Symmetrical Keyboards – getting results

What can we expect in benefits from keyboard symmetry?

In the preceding posting Symmetry in motion – a crazy idea, I discuss the basic idea of playing symmetrical keyboards and the many advantages. Here I talk less theory and more actual results.

How does this work in actual practice?

Tests were needed. In the Piano Marvel course there is a bank of exercises labelled “Technique”; these are largely exercises (the other section, labelled “Method”, has mostly songs to practice). This sounded perfect for testing symmetry. I experimented with learning the first level of courses, 100 exercises, with both hands, and different approaches.

The best way to learn seemed to be:

1. Do the initial fingering work-out with the non-preferred (NP) hand, my left.
   
   
2. Practice the piece with the NP hand, maintaining a level where about 80% or more of the notes are correct, gradually increasing the speed until the “gold piano” (no important mistakes made, equivalent to an A letter grade) is won at the game’s goal speed.
   
   
3. Switch to the preferred hand and repeat the practice, increasing the speed to 10% beyond Piano Marvel’s goal speed.

This approach, I found, gives a better workout to the less-proficient hand. My preferred hand then picked up the exercise quickly, so an extra 10 percent was usually needed to give the hand enough practice. Learning with both hands also seemed to solidify the learning; less skill seemed to be lost the next day. Done this way, two-hand practicing did not seem to be much more onerous.

What’s the catch?

Despite all the good things stated above, there are drawbacks.

Finger movements do not mesh well with the Traditional Music Notation
This is quite annoying at first: the left keyboard goes up to the left; the music goes up to the right. You do get used to it, but it does take a month or more, and if you stop practicing, you lose the knack.

It’s really weird to have pitches ascend away from the body

After so many years of this invariant rule: pitch-goes-up-to-the-right, it’s hard to think this new way and it’s easy to switch back to old habits. This fades with time, but occasionally still trips one up.

30% more extra work is still 30% more extra work

Remember those hawkers at the local fair who will sell you a “Wonder Knife”, and once you have decided to buy one, offer you a second one for “only 30% more!”. The second knife is a good deal only if you need a second “Wonder Knife. It is likewise with learning a musical piece or exercise.

Unison and octave playing is easy, so it feels hard to learn two-handed harmony

This challenge is rather more subtle:

• On a piano, playing the same notes across octaves, but with different hands, is relatively hard because different fingers are used.  Playing harmony with 2 hands is equally hard, but the student is by then used to it.
  
  
• On a jammer, it is a shock to switch from the easy unison or octave playing, where matching fingers do the same things, to harmony, where different fingers play different notes, sometimes on different rows.

I found the jump from single-handed melody playing to two handed harmony to be the first real challenge. Not only did I have to learn to involve the other hand, but it was different notes, played by different fingers. My subconcious had come to expect symmetry, and to rely on concious attention.

How hard is it to learn to do these things with two hands?
Playing intervals	Piano	Jammer
Unison	Not possible Unless one has two keyboards	Easy Same fingers on paired keyboards
Octave	Initially difficult Different fingers, plus the beginner has to watch hand move in big jumps	Easy Can do with eyes closed.  Note: can also just use thumb on same hand to play the lower octave or fifths.
3rds	Hard Have to learn many fingerings and black/ white note combinations Note: the key layout does often give one the "right" third to play.	Less Hard learn minor and major thirds fingering combinations – 2 sets of combinations
4 &   5ths	Hard Have to learn many fingerings and combinations	Less Hard  - fingers on different rows, but always the same pair of keys, the same angle – 2 sets of combinations
6 &   7ths	Hard Have to learn many fingerings and combinations	Hard learn minor and major sixth & seventh fingering combinations

            Legend:

• “Easy”                         a week to a month to learn
• “Initially Difficult”   difficult at first, but is done so much that this skill is developed rapidly
• “Hard”                        gradually learn over months of practice
• “Less Hard”               follows a simple pattern that can be learned in a month.

The net effect is to make learning harmony and playing chords seem relatively hard, a sudden big challenge. The student has to practice until playing harmony across two hands is just as easy as playing unison, which will take months. Fortunately, once the skill is learned, because of the simpler key layout, it generalizes to many songs.

Conclusion

The symmetrical musical keyboard offers strong advantages over asymmetrical ones: half as many fingerings to learn; finger movements the same when the notes are the same, strong skill transfers from one hand to the next and collision-free playing. Symmetry does not make everything easier, however. When playing harmony notes over two hands, the student still has to learn to use differing fingers and hand positions. The beginner also has to read and interpret traditional music notation, and get used to pitches being placed in novel directions.

Bottom line

The jammer student still has to learn the fundamentals; learning a pattern with the first hand takes just as long, so it takes just as long to get started.

If the student elects to train the second hand it will add about a third to the initial learning time, but, in return the student will be able to pick up and play more songs in the long term.

Related articles

Playing the Jammer - navigation and hand positioning

Jammer progress: Slow and Steady

Symmetrical keyboards - a crazy idea