Reconfiguring a DX21

Yesterday, I took delivery of 20 new keys for my DX21. The
reason? Well, naturally, I got bored of the same keyvoard
layout all the time, and decided to go for something more
symmetrical.

Actually, I was taking the thing apart to clean it, and change the
backup battery. I was half way through removing the keys to
get rid of the fluff sitting behind them, and I realised that
there was nothing to stop me putting them back in a different
order. There was an explantion of something like this on the
list not long ago, but I didn't pay as much attention as I should
because I didn't realise how easy it is. At the moment, I'm
away from home, so I can't review the thread.

I'm using a layout with alternating white and black keys all the
way up the 5 octave keyboard. This gives invariance for
transpositions of an even number of steps. That means, for ETs,
there are only 2 ways of fingering each chord or mode. There are
advantages for such a layout even in 12 equal, and I remember it
being mentioned in the CMJ microtonal special.

For the operation, I needed 5 new black keys, and 15 additional
Ds. Actually, I could have got by with only 14 Ds, but one of the
old ones was slightly damaged. These cost me 42 pounds (about
$67) from the Yamaha spares department. The only tool I required
was a screwdriver. Changing the battery looks to be more
difficult, so I'm hoping that'll wait for a while.

The DX21 keyboard is not velocity sensitive. It may be more
difficult to customise one that is. As a spare keyboard, it
should still be of some use, and worth the expenditure from my
ever dwindling funds.

Paul Erlich mentioned an alternative layout for 22 equal. He
confused me with talk about latticed balconies, or something, so
I didn't understand him at the time. What I think he meant is
a keyboard with clusters of 6 white and 5 black keys. This is
certainly a good idea. To redo a 5 octave keyboard, you only
need 5 extra Ds, provided you don't mind having a few keys
unaccounted for at the edges. The problem is that the slots
designed for D keys won't accept any other key. You could sort
this out if you've got an extensive toolbox to hand, but it
doesn't look easy. Otherwise, you need to leave a gap for every
tritone ... not really much of an advance on the traditional
layout. A shame, because it'd look really good.


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From: Stephen Soderberg
Subject: Problems in Notation
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>Why not use a darker line (instead of the space) -- or colored one(s).

A darker line instead of a blank one sounds like an intriguing
alternative. My immediate guess would be that the missing line would stand
out more, and would have a lower possibility of changing half-notes on the
line into quarter notes! But still that thought is well worth exploring.

Colored lines would almost certainly stand out better than missing or
dark ones. The drawbacks: I would think would be that it's a bit more
difficult to copy colored lines than purely black-and-white images, and
that far more people are color-blind than most of us realize (luckily I'm
not).




>It should be easier to train the brain
>to follow the position of the ref line than to find a pitch on an extended
>staff. ...

Without a doubt you're right there. Making one staff line distinctive
in some way (e.g., colored or missing) makes the clef you're in a lot
easier to remember than having to look back to the beginning of the line.
It's kind of like painting the clef throughout the entire staff line!


Along similar lines to both of these, I have often wished for a computer
sequencer that allows me to view and print instrument transpositions by
staff-line color. For example, Bb instruments could be given ... brown say
.. staff lines, Eb instruments, perhaps green, and so forth. And on top
of that, having the note-head colors suggest entire octave displacements.
So, for example, a guitar (since it transposes down an octave) would have,
say blue notes (octave down transposition) on a black staff (no sub-octave
transposition). Or a bass clarinet or tenor saxophone would have blue
notes (octave down transposition) on brown staff lines (Bb transposition).
That makes it a lot easier, as you're thumbing through an orchestra or band
score, to quickly figure out what the concert pitches are among the sea of
lines and notes.


SMTPOriginator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu
From: Johnny Reinhard
Subject: Re: Bach's Tuning
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