isomorphic yum

This week I am overtaken by fascination with isomorphic keyboard layouts and what is possible with them.

First of all, it needs to be said that I wish I had been alive in the second half of the 19th century, the time of Baha’u'llah, and an era when it was not unusual to be described this way: “Robert Holford Macdowall Bosanquet (31 July 1841 – 7 August 1912) was an English scientist and music theorist, and brother of Admiral Sir Day Bosanquet, and philosopher Bernard Bosanquet.”

If ever there is reason for there to be a wiki page about me, I wish it to describe me in the language of the late 19th century as a Planetary Scientist and Musical Inventor. For such a thing to be possible, I must first invent something. Along those lines, I am knee deep in proposals and applications to spend a year at the MIT Media Lab, so I will try to make this post brief.

In the course of my research today supporting my proposal for my project, here was my interwebspathway:

-> The Brick (referenced in my original post here, made by two guys that may collaborate with me on this project)

-> Reactogon

-> email reactogon link to my friend Bryan Noll

-> return email from Bryan with a link to c-thru-music’s Axis-64 controller

(I got stuck here for a few hours and started investigating the harmonic table, disappointed that most hits returned by Google refer back to the axis-4 controller keyboard layout)

-> a random google group page discussing various isomorphic keyboard layouts

-> a wiki search on “wicki/hayden”

-> a link to a page on isomorphic keyboard layouts

-> link to Thummer (“the new shape of music”)

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-> And this is where I stumbled upon quite possibly the most beautiful thing ever built. I present to you the Jankó piano:

From the wiki site: At the time of its invention (1882), the Jankó keyboard was hailed as revolutionary. Arthur Rubinstein said of the Jankó piano, “If I were to begin my career anew it would be on this keyboard.” Franz Liszt said “This invention will have replaced the present piano keyboard in fifty years’ time!”

Now doth my pen halt.