A jammer layout "sound-byte"
The Coles-notes version of how the jammer works
Explained in Easier to Learn? and Building a better keyboard are the detailed (many would say pedantic) rationale behind the design of the Jammer’s seemingly weird key layout.
Should you ever be possessed of the need to explain it quickly, here’s the TV-news-sound-bite way to do it:
First, In music’s all-important, major scale the important notes are the white notes on a piano. But; when laid out in a line like that, they are hard and slow to play, as:
- the hands have to move around a lot and beginners have to look at the keyboard
- its really inconsistent
- the keys that sound worst when played together are right next to each other, so anyone not an expert can and will make mistakes
It’s an honest-to-goodness elitist, albeit inadvertent, conspiracy.
So so does one fix it?
First, you move the keys around a bit.
If you stack them so they are closer together, and especially put notes that usually are played together, in various combinations, close together.
Added bonus #1: often they can be played with one finger.
Bonus #2: this also makes the fingering consistent, so you need only learn one fingering, not twelve.
Second, as another bonus granted by the fickle laws of mathematics, the troublesome black keys move out of the way:
Bonus #4:
Voila! All three problems are solved. Plus you get quintuple bonus points because it matches the way we hear music, as I've described in "Building a better keyboard".
And that's why I'm so keen on the jammer: it's simple enough for even yours truly to understand.
Comments
Understand the rationale behind the Jammer design. I guess the proof is whether one can learn to play common pop songs on this keyboard faster than a transposed keyboard with transposed notation (solfege notation).
Solfege notation is just 1 to 7 with # and b. The standard keyboard is a very good design for C Major. I think it encapsulates the music theory quite well. The problem is when we try to play songs in other keys on this design. The problem worsens when the standard notation (CNP) is used as CNP uses the same location for multiple notes depending on the key we are in.
I have tried to play the melody of quite a few pop songs on a transposed keyboard with solfege notation and found it quite easy. To play the full songs, one still have to learn to coordinate both hands, ryhthm, expression (feeling) and some chord progression. There seems to be no way out of some hard work.
Eric, Music Learner
I agree, Eric.
The proof will be if one can play songs faster and in all keys equally well. Thus far, I've been able to do so ok, although I've been reluctant to post videos - I'm perhaps not the most mis-coordinated maladriot you'll ever encounter but I likely am in the top ten ;-) .
I'm right now writing up how to read a conventional music score and play it on the jammer. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at how easy it is.
It really is nice to be able to play songs in the right key - even C# or Db, but you are totally correct in that music is much more that finding the right key to play - that's why, after almost 3 months of practice, I'm just beginning to be ready to show off a simple piece.
Ken.
Taylor,
The two notes next to each other don't sound too bad, IMHO, and are definately to be found in Celine Dion tunes ;)
The Triad/C-Thru/Harmonic arrangement looks interesting, but I believe that that the Thummer/jammer layout is better for my purposes, for one thing, it's easier to find the notes, and it's easier to explain a "folded major scale" to people.
Ken.
Wicki/CThru/Janko--they're all variations on the basic honeycomb button pattern.
With the Janko which is just a piano layout simplified, one usually leaves the keys square, or like on the Chromatone, changes them to oval. This is because one normally only plays one note at a time, except the major seconds, the notes beside each other.
With the other formats, one plays a lot of notes together, so the rounded hex shape if preferred. Does this make sense?
MSG.