Wicki-Hayden note layout
Encyclopedia
In music
, the Wicki-Hayden note layout is a key
layout for musical instrument
s that offers some advantages over the traditional keyboard layout
.
player, who patented it again a century later, in 1986. This layout is popular with concertinists (an instrument played with the hands strapped to it, resembling a small accordion), since it places all the notes of the major scale under the fingers without requiring hand movement.
Jim Plamondon
later discovered the W/H layout while searching for an optimal keyboard layout to use in the electronic musical instrument he was designing. He publicized its benefits widely through the web and through his company Thumtronics (which unfortunately was commercially unsuccessful). He hoped to use the web and "word-of-finger" contacts to reach people interested in novel music instruments. As he envisioned, novel music instrument hobbyists have become interested in the features and advantages of Wicki-Hayden instruments and have begun to make their own, at first manually, and then by adapting commercially available instruments.
, the important notes are the white notes on a piano. However, their linear layout presents ergonomic challenges:
The W/H layout avoids these problems:
To summarize, the Wicki/Hayden layout moves the keys to where they are more reachable, useful and less prone to mistakes.
Some studies and the consonance/dissonance diagram to the right indicate there may be strong parallels to the way the brain hears music.
A proposed problem with the Wicki/Hayden system is that the keys are not in chromatic order. It is argued from this that playing impromptu ornamental flourishes and accidental passing tones are less intuitive than on chromatically ordered key arrangements. In the common practice of much modern western music, especially improvised music i.e. jazz, almost every chromatic note is commonly used within any key signature. It is argued that the less-intuitive ergonomic access to chromatic intervals may prove to be a detriment to performing musical styles that make heavier use of dissonance.
Experimentally, however, advanced jammer players find that they can adopt a fingering that places the fingers on the keys so as to minimize the distance component of Fitts's Law.
Jammer players have found that many classical piano exercises are optimized for the piano layout, and therefore are more challenging to learn to play on the jammer, e.g. the early Hanon Exercises (see: The Virtuoso Pianist in 60 Exercises
). They note, however, that once learned, the exercises generalize to all keys, which does not happen on the standard keyboard: Hanon Exercises can be played in keys other than C only with great difficulty.
The color schemes above divide the 12 basic notes of the chromatic scale into groups in different ways:
(Note that the whole tone scale (6-6) color scheme by itself is not very practical for the Wicki-Hayden layout since this pattern is already the basis for the physical layout of the keys—each row is a whole tone scale. It is more useful when combined with the piano (7-5) color scheme, particularly for better orientation along the vertical axis.)
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
, the Wicki-Hayden note layout is a key
Key (music)
In music theory, the term key is used in many different and sometimes contradictory ways. A common use is to speak of music as being "in" a specific key, such as in the key of C major or in the key of F-sharp. Sometimes the terms "major" or "minor" are appended, as in the key of A minor or in the...
layout for musical instrument
Musical instrument
A musical instrument is a device created or adapted for the purpose of making musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can serve as a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. The history of musical instruments dates back to the...
s that offers some advantages over the traditional keyboard layout
Keyboard layout
A keyboard layout is any specific mechanical, visual, or functional arrangement of the keys, legends, or key–meaning associations of a computer, typewriter, or other typographic keyboard....
.
History
The Wicki-Hayden (W/H) layout was initially conceived by Kaspar Wicki and patented in 1896. It was independently conceived and refined by Brian Hayden, a concertinaConcertina
A concertina is a free-reed musical instrument, like the various accordions and the harmonica. It has a bellows and buttons typically on both ends of it. When pressed, the buttons travel in the same direction as the bellows, unlike accordion buttons which travel perpendicularly to it...
player, who patented it again a century later, in 1986. This layout is popular with concertinists (an instrument played with the hands strapped to it, resembling a small accordion), since it places all the notes of the major scale under the fingers without requiring hand movement.
Jim Plamondon
Jim Plamondon
James Plamondon is a technology evangelist, technical writer and inventor notable for his role at Microsoft, in the 1990s, in systematizing the theory and practice of platform evangelism.Technical Writer=...
later discovered the W/H layout while searching for an optimal keyboard layout to use in the electronic musical instrument he was designing. He publicized its benefits widely through the web and through his company Thumtronics (which unfortunately was commercially unsuccessful). He hoped to use the web and "word-of-finger" contacts to reach people interested in novel music instruments. As he envisioned, novel music instrument hobbyists have become interested in the features and advantages of Wicki-Hayden instruments and have begun to make their own, at first manually, and then by adapting commercially available instruments.
Relationship between the standard piano keyboard and the Wicki/Hayden system
The traditional keyboard has 7 white notes (CDEFGAB) that repeat with each octave. These can be grouped into the first 3 notes (CDE) and the following 4 notes (FGAB). The critical change is to stack the 4 white notes (FGAB) just above the 3 notes (CDE), as shown in the diagrams to the right and left. This seemingly minor change in placement has surprising and profound consequences in the resulting note layout.Problems Avoided by the Wicki/Hayden system
In western music’s preeminent major scaleMajor scale
In music theory, the major scale or Ionian scale is one of the diatonic scales. It is made up of seven distinct notes, plus an eighth which duplicates the first an octave higher. In solfege these notes correspond to the syllables "Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti/Si, ", the "Do" in the parenthesis at...
, the important notes are the white notes on a piano. However, their linear layout presents ergonomic challenges:
- Notes are far apart and therefore slow to play, as the hands have to move a considerable distance.
