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I tried visualizing what playing a d major scale would look like on that keyboard, and it doesn’t seem any more obvious than on a normal keyboard...


The shape of it will look just like a C-major scale, or any other major scale. Of course, in the process you will traverse the same pattern of white/black keys as on a regular piano, so visually it will be different. I guess that is a trade-off that janko makes to stay closer to what people know. But once you know how to play any type of scale, the fingerings simply shift up/down the keyboard to choose the specific scale of that type.

There are other methods of color coding keyboards. Here is an example of coloring a chromatone keyboard (very similar in concept) with multiple patterns:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAec7LyFJW0

In a different video, this guy phrased the appeal of these keyboards like this: it's like playing in the most awkward key you can imagine. But then there's only that one key to learn, and all others are just shifted.

edited to add stuff and clarify. sorry, should really take time to re-read before posting. :P


The point isn't that a single scale is 'more obvious', the point is that they are all the same.

All of the patterns repeat, you can start any piece on any note and play it blind and it will work instead of having 12 different ways of doing it.


Also the "Muto Music Method": it's not just that the common keyboard finger positions aren't the same in 12 different scales, the notation could also be made without all these # and "b" (sorry HN filters out the flat sign U+266D from the text) and without the shapes of the melodies changing:

https://muto-method.com/en/issue.html

"The problems with 5 line notation"

I've found the page thanks to user mkl mentioning Chromatone keyboard here.



It's trivially more obvious. And when you've played it you can automatically play any other major scale.




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