Bitten by the unpredictable
There is irony in the following story. Ten years ago I noticed that singers that play the piano have, on average, much better pitch-sense than those that learned in other ways. So I looked into studying that instrument to improve my sense of pitch but decided that learning to play all those keys was far too much work.
I found out about the Thummer / jammer keyboards and decided to study them instead.
I should have known better.
Old systems always have hidden tricks
I spent 40 years of my life in the computer business, and about half of that time involved supporting "old" (anything installed last year or older) or "legacy" (the creators of said system were gone). Legacy systems were challenging devils, to put it mildly, and the older they were, the more challenging; the more risk there was of making a big fat, reputation-killing mistake. Pianos are one venerable "legacy" system, implying a bit of a risk. I hope, gentle reader, the following story will tell you why caution is advised.
The blank screen that supported an entire company
The insurance company where I worked had a Claims Management System. Now, since processing insurance claims was a core function of the company (well duh!), the system was incredibly ancient, and based on processes originating in the founding year, 1917. The original card and paper-based system was automated and revised many, many times. We maintenance people knew it well.
There was one nail-biting exception: a tiny little program, written in 1972 (let's call it TLP). In the Disney-movie "Monsters, Inc." remember the scene where the big, fierce, hairy, multi-coloured dream-monster sees a cute little girl in his home and nearly dies of fright? Well, that's how wary we were of this undocumented micro monster.
Making it worse, it ran on an old operating system that we annually updated (think upgrading from Windows 1.0 to 2.1, to 3.0, to 3.1, to Win XP, and so on). Written when computers cost more than a house, TLP could be vital, it could be useless, and we didn't know which. Not knowing what it did, we could not test it. Every time we upgraded, we crossed our fingers and hoped that all would still work.
Ironically, the very week we replaced the whole old system, we finally saw what TLP did. We were comparing the old and new systems by creating the same insurance claim in each. In the old system, the Claim Supervisor first cleared her screen, typed four characters to invoke TLP, hit the Enter key, pressed a few more keys, and a new claim number popped up onto the otherwise bare screen. This step took seconds; it would be easy to miss.
The light bulb finally went on. TLP issued new, unique claim numbers. In each branch office, hundreds of times a day, a Claim supervisor asked TLP to dispense a brand-new claim number. Our company depended on the 'little' job it did, which was so fundamental that no one ever thought about it.
The point? Old systems can have important, even essential but hidden actions.
The piano appears to be a totally innocent device, with no complications, right?
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The unexpected happens in piano class
Musical instruments are not just gadgets, not just hardware, they are systems, and they interact with the most complex system of all, the human brain. Surprises may happen when creating new musical systems, and the best strategy is to expect some surprises.
So are there equivalents to TLP in the piano ‘system’?
I suspect two biggies:
- Traditional Music notation (the musical score), the standard keyboard grew up together, and they fit together quite tightly in the brain.
New musical instruments can unwittingly break this cozy partnership.; some notation to keyboard fighting was expected, but this was way more than anticipated.
In retrospect, we should have started with ear training, scales and chord progression exercises. In a planned set of postings, armed with the new knowledge, I will offer what I think will work, and we should be able to test effectiveness. - Practice trains the brain; challenging musical practice trains the ear.
This one is subtle. The traditional keyboard's keys have complex location and note assignment patterns. A LOT of practicing and careful, careful listening is required to learn to play the right note at precisely the right time. The brain learns to translate from an irregular input device, the keys of the keyboard, the interacting notes and chords of each piece of music.
Over time the playing of arpeggios, scales, and many other patterns, in many keys becomes utterly automatic. But, for all this to happen, the developing keyboardist must listen to and learn to move in precise ways.
In other words, lots of difficult piano practice in different keys intensely trains the musical ear.
Whereas with the jammer, the pitch-space is spelled out by the pattern, both visually and tactilely, so the brain may not get the same practice in listening.
My subjective impression (backed by my wife, who has perfect pitch) is that I have improved my pitch-sense more from 8 months of learning the piano than I have from 5 years of jammer practice.
A mistake that leads to a musical journey of discovery
So, ironically, building a jammer to train my ear may have been a mistake! Not quite Christopher Columbus' error in sailing for China, but a mistake nonetheless.
Fortunately, I have learned from my endeavors. If you are reading this and learning something useful, please let me know.
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For more information, see these "Jammer vs Piano" articles:
Next: Jammer vs Piano - Part 6A - Jammer Advantages
Back: Jammer vs Piano - part 4 - Piano Lessons
Jammer vs Piano: Table of contents
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