- The intervals between neighboring white keys are irregular: sometimes a whole step (C-D) and at others a half step (E-F).
- The combination of white and black keys and the pitch to key distance and vector is irregular.
- New players must watch the keyboard, instead of reading the score.
- The keys that sound worst when played together are right next to each other, increasing the chance of mistakes.
The W/H layout avoids these problems:
- Commonly played notes that are separated by as much as 12 cm on the piano, are grouped much closer together.
- The uniform isomorphic layout makes fingering patterns consistent, so only one fingering must be learned, instead of twelve for each hand (24 patterns in total) as on the piano.
- The normally troublesome black keys move out of the way and are split into two groups: a "sharp" and a "flat" section.
- Instead of mistakes sounding bad, they sound consonant, allowing for easy jamming.
To summarize, the Wicki/Hayden layout moves the keys to where they are more reachable, useful and less prone to mistakes.
Some studies and the consonance/dissonance diagram to the right indicate there may be strong parallels to the way the brain hears music.
Problems Produced by the Wicki/Hayden system
The Wicki/Hayden system strongly encourages consonant play within a given key signature, which paradoxically may make players less innovative.A proposed problem with the Wicki/Hayden system is that the keys are not in chromatic order. It is argued from this that playing impromptu ornamental flourishes and accidental passing tones are less intuitive than on chromatically ordered key arrangements. In the common practice of much modern western music, especially improvised music i.e. jazz, almost every chromatic note is commonly used within any key signature. It is argued that the less-intuitive ergonomic access to chromatic intervals may prove to be a detriment to performing musical styles that make heavier use of dissonance.
Experimentally, however, advanced jammer players find that they can adopt a fingering that places the fingers on the keys so as to minimize the distance component of Fitts's Law.
Jammer players have found that many classical piano exercises are optimized for the piano layout, and therefore are more challenging to learn to play on the jammer, e.g. the early Hanon Exercises (see: The Virtuoso Pianist in 60 Exercises
The Virtuoso Pianist In 60 Exercises
The Virtuoso Pianist by Charles-Louis Hanon, is a compilation of sixty exercises meant to train the pianist in speed, precision, agility, and strength of all of the fingers and flexibility in the wrists. First published in Boulogne, in 1873, The Virtuoso Pianist is Hanon's most well-known work,...
). They note, however, that once learned, the exercises generalize to all keys, which does not happen on the standard keyboard: Hanon Exercises can be played in keys other than C only with great difficulty.
Software
- Wicki.org.uk: site with Java, Flash, and PC applications enables children and non-musicians, to play their PC keyboard as a Wicki/Hayden instrument, with three octaves of 12 equal-tempered pitches.
Instruments using the Wicki/Hayden layout
- Hayden Duet System Concertinas, see The Hayden duet system concertina - Resource List
- Electronic MIDI instruments that use this layout are called jammersJammer keyboardA jammer is a new musical instrument characterized by#at least one isomorphic keyboard, and#thumb-operated and/or motion-sensing expressive controls.The instrument is designed to be fast to learn to play, very fast to play and very expressive....
, since they are excellent for jamming with other musicians. Hand-made jammer makers are to be found at DIYKeyboard and MusicScienceGuy . - Apple iPhone/iPod/iPad applications: iJammer, HexJam and Musix convert iOS devices into concertinas and jammers.
Color schemes
These are some possible color schemes that can be used with the Wicki/Hayden layout:The color schemes above divide the 12 basic notes of the chromatic scale into groups in different ways:
- Piano (7-5): two asymmetrical groups of 7 (white keys) and 5 (black keys)
- Whole Tone Scale (6-6): two symmetrical groups of notes a major second apart (6 notes per group)
- Minor Thirds (4-4-4): three symmetrical groups of notes a minor third apart (4 notes per group)
- Major Thirds (3-3-3-3): four symmetrical groups of notes a major third apart (3 notes per group)
(Note that the whole tone scale (6-6) color scheme by itself is not very practical for the Wicki-Hayden layout since this pattern is already the basis for the physical layout of the keys—each row is a whole tone scale. It is more useful when combined with the piano (7-5) color scheme, particularly for better orientation along the vertical axis.)
See also
- The Janko KeyboardJanko keyboardThe Jankó keyboard is a musical keyboard layout for a piano designed by Paul von Jankó in 1882.Based on the premise that the hand can barely stretch more than a 9th on the piano, and that all scales are fingered differently, Jankó's new keyboard had two interlocking 'manuals' with three...
uses a similar whole-tone-scale 6-plus-6 based layout - Peter Davies: inventor of the sonome and other new musical instrumentsPeter DaviesPeter Davies may refer to:*Sir Peter Maxwell Davies , British composer and conductor*Peter Ho Davies , British writer*Peter Davies , English cricketer...
- The Melodic/Harmonic table note-layout explained
- Isomorphic keyboardIsomorphic keyboardAn isomorphic keyboard is a musical input device consisting of a two-dimensional array of note-controlling elements on which any given sequence and/or combination of musical intervals has the “same shape” on the keyboard wherever it occurs – within a key, across keys, across octaves, and across...
s - The Generalized keyboardGeneralized keyboardGeneralized keyboards are musical keyboards with regular, tile-like arrangements usually with rectangular or hexagonal keys, and were developed for performing music in different tunings...
External links
- Wicki.org.uk, UK site containing Java/Flash applications to enable users to play their alpha-numeric keyboard to sound 12 equal tempered pitches using Wicki/Hayden layout.
- concertina.net
- www.altkeyboards.com Specializes in documenting new musical instruments.