Mike Filip suffice it to say that at least in my case its not an issue.
Fantastic! As we are discussing in the other thread, we might take advantage of your experience there for that other purpose (of regular keyboard).
Mike Filip Not sure I agree with you about the curving-hills analogy. When playing on a regular piano I often glance down to locate the next note I need to move to if I have a long jump or similar, but when its just a small change I do it intuitively - mostly with muscle memory.
It's not something you can agree with. You have to experience it yourself first person. I can't explain it much better than I have. I would only add that the strict definition of "muscle memory" is very bad. I've been there and minor things (like trimming the fingernails) broke it completely.
Mike Filip Trying to 'locate' the right place for your hand by 'feeling out' the black keys is a huge mistake
I agree completely. Like it would be trying to finding your way in that curving-hills trail by memorizing where the trees are. In fact I don't do that. But their existence is an essential reference for "something magic" to happen in your body to immediately know where you are. The only other comparison I can make is climbing a staircase. You can certainly climb staircases of different step heights, without looking. Why? It's the "magic" of how the brain controls the body. But it does need some minimal clues to orient. An isomorphic keyboard removes (or at least reduces) those clues, making it harder to play fluently.
Mike Filip or you need to look down to 'reorient' yourself
Most teachers agree that looking down is a mistake, even thought some might accept it, if you do rarely enough (but still cringe and think you should never do it). Some teachers are strict to the point of even holding some obstacles (such as magazines) between the eyes and the hands of their pupils at all the time.
Mike Filip The big part I want to discuss is really the 'sameness' of an isomorphic layout which allows you to easily learn and memorize chords/arpeggios/melodies and then apply them to similar ones in a different key
That's exactly what I see as a problem. You don't memorize anything, you just know. Similar to you not "memorizing" where your nose is, yet you know it. You have to learn like a 2 year old kid, which puts the information in a very different part of your brain.
Mike Filip key as opposed to having to learn identical sets of 6 to 12 based on the key. Yes - its not 24 positions, but 6 (ignore the inversions); still though - you have to memorize the mapping and be able to bring it up at a moments notice as you play.
You can definitely do that. I mean, do you have problems doing any other physical activity? The problem you are making (exactly as my former self) is thinking that you have to think. If I tell you touch your nose with your right thumb, you can certainly do it much faster than I can say that sentence -- and without any problem. And ditto if I told you ear, elbow, knee, left toe, eye or any other body part. The "six patterns" become part of you like your nose, ears, etc.
Mike Filip just that its harder than if you only had 1 position and not had to worry about it.
Quite the contrary. You do have to worry about it -- a lot. Because now you don't know in which place you are unless you constantly look, or unless you strictly muscle memory it, without any proprioception feedback. Like walking in the dark in your house: yes, you know that three steps forward and one step left there's a door that brings you in the hallway, and then two steps down on the left there's another door that brings you in the bathroom and you can probably even do that in the dark of the night (I can and often do to avoid awakening other people in the house who are very light sensitive) -- but you can do that only sloppily and only most of the time -- but any minimal distraction or difference, and boom you slam into a doorjamb! (ask me how I know it….)
Idiotic video share site are preventing me to share a video which I recorded years ago that exactly demonstrate that, but you probably won't have any shortage of people playing like that
Mike Filip There is no need to decide which of the 6 patterns to play at the same time as you are already juggling the chord progression and trying to make the melody sound good.
There is no need to make that decision on the piano keyboard either. Even more, I can switch between regular sized grand piano and Korg microKEY and immediately feel at home. Like one ramp of the staircase has tall steps and another short ones: no problem. Before learning this way, such a switch was impossible.
Mike Filip You essentially have to dedicate yourself to the piano and practice until its no longer you pressing the keys, its you playing the notes.
Exactly. Like when talking is not pulling certain muscles in the mouth, vocal chords or pushing air with the diaphragm. You just talk to convey a message. And it's much easier than you think.
At that point it doesnt matter what order the notes are, they could be listed alphabetically, with 8 A notes an octave apart, followed by A# notes and so on (lets ignore the size of hands needed to play that…), and you would still be able to play well, assuming you learned to play on that layout.
