Musical keyboard
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- This article is about keyboards on musical instruments. For instruments referred to as "keyboards" see Keyboard instrument.
Image:Musical keyboard.png A musical keyboard is the set of adjacent depressible levers on a musical instrument which cause the instrument to produce sounds.
Keyboards almost all share the common layout shown. Musical instruments with keyboards of this type include the piano, harpsichord, clavichord, organ, synthesizer (or electric keyboard), celesta, accordion, melodica, glasschord, and carillon. Since the most commonly encountered keyboard instrument is the piano, the keyboard layout is often called the piano keyboard. In spite of this, keyboard instruments of different types are often played using different techniques. In particular, the electric Keyboard uses pre-set drum rhythms which respond to chords played in the left hand by the instrumentalist, with other buttons and switches used to change rhythms and even the voice of the instrument. In some european countries such a keyboard is called a Hoxophone.
The twelve notes of the Western musical scale are laid out with the lowest note on the left; the larger keys (for the seven "natural" notes of the C major scale: C, D, E, F, G, A, B) jut forward. Because these keys are often coloured white on a keyboard, these are often called the white notes or white keys. The keys for the remaining five notes which are not part of the C major scale (namely C♯/D♭, D♯/E♭, F♯/G♭, G♯/A♭, A♯/B♭) are set back. Because these keys are often coloured black, these notes are often called the black notes or black keys. The pattern repeats at the interval of an octave.
The arrangement of longer keys for C major with intervening, shorter keys for the intermediate semitones dates to the 15th century. Many keyboard instruments dating from before the nineteenth century have a keyboard with the colours of the keys reversed - darker coloured keys for the white notes and white keys for the black notes.
Image:Roland Keyboard.jpg The chromatic compass of keyboard instruments has tended to increase. Harpsichords often extended over five octaves in the 18th century, while most pianos manufactured since about 1870 have 88 keys. Some modern pianos have even more notes (a Bösendorfer 225 has 92 and a Bösendorfer 290 "Imperial" has 97 keys). Modern synthesizer keyboards commonly have either 61, 76 or 88 keys. Organs normally have 61 keys per manual, though some spinet models have 44 or 49. An organ pedalboard, a keyboard played by the organist's feet, may vary in size from 12 to 32 notes.
Image:PianoKeyboard.svg In a well-designed keyboard, the natural keys are of uniform width at the front, and all keys are uniformly distributed. If the width of an octave is taken to be 12 units, then the white key width is 12/7 units, and the centre of each of the twelve keys must be separated by 1 unit.
There have been variations in the design of the keyboard to address technical and musical issues. For instance, during the sixteenth century, when instruments were often tuned in meantone temperament, some harpsichords were constructed with the G♯ and E♭ keys split into two. One portion of the G♯ key operated a string tuned to G♯ and the other operated a string tuned to A♭, similarly one portion of the E♭ key operated a string tuned to E♭, the other portion operating a string tuned to D♯. This extended the flexibility of the harpsichord, enabling composers to write keyboard music calling for harmonies containing the so-called wolf fifth E♭ to G♯, but without producing discomfort in the listeners. Other examples of variations in keyboard design include the Janko keyboard and the chromatic keyboard systems on the accordion and bandoneón.
Other instruments share the keyboard layout, although they are not keyboard instruments. For example the xylophone, marimba, vibraphone and glockenspiel all have a separate sounding tone bar for each note, and these bars are laid out in the same configuration as a common keyboard.
References
External links
- Keyboard Magazine - features selections from magazine, along with multimedia examples.
- Carnatic Keyboard - Electronic keyboard is taken to the next level to propagae world music.
- Synth Zone - a link directory of keyboard and synthesizer resources.
- Electronic Keyboard News - features news and reviews of keyboards, synthesizers and synth modules.
- Click MusicalKeys - free on-screen musical keyboard with 128 instruments.
- Keyboard Chords - Chords for keyboards.
- Mathematical discussion of the distribution of the keysda:Klaviatur
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