This section is all about a faster, innovative music keyboard called a jammer. In a nutshell, we are combining current music theory, modern knowledge and simple ergonomics to produce "piano 2.0"; an improved musical keyboard, built on the $430 AXiS-49 I've built four jammers and have found they have very significant advantages over the traditional design and few disadvantages. They are faster to learn, very significantly faster and easier to play and more expressive. They are also easier to play by ear, in other words, to jam, hence the name. In practical terms, it takes 10 years to become skilled enough to be passable pianist. With the jammer design, the same level should be reachable in 3 yrs. It's not a free lunch, but it is less expensive, yet more filling. Indeed, the meshing of the keyboard layout with music theory, kinesiology and human perception is a great leap forward: it's fun to have an instrument where the melody and the chords intertwine, where it's blink'n easy to add chords to a melody and music just plain makes sense. jammer basics Jammer Basics 2 Reading a score
Ken's Jammer design points:
Other information:
MoreOne of the best alternate keyboard designs, the jammer uses notes in an two-dimensional array with the jammer key layout, formally known as the Wicki-Hayden (W/H for short).The W/H layout avoids these problems:
To summarize, the jammer's key layout moves the keys to where they are more reachable, useful and less prone to mistakes. Advantages
Disadvantages
other
The jammer is a flexible instrument and can be set up in many ways: The jammer Ideal setup
Single keyboard setup
Practice setup
Wearing the jammer across the chest
Hand-held with Wii-Stick
Double keyboard
Full multiplex piano replacement
Thumb-controls Future
Also see these Wikipedia articles:
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