<div>Ed, you make a great point that I had not thought of. By making the keyboard feel the same you take away the ability to feel your way around the keyboard without looking down. </div> <div> </div> <div>Years ago, back when I made my living playing and conducting, I had an interesting experience related to this. Interesting to me, anyway.</div> <div> </div> <div>I was playing some auditions for an acting company where I had to sight-read and accompany the actor/singers who were auditioning. The pianos that one must play on in these kinds of situations can be a joke. This piano, horribly out of tune and regulation, also had a missing ebony on F#2. I found myself missing a lot of bass notes, white notes, because of this. I kept playing G2, thinking it was C2. (Because G2 was now next to two black keys.)</div> <div> </div> <div>I never realized how much I used touch to find my way around the
keyboard. The uniformity of this keyboard would be a huge detriment.</div> <div> </div> <div>Tom Sivak</div> <div>Chicago</div> <div><BR><B><I>ed440@mindspring.com</I></B> wrote:</div> <BLOCKQUOTE class=replbq style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid"><BR>Edwin Good devotes about 8 pages to the Janko keyboard in _Giraffes, Black Dragons and Other Pianos_. It was an attempt to "rationalize" the keyboard. For example, on a Janko keyboard all major scales are played with the same fingering, and they all feel the same to the hand. <BR><BR>What Janko did not consider is that the topography of a traditional keyboard has a lot to do with expression and musical understanding in playing the piano. And by making every key and chord feel the same to the hands, it required a lot more looking to find your way around the "easier to play" keyboard, making sight reading more difficult!<BR><BR>If this were an original Janko keyboard, it
would be a collector's item, maybe a museum piece. As a 20th Century retrofit, it's value is hard to imagine.<BR><BR>EBay is a remarkable educational resource....and it's free...as long as you don't bid.<BR><BR>Ed Sutton<BR>><BR>>----- Original Message ----- <BR>><BR>>Whoa, check this out! I've never seen anything like this before! I know<BR>>that typewriter keyboards have been reinvented for faster speed and yet no<BR>>one uses them because everybody's in a rut. <BR>><BR>> <BR>><BR>>Now I know how they feel.<BR>><BR>> <BR>><BR>>Item number: 140067612730<BR>><BR>> <BR>><BR>>Tom Sivak<BR>><BR>> <BR>><BR>> <BR>><BR>> <BR>><BR><BR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>