For the people who know me, I am a rebel in terms of music notation and as well in how the piano keyboard is layed out. About music notation, I still stick to the idea that having a treble clef and a bass clef with the same notes on different lines is a horrible idea. Would have preferred both clefs to be the same but octave shifted, like french treble clef is equal to the bass clef but shifted two octaves higher. I think I will never get tired to rave about this. 😒
Anyway, this isn't about music notation. This is about the Janko keyboard. On one hand I like the idea of having an isomorphic key layout. But I strongly dislike how ugly it looks. I don't like it isn't tactile: If you don't see the the color of the key, you have no idea where your hands are. Actually, this is a no-go for blind people. We would not have a Ray Charles, nor a Stevie Wonder. And I hate the complexity of the mechanics: in the same column there are octave shifted notes. This may work out for organ like instruments (like the button accordion) whose are only opening a vent for air. But not for touch sensitive instruments like (especially acoustic) pianos.
Basically I agree on everything I found in this video, except the point with the sight reading. In this case, guitarists would have a difficult time to sight as well. Is this true - any guitarists who can help me out here?
There is one more point, Robert didn't address: How would a glissando sound when all keys of one row are a whole step away. With a standard keykoard a white key glissando sound good, and the black key glissando sounds even better.
In my opinion Janko went too far with his layout, the 3rd row is already overkill, resulting in inconsitent leverage. He overengineered it. Furthermore, with his layout we should not talk about keys anymore, they appear to be buttons. Making it more difficult to address the human hand with different finger lengths.
