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Oh yes, that would be great! Do you play saxophone?

@ Unfortunately I don’t, so I can’t help. Videos like this one make me wish I could though. Anyway, it’s wonderful as is and I’m excited to see and hear what you come up with next.

Yeah, it definitely is possible to learn everything on the classical piano. I mean, there are so many amazing piano players out there. But often, they started learning when they were little. Starting as adult is more difficult. And especially when you played guitar before and are used to learning chord shapes and just move them left or right to transpose them, and you then want to learn piano, then the Jankó might actually be a more suitable approach.

This construction consists of wooden Jankó keys glued to the keys of a regular midi keyboard (the Komplete Kontrol A61), so the octaves have the same length.

Unfortunately I can't even read music properly, but I'll ask a friend of mine who also got into playing Jankó recently, he has a classical piano education.

@@rico-raven sounds great, thank you very much i would appreciate it if you could also reply to me here if/when the video is out, just in case i miss it

i subscribed

@@RememberGodHolyBible Somehow your message has a lot of strange letters (at least for me) and I cannot read it. Could you try again?

​@@rico-raven Ah, yes, I often write in a way based on an older form of English, here is the above message translated: Truely a pretty build and a wonderful sound. I do wonder, what is the length of its octave? Normally, a Janko keyboard has a shorter octave, but since your layout has your keys laid out with black keys reachable through the white keys, I would think the octave would be bigger if not the same as a normal piano. Also, if you put a few pedals underneath at your feet, you could tune the keys to a chain of perfect 3/2 fifths. So making the keys as ſuch: Db Ab Eb Bb F C G D A E B F# You could then use the foot pedals to reach other notes. So, if you were in C major, and you set your self to play an A major chord. You could then hit a foot pedal to make your Db into a C#, making the set of notes as such: Ab Eb Bb F C G D A E B F# C# Then you could play the A major triad and if then you wished to play a b2 chord, Db major, then hit ɗe "down one" pedal and the notes and scale change on the fly. You could have up 1, 2, and 3 pedals, and also down 1, 2, and 3 pedals. A small display, analogue or digital, either or, coulld be right above the keys to let the player know where they are on the chain of fifths. Like Ab-C# or Bbb-D for example. Since you were able to make what you did with this keyboard, I would think you could do this as well. Then you could play wholly in Just Intonation and change to any key as you play freely. There would be nowhere you could not go.

It's true that on the Jankó you typically start the major scale with the index finger, but you do the same on a classical piano when you play e.g. an F# major scale. The difference is that on the Jankó it's always the same :-) I've actually tried a Linnstrument once but I didn't like the feel of the silicon pads too much, I need some key that I can actually press down and that has some key travel. Having the Jankó keys on top of a normal midi keyboard combines isomorphism with the feel of a classical piano action.

@rico-raven I suppose that makes sense. When I wrote this comment, I was just thinking about some of the classical pieces that I played way back in the past which had very specific fingerings. I'm sure you could figure out alternative fingerings for them if you had to do them on this type of keyboard, and of course the advantage would be that you could just transpose the music to whatever key you want after you've figured out the "pattern" of the song. That said, kind of wish I had a janko keyboard when I was learning jazz...

I've also built Jankó prototypes with rectangular keys that one sees more often, but I found them rather unergonomic. The thin keys here have the advantage that the keys are accessible across their whole length allowing to have your fingers stretched comfortably and naturally leading to better ergonomics.

not at all; I've been interested in music for over 40 years and I've never even heard of one before, either

I also didn't know about the Jankó before actively searching for it. I was looking for an isomorphic alternative to the classical piano. The Jankó is really rare and was almost forgotten since its invention by Paul von Jankó in the late 19th century. When I found it, I was immediately fascinated, wanted to play it and wished to make it available to more people to try it out themselves.

The curved radial shape definitely helps, I put a lot of time to get that right. In the beginning all keys were flat and then the dynamic response was really problematic. Now it's pretty decent. Actually not that different from a classical piano where you also get different resistances depending on how far in you press a key.

Thanks! Yes, the keys are made from wood. You find all the info about the building process on my website www.thejankoproject.com

How did you mod your keyboard like this

Read the description. He also has a blog ​@@kyanstack

@@kyanstack Thanks! You'll find all the infos on my website www.thejankoproject.com

Thanks! I describe my whole Jankó piano journey and the building process on my website www.thejankoproject.com I'm also working on making the Jankó available for purchase pretty soon, will announce it on my website. Do if you're interested, stay tuned :-)

@ checking it out right now thank you so much

@

@@rico-raven would so buy it! just really quick though what glue did you use for the improved version of the keys? I want to try to diy to get my hands on one quick. Is it just plain wood and glue for the latest slanted design?

