MusicScienceGuy

Learning to play the Axis, stage 1b, ability still 0

Kens Axis

The Axis-49 has been in my clutches for about 6 weeks now.
My progress (nothing to show that you wouldn't laugh at) appears slow, but is in line with my expectations. Progress in learning music always seems glacial, because we compare ourselves to virtuosos.

Aside: virtuosos, by the way, have recently been found to be "nothing more" than people that may have a mild aptitude for music, and then spend 10,000 hours practicing with clear intent to improve, see Genius: The Modern View

10 years of careful, diligent work, that all

, and the book on the left.

Personally, I feel that anyone who has spent that much of one's precious life on a study had better be good at it.  ;)

However, considering that I have a brand new instrument, being played in a configuration that few people have tried before, and I'm inventing the fingering as I go along, perhaps I should amend the previous statement: I am making decent, but not great progress.

In the hopes of making sure the progress is in the right direction I've been reading through recent research papers on how people; everyone from little kids to musicians with degrees in piano, successfully learn music, and I've picked up more than a clue or two; the musical learning research is becoming a promising field. Hint: in large part the tortoise, not the hare always wins. I promise to share my findings shortly.

Starting from nothing

It should help if I explain a bit of where I've come from and what my current status is.

I currently "play" only one instrument, my voice. I am an average singer in a good group, the Maple Leaf Singers Show Chorus, which does 4-part harmony in every known western musical genre. How I became a singer, despite being raised in a profoundly non-musical family is a tale in itself, which I'll spare you the details.

Suffice to say that on a music talent scale of 1 to 10, I started off at a solid, definite zero: I was unintentionally taught not to sing on key. I strongly suspect this is a actually a pretty common condition; it's an easy acoustic trap to fall into.

I have no keyboarding or other musical instrument experience, other than occasional attempts to learn the piano. ... And I'm really old - 56; the old neurons don't connect up as fast as they did once in the "good old days".

My deadline: the clock has started ticking.

In summer of 2010, I'll be going to the Naramata Music Camp, a congregration of music afficatos from all over western Canada that gather to learn challenging songs, drink wine from the abundant surrounding wineries, gab, and drink more wine. These are people to whom Music is a Way Of Life; at least one of whom can play the Moonlight Sonata with his nose in front of 200 people to riotous applause (you had to be there).-

Original jammer prototype

I foolishly demoed my first prototype jammer to this gang. Since they are musicians, mostly keyboardists, the general (polite) reaction was "interesting theory; show me the music'.

Now, if I show up without "the music", I will feel the distain (real or imagined) of my peers, or far worse: pity.  Hence I'd better start learning. Fast.

Practice techniques and Tips 

First, I've improved a tentative key fingering theory. Supplemental to this, I've developed a few exercises that help learn where the keys are and teach my not-very-talented fingers how and where to go. For all of these, the important factor seems to be to keep the pace steady and the key loudness steady, with a light, even touch, centering on the dimple in the key.

It works best, I think,  to have a home row and a home column one brings one's fingers back to.
I also try not to look at the keys, doing all my fingering by touch and by ear.

Major scale
Going over the major scale is not just a useful finger practice, It's essential, I find, to do this at least once at the beginning of each new piece of music. I recommend one look at the key signature, establish where one's fingers go, then play the scale carefully and evenly to set in the fingers, the ear and the mind the notes that are going to be played. This makes a heck of a difference.
 
Minor Scale - have not really tried this much - thus far it seems best to pretend that one is playing a major scale, but starting on the relative minor note.

Three-note exercises.
CDE (in succession), then DEF, EFG, FGA, GAB, ABC, BCD, CDE, then do it in reverse.

Simple Interval progressions
C+E (at same time), then D+F, E+G, F+A, G+B, A+C, B+D, C+E, then do it in reverse. This one is great for learning when the interval jumps from a major third to a minor third.

Every-interval practice
CC (C, then C), CD (C, then D), CE, CF, CG, CA, CB, CC'(Octave), CD' etc.  - this teaches how to play the intervals.

Arpeggios over a progression of more complex exotic chords
These are fun! Some fingerings are mildly tricky, but compared to a piano - bliss!

The Bottom line: a very cool keyboard layout.
It is, thus far, everything I had hoped to have: 

• a keyboard where the fingers can sit on the same notes of the scale all the time
• one does not have to look at the keys
• interesting properties are are emerging

Now the Axis keyboard is not perfect. The buttons are noisy in three different ways, and the "velocity sensitivity" is half-way to being a "pressure sensitivity". The company's support is not great.
But these can all be fixed. The buttons won't be hard - a combination of washers, o-rings and springs - just finicky to get just right.

 

Learning to play the Axis. Stage 1, ability 0

It has been 2 or so weeks since I got my Axis, and I've been moderately busy with it.  

