User:MusicScienceGuy/Sonome keyboard

A sonome keyboard is a musical instrument with an isomorphic, ergonomic keyboard, using the Harmonic table note layout. originally named 'Melodic Table'. It is designed to be faster to play, easier to learn, and give a unique insight into musical arrangements.

History
The sonome was invented by Peter Davies as a a 21st-century keyboard. The sonome's applied concept of isomorphism, or consistent interval assignments across an array keyboard in a Harmonic Table format, is new in a musical instrument, the first prototype having appeared in 1991. The sonome is also notable for its other innovations such as dimpled, beveled hexagonal keys and velocity sensitivity.

Current Status: instruments using the Harmonic Table are made by C-Thru Music and by The Shape of Music.

Novel features of the instrument
 A 2-dimensional keyboard in a hexagonal array. Notes assigned to the array in a Harmonic_table_note_layout. Velocity-sensitive keys 

Special uses
Of the large number of isomorphic {link} note-assignment possible, the sonome's harmonic table format is preferred by players (sonomists) since all notes of the major and minor scales fall under the fingers, and all common chords can be played with one or two fingers. All chords found in conventional chord progressions (I, ii, iii, IV, V, vi and viii, as well as others), in some inversions, can be easily played on a sonome's with simple hand movements. The sonome's key layout has attracted the attention of numerous professional musicians, including Brian May and Jordan Rudess who find that it gives them a novel view of music, which is reportedly very useful in composing. It also works well with novel tunings such as the Bohlen–Pierce scale.

The sonome is listed on ‘Tiem’, Taxonomy of Realtime Interfaces for Electronic Music Performance, Compiled by Jon Drummond and Garth Paine.

The sonome is to be used in a upcoming Bohlen-Pierce Symposium in Boston, March 7-9th.

It is in use for ongoing research into microtonal scales by music researchers and composers, in particular Carlo Serafini, Elaine Walker and Dr. Richard Boulanger. The instrument has these advantages over a standard keyboard:

Limitations and disadvantages over a standard keyboard:  the distance between chromatic intervals is greater harder to learn than the piano in C major no teachers or body of pedagogy for the sonome fingering techniques are awaiting publication high cost of hexagonal keyboards relative to the standard keyboard 

Ergomonics
As expected per Fitts law, experts on a sonome find them much faster to play that a conventional keyboard. The eventual limit to speed of play is expected to be: log base 2 (30% smaller key / ~1000% distance decrease) giving about 75% less time, on average, to move fingers from one key to another, conversely novices report that it is much quicker to become proficient on.