For those who haven't ever gotten into microtonal and other non-standard tuned music before, it's a really interesting space. I would highly recommend checking out Kyle Gann's album Hyperchromatica (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbT9oRbu3h8&list=PL1IsImnKxK...), which has a pretty wide variety of pieces/genres, showing the potential of nonstandard tuning. It takes a bit to get used to it but there are brand new colours and emotions that open up here IMO. Definitely worth checking out!
Technically Bach was writing for microtonal music - his well tempered clavier was written to show how songs need to be played in the correct keys to sound right. He was against the systems of the day where some keys could not be used, but his preferred system had each key usable but sounding different. Playing them on a modern equal tempered instrument fails to capture what he was trying to show.
Since this is HN, I'll point out that algorithmic music and microtonality go especially well together. In fact, shameless plug: I wrote an entire album this way, and it's open source:
While it's technically completely microtonal, I'll admit that most of the tones closely resemble conventional 12-tone equal temperament. Maybe that makes it more approachable, but I fully intend to go harder in that regard for the next album.
To add yet another example for those looking to try out microtonal music, Sevish's track Gleam[1] is upbeat/poppy and surprisingly palatable. It explores the crunchy textures of microtonal while resolving to familiar pop cadences and helped bridge the gap for me to start enjoying the spectrum of microtonal harmony.
I've kind of done this, just without the actual "build" part—I instead use a Wooting computer keyboard (which has the hall effect switches you're referring to), and I've written some program to emit MIDI based on key velocity.
I've been using it very frequently for a few years, and can confirm it's quite fun to use, though I don't have much experience playing other keyboard instruments and haven't tried to learn it seriously enough to make proper use of chords etc.
The layout I use is not a regular piano layout, but a B-griff layout, as used on a bayan (Russian accordion). I made a demo site for playing with the layout (keyboard or touchscreen), but without velocity sensitivity: https://maxdamantus.gitlab.io/bayan/
The B-griff/C-griff layouts naturally fit computer keyboards, and I'd argue they're better in general than piano layouts for various reasons. There's also this cool video of someone using two Commodores for similar effect: https://youtube.com/watch?v=EBCYvoC4muc
* Type things and listen to the various tones. I'd go for a little app that just let me do this day to day. I'd probably find it annoying pretty quickly but it would be interesting turned down low.
* Use your browser's zoom to go way out. It has no problems offering you notes way beyond the ability of you to hear it let alone your computer from playing it.
Lots of good info in OPs article and this thread, and good band/classical tradition suggests, also.
I've been listening to a lot of 21st century string quartets, Ben Johnston (student of Partsch), Caroline Shaw, Garth Knox, Kevin Puts and trying to figure out how they notate them. Also spend time on fretless bass/guitar, pedal/lap steel doing ... stuff.
Fun to mess around with. The qwerty keyboard maps nicely (for the default tuning you gave anyway). I found I wanted to be able to hold a chord on the keyboard and play a melody with the mouse, but the system only responds to either the keyboard xor the mouse. Any chance it could be made to work with both at the same time?
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For example: https://kinggizzard.bandcamp.com/album/flying-microtonal-ban...
https://youtube.com/@zheannaerose
https://github.com/pac-dev/AmbientGardenAlbum
While it's technically completely microtonal, I'll admit that most of the tones closely resemble conventional 12-tone equal temperament. Maybe that makes it more approachable, but I fully intend to go harder in that regard for the next album.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9wINwlgxRU
Since a year ago, I found that I can play songs by ear on the Janko keyboard far more easily than on standard piano keyboards.
More resources: https://github.com/wcgbg/terpstrakeyboard/ , https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=janko%20keyboar...
I want to try to build a hardware midi keyboard using mechanical hall effect switches like this: https://mechanicalkeyboards.com/products/wuque-studio-dash-5...
There's a few physical keyboards out there but many are super super expensive.
I've been using it very frequently for a few years, and can confirm it's quite fun to use, though I don't have much experience playing other keyboard instruments and haven't tried to learn it seriously enough to make proper use of chords etc.
Demo of me playing here, though try not to mind the messy desk and bad recording setup (one-hand, MIDI going through phone due to lack of speakers): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qZuFlK9GybX5aP5tGi54AvTTFKd...
The layout I use is not a regular piano layout, but a B-griff layout, as used on a bayan (Russian accordion). I made a demo site for playing with the layout (keyboard or touchscreen), but without velocity sensitivity: https://maxdamantus.gitlab.io/bayan/
The B-griff/C-griff layouts naturally fit computer keyboards, and I'd argue they're better in general than piano layouts for various reasons. There's also this cool video of someone using two Commodores for similar effect: https://youtube.com/watch?v=EBCYvoC4muc
EDIT: turns out the Terpstra keyboard is also able to work using B-griff: http://terpstrakeyboard.com/web-app/keys.htm?fundamental=261...
Here is how to imitate it on the Terpstra keyboard web application: http://terpstrakeyboard.com/web-app/keys.htm?fundamental=261...
nice! Is the velocity code on the firmware side? Is that why it's not included on the demo site?
https://imgur.com/a/01OYs3o
I've been listening to a lot of 21st century string quartets, Ben Johnston (student of Partsch), Caroline Shaw, Garth Knox, Kevin Puts and trying to figure out how they notate them. Also spend time on fretless bass/guitar, pedal/lap steel doing ... stuff.
https://www.microharmonic.com