I spent the time in several profitable ways:

• Setting up my 3 computers (desktop, laptop, and work computer) to work with the Axis.
• Writing a tiny Max/MSP program to remap the midi notes from Axis to folded-scale (my name for Wicki-Hayden).
  I've now made it into an executable program, so I just have to click on it to run it, I also don't always use Garratin Personal Orchestra for practice, the built-in sounds of Windows are good enough. the program also shows the name of the note hit and the velocity (if you want a copy I'll make it available).

• Trying to make practicing something done every day. A key part of this is making it as available as possible; having an accessible keyboard that makes sounds instantly really helps, as I have to slot practice in between other stuff.

Portability is great

I knew intellectually it would be cool, but the reality is better: its surprisingly good to have a portable keyboard.
I'd say my setup is about as portable as a guitar. I would prefer to have a simple, small laptop (would a netbook work?), or even better a simple midi-player, to plug the Axis into. My current laptop is heavy, but does the portability trick and runs for about 2 hours on batteries.

I was forcefully reminded of this last night, in setting up my wife's portable Technics P50 (a great 88-key instrument for it's price - too bad Technics is not making them) for a performance of her childrens choir, the Tempos. The blinking thing was 60 pounds, and I needed to haul a stand and a piano bench for it too.  Very unportable, yet as keyboards go, it is light and nimble.

Whereas I'm wandering all over the place with my Axis.I played it in a Taco Del Mar, trying to pick out notes to sync with the ambient muzac.

The Axis-49, mark 2 should have a built in simple midi to sound ability just feeding a headphone jack. That would make it quite a good unit, especially since excellent battery-powered amps are cheap.

 

The AXiS-49 First Impressions

I like the AXiS-49.
I give it top marks because while I have quibbles about the keys, it is the best isomorphic (translation: easy to learn & very fast to play) keyboard in the world. I've taken it as my instrument to master. 

It is light, portable and should meet my needs as the keyboard to master instead of a piano. As this is a considerable, multi-year commitment, I’ve given it a fairly close examination. Crucially, the velocity sensitivity seems quite adequate to simulate a good piano’s sound. .

Axis-49's output revealed

It plugged in to my desktop and laptop computers and was immediately recognised. I hooked it up to Max/MSP (a midi programming system, see right) to see what it was doing, note and velocity wise. I then piped the midi signal through to Garratin Personal Orchestra (GPO) with a Yamaha grand piano sampler playing. That worked well, albeit with a bit of latency, about 1/16 of a beat (due to the layers of software, not the Axis) .

The key travel distance is sharply less that that of a piano, about that of a PC’s keyboard, and the keys “click” when pressed. They also “thunk” when they hit bottom. This is not an issue when playing loudly, but is noticeable on soft passages. I expect much of this is due to my mal-adroitness, although another mm of travel distance might have been nice. In any case, this can probably be fixed with a light felt bed and/or light wire spring under the keys … and I know where to get them.

My experience is on a homebuilt hexagonal-array keyboard with much greater spacing and a heavy 65-gram touch. The key spacing feels at first very close, but is exactly that of a PC keyboard. At first this is disconcerting, and I expect it will be to anyone with experience on a piano keyboard, perhaps not so much for those with a midi keyboard, which generally have lighter touch. On the other hand, we all are experts on PC keyboards, so the fingers should quickly adapt.
 
If you are used to a stiff piano keyboard, I warn you, be prepared for a surprise. The sharply reduced key travel and much lighter touch will come as a shock – both are nearly 1/2 to 1/3 lighter; it was easy to "peg the scale" and hit the top velocity of 127; not so easy to consistently hit 55.  It will take several months for me to get used to lightening up.
 
I quite like the bevelling on the keys - it allows key-to-key hops: nice glissandos, trills even! A whole new way of playing is possible here.

The little carrying case box it comes in is a pleasant surprise. It will come in handy. I think that I will cover mine with “Mac-Tac” (a kind of self-stick plastic wallpaper sold on hardware stores) to re-enforce it and water-proof it.
To test the crucial velocity sensitivity, which came out so unevenly in my hands, I called upon my resident professional pianist (my wife), she had no problem keeping the key velocity (loudness) even, and playing softly, so the problem, methinks, lies in my gnarled mitts.
 
On the other hand, she just could not figure out the harmonic axis layout. She has played the piano since the age of five, so the piano layout is wired down tight within her soul. She can play any song in any key (her favourite key is C-sharp!). So there is little hope of convincing her of its advantages. I, on the other hand, could at least easily play the chromatic and major scales on the Axis in any key.

Here’s a tip based on several years experience: you’ll never convince a keyboard player with 5 or more years of experience that this is a great keyboard. You usually will have great difficulty even explaining how it works. Piano teachers will universally say (if you press them for an honest opinion) “it makes it too easy” and "all the same", which is perhaps the greatest praise of all.
 
Ken

PS. On the other hand, I once showed my prototype to a gentleman who played horn in a band, and had had three years of piano. He instantly could play the thing and would have purchased it on the spot. Go figure.