Talk:Musical keyboard

Drawing the black keys

How the black keys of the keyboard should be drawn (on paper or computer screen), if I want to be accurate?

It seems that there are two alignment positions: the center of the D, and the space between G and A.

C# is not evenly positioned between C and D, but C# and D# have equal distance from the center of D. F# is not exacly in the middle of F and G, but G# is exactly in the middle of G and A, and F# and Bb have equal distance from the same place.

Is there a mathematical formula to count the exact position? Is there some history behind this? I guess the rationale is simply to spread the black keys so that the fingers won't get stuck between them. —the preceding unsigned comment is by 213.216.199.14 (talk • contribs) 17 December 2005

No, the rationale for the positioning of the keys is evenness - (from the article): On a well-designed keyboard, the natural keys are of uniform width at the front, and all keys are of uniform width at the back. - So the white keys should be evenly spaced, and also all the twelve keys should be evenly spaced. From that information it's probably quite simple to derive the formula you are after. The width of the keys is dictated by convenience and, I suppose, "average hand layout". By the way, keyboard players don't generally play on the white keys by striking them at the back, between the black ones! --RobertG ♬ talk 10:15, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I tried to do the math, but someone has done it already. Please see http://www.mathpages.com/home/kmath043.htm Lanttuloora 21:20, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I removed this from the article: "…and all keys are of almost uniform width at the back. It's not mathematically possible to have perfectly all black keys and narrow parts of white keys to be of same width. Let the octave width be 12, then the white key width is 12/7 and black key widht is 1. The width of keys from C to E should be then 3*12/7=5.143, not exactly 5. Therefore the unevennes of 0.143 units (1/7) must be distributed evenly between keys from C to E." and moved the cited link to the External links section. The removed text seemed to me to be somewhat confusing. The width of the black keys is irrelevant for calculating the spacing of the keys. There is no requirement for the "black keys and narrow parts of white keys to be the same width", so it is irrelevant that it is mathematically impossible. Also, the "unevenness" has to be spread over all twelve keys - it seems incorrect to spread the unevenness between C and E over those five notes, and then (by implication) separately spread the unevenness between F and B over the remaining seven. The unevenness surely has to be evenly spread over all twelve keys, which means that the the maths is very simple: the centres of the white keys are 12/7 units apart, and the centres of all the twelve keys are 1 unit apart; the width of each white key is 12/7 units, and the width of each black key may be taken to be any convenient value somewhat less than 12/7, its exact value resulting from considerations of convenience to the fingers and visual aesthetics. --RobertG ♬ talk 10:32, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Musical Keyboards

As a little boy (I'm now 76), I played piano for 2 years. Over the decades, I've played classical guitar (35 years), & both 6- & 12-string acoustic guitars with a pick, 5-string banjo, tinwhistle, & soprano recorder.

Recently, I bought a 4-octave electronic keyboard used (Radio Shack) & love it. My only criticism of this Wikipedia entry is that, unlike traditional keyboards, EK's can usually play both chords & rhythm easily with the L.H., while one plays melody with the R.H. So after only a few days, one can play many pop & C&W songs.

Good article, though!

Dan

dab notice

I added a link to Keyboard instrument at the top as I noticed that a good 75% or more of the links to the article seem to refer to that use of the term "keyboard". There are about 550 links currently that need to be looked over and fixed when necessary and I'm working on this (I've already done about 100). This is not something that's going to be completed quickly. But when finished, the dab notice can be removed. -- Krash 07:55, 20 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

All done. For now. I think the dab notice should remain though as this seems to be a common occurrence. -- Krash (Talk) 20:15, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is not

THE 'musical keyboard'. There's a whole variety of musical keyboards that have nothing to do with the archaic harpsichord layout. Wording and captions need to be changed if you aren't willing to let me move and re-write the entire article to point out that it is as harpsichord/piano-style keyboard. Layouts like this and this are new developments and technically superior in their layout. My last statement of course is a matter of opinion but the fact is that the piano and harpsichord and most modern synthesizers use a certain layout that should NOT be referred to as the "Musical Keyboard". 67.87.110.175 22:34, 13 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I looked at the links you provided and I don't agree with you. The harpsichord layout as you call it is far from archaic considering it represents 99.9% of whats out there today and has not fallen out of common use. Your starrlabs instruments look interesting but how many orchestras, pop groups, polka groups or anyone uses them? The accordian uses some kind of button layout similar to the first one but the accordion page talks about that already and doesn't call it a keyboard. The pictures you provided are of buttons so you could call it a button board. -Crunchy Numbers 16:48, 14 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The reason I call it archaic is because all notes are created equal. The white keys on the keyboard represent 'naturals' in a diatonic scale. I'm not really biased, since I'm a classically trained pianist. I'm also not selling any of Starrlabs' stuff either.. I can't afford it myself. Could I maybe add a section to this article on new layouts? Also, what distinguishes a key from a button..? Seems to me the 'keys' on my Yamaha keyboard operate like buttons.67.87.110.175 19:58, 14 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Xylophone vs. cell phone

From the history of edits to this article:

05:12, February 6, 2007 Neoballmon II (Talk | contribs) (Other uses - This article is about keyboards themselves, so don't think you can remove my mobile phone stuff and keep all this xylophone and glokenspiel shit with the weird shitty names.)

20:01, February 5, 2007 Thebainer (Talk | contribs) m (rm nonsense - this article is about keyboards themselves)

21:30, February 2, 2007 Neoballmon II (Talk | contribs) (Other uses - Mobile Phone)

This chain of edits refers to the following paragraphs, the former of which was added by Neoballmon II and subsequently deleted by Thebainer. Neoballmon II then deleted the latter paragraph, which I have since restored it via the undo function:

Keyboard music can also be played on a mobile phone, if they have different tones for each key, with 1 representing C, 2 being D, 3 being E, etc.

Other instruments share the keyboard layout, although they are not keyboard instruments. For example the xylophone, marimba, vibraphone and glockenspiel all have a separate sounding tone bar for each note, and these bars are laid out in the same configuration as a common keyboard.

It is rude for Neoballmon II to delete this relevant information and call it "shit" because someone deleted his edit and called it "nonsense." Rather, he should have questioned the deletion of the material here on the talk page. Most likely, a consensus would have been reached without much trouble. I for one would probably have voted to put some mention of the musical cell phone keyboard on the page.

Furthermore, the xylophone and the glockenspiel are both common musical instruments in American musical groups, especially in wind ensembles. Though they are played with mallets, they are laid out in the fashion of a modern musical keyboard; thus, they deserve a mention in the article.—Cor anglais 16 21:56, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Bainer is not just 'someone'. He is a person who has hated me on here for a number of months, and he was probably watching my edits to delete that. It was NO coincidence that he was the person to remove it. By deleting the xylophone, glockenspiel, etc, I was mainly trying to prove a point to Bainer that he just can't get away with anything. I was a bit out of line with calling them 'shit' and I do apologise to anyone who plays them, likes them, or just doesn't like me saying that about it. Neoballmon II 09:21, 7 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]