JV2

This turned up...

Other attempts to remove the early synthesizers from their dependence on
traditional keyboards took the form of, well, alternate keyboards.There's
been an ongoing argument as to whether or not the oleblack'n'whites are the
best means of controlling ANY instrument of akeyboardish nature, including
the piano and harpsichord, and a number ofacoustic pianos and synths have
been developed with alternative keyboarddesigns. The Vandervoort keyboard
uses a design similar to thatdeveloped by von Janko earlier in this
century; it uses four rows ofkeys in whole-tone series, allowing for
consistent fingerings and easymulti-octave jumps regardless of key
signature. It was designed in 1976and was originally envisioned as a
"shell" to be placed over atraditional keyboard; what's funny is that
KEYBOARD wrote of it as afailed and forever lost idea in their Feb. 1987
issue (A greatreference, by the way), and just last week, MUSIC TECHNOLOGY
mentionedthe Vandervoort in a working prototype form as being on display at
lastsummer's NAMM show-- complete with a photograph! Ironic, isn't
it?Another, less well-known design was the Secor keyboard, which utilized a
honeycomb of 240 multicolored hexagonal keys to allow easy (sic) use of
microtonal scales in performance. Its inventor, George Secor, said ofit
that for less than 31 tones per octave it wasn't worth learning, andthat
even if it never caught on it would look great as a prop in a SFmovie.
That's for sure: only two Secor keyboards were ever built, for
alittle-known synth called the Motorola Scalatron, and they were BIZARRE!
Beautiful, but bizarre.

Carl

The Motorola keyboard used a Bosanquet Keyboard. A keyboard that is
quite useful design also for Mallet instruments. It makes the jump from
one tuning to another quite natural and easy
Kraig