@@j-bardo It's a modification of the original Jankó layout by myself. The keys are a bit thinner to improve the ergonomics. I'm working on making the Jankó available for purchase pretty soon, you find more info on my website www.thejankoproject.com

@@rico-raven Wonderful, let me know when it is and I'll be sure to pick one up if it isn't 3 G's

@@j-bardo I will and it won't be 3G's 😉

@@justincomisk Thanks! You find more info about the Jankó on my website www.thejankoproject.com

Wow, thanks for the long comment. Let me at least try to address two points: You write "while the "general shape" is the same, the distances are not." Actually, the distances are the same. Whether playing a C major scale, D major, E major, and so on, doesn't matter, is precisely the same distances. That's actually different from the guitar, where, like you said, frets are moving closer together the higher you move. Ok, distances are a bit difference when you start on the other wholetone sequence, C#, D#, F, ... but only a little bit and it's actually pretty easy to switch between the two. And I can say from experience that the isomorphic advantage is not just a theoretical one. I can very easily play stuff that I practiced in on key in all the other keys because of reusing chord shapes. And you wrote "Perhaps the depth and layering could be optimized so that sideways motion has less "walls" to hit. I actually already like it the way it is and find it more ergonomic than on a classical piano. On the classical piano, your fingers are quite often "trapped" in the space between two black keys and you have to lift your fingers by at least 1cm to move out from there. On the Jankó, most of the time you can play on the easily accessible elevated part of a key and from there don't have to lift your fingers to move sideways. But I'm definitely not a professional piano player, so possibly we're talking about different levels of playing. I'm just sharing my experiences I have gained so far.

@@rico-raven I've played piano over 30 years now so yes, we are possibly talking about different things. My technical ability isn't superb though but I am at the level where I can play some Chopin Etudes adequately (the ones I've taken up as practice). Probably the most condensed pattern based system is the one used on a accordion. There the system is such that you have pattern matching and also highly optimized distances as you can travel octaves both up/down and left/right. I wonder what kind of cool keyboard version of that could be built. Would probably be a bit difficult to get it properly tactile in a velocity sensitive manner but if the engineering could be solved and it could be sort of like the Janko "keys" it may actually be a really interesting way of doing it! Anyhow, wish you all the best with your awesome Janko builds!

@@niklassilen4313Two other isomorphic approaches I know of are the Harpejji and the Lumatone, both follow a kind of two-dimensional approach to accessing notes. I've experimented with several different layouts and in the end I always realize that it's a trade-off. You get one nice new property and you lose another one. In the end it's probably just a matter of taste.

@@jedzulaybar8761 Thanks! You find more info about the Jankó and the building process on my website www.thejankoproject.com

Oh I agree, it's also a beautiful piece of art. In fact, I have part of this keyboard actually hanging on my wall for decoration. But I also really enjoy playing on it 🙂 The nice thing about the Jankó is that it's isomorphic, and thus, chord shapes and scale fingerings are independent of the key you are playing in. Just like on a guitar, you can take the shape of, e.g., a major chord and just move it left or right to transpose it. No need to learn different shapes for different keys like on the classical piano.

You've exactly described my feeling 😂😂

@@TheWebgecko We're working on making the Jankó piano available for purchase soon, probably already within the next couple of weeks. Check out my website for updates www.thejankoproject.com

@ that’s really awesome, but I can’t afford something like this, especially buying on a whim without trying. Do you plan to bring it anywhere and let people try it for a demo?

@@TheWebgecko I've put quite some thought into how to make the manufacturing as simple as possible to be able to offer it for an affordable price. But I like your idea, would be nice to show it at some music fair and let people try it out!

@ MAGFest is next week if you have tickets 👀👀👀

@@TheWebgecko I live in Germany, so I'd probably start with some music fairs over here :-)

I recorded a video explaining how the Janko works: th-cam.com/video/_POoaGecU9w/w-d-xo.htmlsi=Ge9ySBr4Kv_j4TDz And you find more info about it on my website: www.thejankoproject.com/

@@JimAlfredsonHaha, fortunately not everything is AI created yet ;-) The piano layout is actually simpler than it looks. Indeed, it's isomorphic, and thus, chord shapes and scale fingerings are independent of the key you are playing in. Just like on a guitar, you can take a shape for, e.g, a major chord and just move it left or right to transpose it. No need to learn different shapes for different keys like on a classical piano. Learn more about the Jankó piano on my website www.thejankoproject.com

@@rico-raven yes, I watched your other video explaining how it works. Very cool. I'd like to try one.

@@JimAlfredson Thanks! We're currently working on making the Jankó available for purchase pretty soon, probably within a couple of weeks. You'll get more updates on my website www.thejankoproject.com/

I'm working on making the Jankó available for purchase pretty soon. Check out my website for more infos: www.thejankoproject.com/

I'm using Noire via Kontakt 8.

@@rico-raven any particular preset, or one you created yourself? never been a huge fan of noire, but yours sounds so good

@@sailence5757 Thanks! I've created it myself.

@ I gotta do more digging into that vst 🫡

@@rico-raven You should post the preset. I'd love to try it out. I'd love to make something with it and show you!