for example hammering a nail, tossing a ball.
The moment you include directional sequence your ambidext. will have to be extorted to comply with the direction because either hand\fingers will have to go in the same direction.

Pianist are forced to learn that way – it is not ambidexterity. The poor one directional layout of the piano notes extorts dexterity for one of the hands. I proved abouve why corrent piano is suitable for left-handed people using example with left-handed guitarists as notebook example of handedness in the music instrument making.

Certainly, practice makes perfect. You can force yourself to play a right-handed guitar despite the fact being born a left handed person. Kiko Loureiro (a quite famous virtuoso metal and fusion guitarist) did, because he had no choice and no access to other instrument but a right-handed guitar. Hear the man himself:

https://youtu.be/cpZMhgSC9CE?si=MuP1D4dqEh7Q5VCR&t=332
(watch it from 5:32 to 6:44)

The man was forced to learn the "right" way (uh, the pun!)
Isn't it weird how humans can adapt to discomfort (and most om the times not even realising it!).