Fun & Exotic Digital Keyboards 😸

MRC I've often switched between piano and harpsichord.

I have never played a harpsichord.

Once upon a time, I was a piano tech and rebuilder. I had collected a couple of grand pianos to rebuild and picked up a harpsichord that someone had started but never finished, nowhere near playable. And then... Hurricane Katrina came through and wiped that all out. That's about as close as I've ever come. Life didn't see me continuing in that line of work after that and I don't even have an acoustic piano anymore.

I expect there is some variation and super-optimized muscle memory, particularly at the highest levels of play!

But I might think that for smaller-handed pianists, the burden/difficulty/injuries from straining to hit 8ths, 9ths and 10ths regularly might for some far outweigh the inconvenience of learning to adjust to a slightly different action.

That's so interesting! I'm paging @Nightowl too because she and I were actually talking about what a keyboard with more narrow keys would do. Apparently, the brain adjusts without effort. I think that means we're both one step closer to buying a cutesy little keyboard with the excuse that it will make us practice more

Gombessa There's also a lot of repertoire that is literally out of reach when all available pianos are too big and one is only able to reach e.g. an octave on them.

I grew up with a piano in the house, but when I was old enough to pick an instrument to learn formally, piano was never really on my radar. I could read the method books and sheet music left on the piano music stand by my older sibling and mother well enough. I knew what keys were which on the piano, thus realizing that I couldn't reach some of what was even in the beginners' book, so why choose an instrument that was obviously such a bad fit, I thought. As an adult I can strainfully reach an octave on the edge as well as on the black keys, but even in my early teens that felt like something I might never be able to do.

When I much later decided to learn piano during the pandemic I was baffled that digital pianos only came in one size, especially considering that so many piano learners are children. I may be naive, but I honestly assumed more would have happened in the half century or so since I was little.

korg nanokey has been useful for some projects, but I struggled with hammerklavier

-casually strolls in with my giant pterodactyl hands that can comfortably span an eleventh-
-looks down at the tiny-handed people-

What’s this I hear about needing smaller keys. Having a trouble with the reach, eh?

Just kidding, just kidding!!!

_

On a serious note, this conversation has taken such an interesting and important, turn! There really does need to be more of a push to create alternate standard sizes for the instrument. I’ve always had large hands - even as a preteen, I could comfortably span a 10th. So I never had this issue. BUT, I have great empathy, because I would see it all the time with two of my fellow students who had smaller hands. I could see how challenging it was for them: not just challenging to find repertoire to play, but emotionally challenging. I remember them really being so sad sometimes because they were really passionate about playing and there were pieces they truly wanted to play…but couldn’t. There was such a look of heartbreak on their faces when they’d hear a piece they loved, but then look at the sheet music and see too many chords or stretches beyond an octave, or find out there were parts where substitutions or leaving out notes simply wasn’t a feasible solution.

I also remember realizing how deep it must’ve impacted them when I saw a video, over on PW I believe, of a young lady trying a piano with narrower keys, and being able, for the first time, to play some of the pieces she desperately wanted to play with ease. She, literally, had tears in her eyes/was crying over it. It was such an emotional moment. And how many are there out there who experience, feel, and suppress such emotion; loving an instrument so desperately, but having, not a limitation of imagination, but a limitation of their own physical form - the very tool through which they manipulate the instrument.

And I think that the ignorance I had initially is the same ignorance that many in the piano world have and even lean into. People with smaller hands are sort of culled out of the field early on by teachers who just don’t want to take the time with them and an industry that doesn’t want to put the time into solutions. So, people don’t really pay attention to the fact that this problem exists and, yet, is easily solvable.

I do believe that creating pianos with different standard sizes is not only doable and feasible in today’s day and age, but also easily accomplishable. It just has to be a priority. And unfortunately, the exclusivity attitude of the field leans into a “meet the standard” not “build the standard around all” rule.

I think it’s just a matter of find two or three smaller alternate sizes, standardizing them, and building around those standards. Some of the smaller/narrower actions that exist out there don’t even require much change beyond the key sticks. This is an easy fix. People just have to make more of a fuss - and in a world where inclusivity and care for the diffferently-abled is increasingly at the forefront, I don’t see why this can’t become a standard.

Here's one @TheBoringPianist mentioned in another thread: https://pianodevoyage.com

The cost makes me cry like an onion, but it sure looks nice!

Still haven't bought anything though, not even a toy piano

thepianoplayer416 Nice, mine's still in the production queue but looking forward to trying it out when it arrives!

Part of the reason I went AWOL from piano for so many years was due to work travel M-Th every week keeping me from regular practice. I remember searching desperately for travel keyboards, finding the VAX77, and getting sticker shock; more recently, after the VAX77 was discontinued, I even considered buying an extra Yamaha P-series and chopping it in half to fit into a suitcase! So when I finally saw something that looked like a basic 88-key keyboard that I could travel with, I jumped on it. Of course, I'm waiting for their Model B (fully weighted keys), but given (a) lack of practice pianos increases my reluctance to go on longer trips, and (b) when traveling, non-zero energy is spent looking for practice rooms, it's just a no-brainer to get something sooner rather than later.

Not to derail the overall thread too much but @thepianoplayer416 I'm curious what unforeseen annoyances you've encountered traveling with the Piano de Voyage.

Ok, this is currently a Prime deal... talk me out of it (or into it)
Seriously though, I'm just looking at something to practice on while sitting in the patio, or longer journeys, or just for fun really. Is it worth the <$100?

rsl12 oohh nice, thank you!!! And the price seems right too

lol I definitely bought a melodica a while back — the same model used by Kaori in Your Lie in April as well as by the orchestra in Nodame Cantabile. (As an aside, watching Your Lie in April when I was just starting to get back into piano after my long hiatus is what made me learn the Pavane and Ballade No. 1)

You guys are wicked... now I definitely want one

Sophia My Piano de Voyage just arrived today! Might do a separate review thread, but first impressions:

1. Wow 88 keys I can fit into a carry-on or large backpack!
2. Assembly and setup is very straightforward
3. Semi-weighted keys are a bummer, but they're working on a fully weighted version
4. I can see myself using it to learn notes and keep my fingers from getting too rusty on the road

A melodica is a fun instrument but a different instrument from a piano like an accordion with a keyboard but plays differently with just 1 hand instead of 2.