That's exactly the reverse of what I am saying and if anything, IMHO, it applies to isomorphic keyboards. In the regular layout, you just have to "know where you are" and the patterns appear magically. In isomorphic, the lack of patterns make it extremely hard.
Mike Filip Much the same way I am tying on the keyboard right now - I am not thinking where the letters are, I am not even thinking about moving my fingers or pressing buttons - instead I am thinking of the word and it shows up on the screen. In fact it is when I start to focus more on the movements of my hands that I start slowing down and potentially making mistakes.
Exactly.
Mike Filip But this is something that required me typing out literally thousands of papers worth of text starting from middle school and continuing until now.
Because the regular computer keyboard has no way to give you clues of where the fingers are and you have to memorize each one of its 104 keys. If you use a different keyboard (e.g. a laptop, or a smaller one for one of those old smartphones with a keyboard) you can't do it, even if the layout is same or almost same. It would be equally hard on Janko, I think, for the same lack of structure. You will spend quite a lot of time, and a minimal change in your position wrt the keyboard will "break" the magic (like on a computer keyboard)
Mike Filip Could you expand on this by the way? I agree that the classical piano keyboard is not exactly an 'ugly mess' - it has a very specific layout which by its very nature (aka: not completely random) forms patterns. The obvious being that instead of 12 patterns per chord you have only 6, or more to the point 3 patterns with the other 3 being mirror images of each other.
You're already almost there! Much closer than I was! On the structured piano keyboard, you have to simply know the 5-note and the 7-note groups, which you already know. And then you have to learn only the 6 patterns "plugged" into the note groups and done, you know everything. Nothing else to know. If you learn this way and try a larger or smaller keyboard, it'll be astonishing easy to migrate. You just have to play like a 2-years old having fun touching his nose, rather than like a grown-up reading a technical paper.
Mike Filip How does the C-major based classical piano lend itself to helping memorize pieces, guide you while playing, etc.
Again, that's exactly the reverse. The C-major is the death of the piano (so much so that the best teachers teach it last).
Mike Filip I could push forward the idea that playing the C major scale and the triads (CEG, DFA, etc) gives you an understanding of the chords that make up the scale, and are thus easy to jump between (being all white keys of the same shape) to improvise a C major song, but once again - thats purely for C major.
The problem is that you are thinking sequentially, hence you see the black keys are an impediment. You must think spatially (3D if you wish), so the black keys are your reference. Especially when you play in C major when you don't have any other reference. You must keep the 7- and 5-note groups (as whole, including black keys) always as part of yourself, like you always have all your body parts. You may not move your legs when seated (not playing some notes when in a certain key signature), but you know they're there. If you think spatially, F#minor is a certain pattern like "lift your left arm (i.e. play F# and A, on the left of the 7-note group) and left foot (C# on the 5-note group)", that has nothing to do with Eminor which is "lower your right arm (G and B on the 7-note group) and right foot (E on the 5-note one)". There are incredibly few patterns and when you forget about the linear thinking of the scale but embrace them spatially, you will learn what they are in a blink and recall them as fast as you can move your body, like in "touch your ear"
Mike Filip I think a good way of stating this was that the classical piano is easy to play in C major
That is false, in my experience (even before my current teacher).
Mike Filip plus once you learn one you learned all.
And that's irrelevant. There are so few things to learn and they are so easy to learn that you are having troubles to remember where your ears or nose or knees are (sorry to insist on this, but it's exactly like that)
Anyway, I'm not trying to convince you, if you want to do Janko, I wish you all the best and I'm looking forward to seeing/hearing what you are able to accomplish. I'm just answering since you are asking, and telling you what I experienced myself and how I changed my mind on this topic.
PS: I'm probably spending way more time with this than I should/would because I truly see you as my former self (including the choice of music that I assume you like since you linked / mentioned) and I wish I stopped doing/thinking what you are doing/thinking much sooner than I did
Anyway, maybe this will give you a few more clues/nudges in that direction. This is the only video in which he talks about the topic, because really there isn't much to say. Most of his other videos are instead about rhythm which is way more important in my opinion (I was convinced of that even before meeting him)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6lrXKCe73s
