Music+Comic on Musical Instrument Innovations that haven’t really gone anywhere. This is just 3, but there are many others. Roger Linn’s LinnInstrument touch sensitive grid keyboard and Lumatones isomorphic keyboard too. I am sure they have some ardent fans really into them, but a very niche product.
I was involved in the development of the A-50/80, the first Roland Polyphonic after-touch midi keyboard controllers. I learnt from that how conservative musicians are. Polyphonic after-touch isn’t something that any body used then. Roland didn’t bother with Polyphonic after-touch since. It isn’t something pianists can use, and it is they that loved the A-80s heavy piano keyboard.
The A-50 with the semi weighted keyboard, I think, was more appropriate to take advantage of a synthesizer that supported Polyphonic after-touch, but few did.
The JANKO Keyboard layout, even though invented around 1887, is new to me. It just addresses the issues of different keys need different finger arrangements for chords and scales. It is just a modification of the existing 12 keys in an octave key layout, which I see as an advantage. But if you already play the piano, it is irrelevant. I find the idea really interesting though. But I also realize I only write in 2 different keys, and my stuff is mostly multiple monophonic lines and 2 note power chords. It was interesting to watch the Hans Zimmer documentary and hear him talk about that is what he does too.
The keyboard keys can be arranged in different ways, but they just look different. Like this hex arrangement with 2 connected pads per note. This project has the cad and production files available.
Would such a keyboard inspire new things? I think it might…
Way back in 1984/1985 the firmware guy developing the SynthAxe firmware from the UK was in the Fairlight Instruments offices in Sydney for a week or so and I got to try the SynthAxe for all of 10 minutes. In that time, I couldn’t play it as it was just all too different from the technique I knew.
If I had one that would probably have changed, but at 10,000 British pounds in 1985, that wasn’t going to happen, and they stopped manufacturing in 1988. Some 200 produced. I was never interested in any Roland guitar synthesizer.
Other things
It is the GOLDEN WEEK holidays here. Being retired, that just means stay home more to avoid the crowds, but as the forecast is also mostly rain, I would be doing that anyway.
I have yet to get to the Nakanoshima Art Museum, as I wasn’t up to it last Tuesday before Golden Week started. Just didn’t sleep at all the night before I was to go. So will get to it after the holidays are over now.
I have a few music playlists and DJ mixes I made that I listen to when out and about, and the one I play more than anything else is of my own music. Things from the Assorted Bits albums. I think it is because they have that mix of Sequencers/ Synths and Heavy Guitar I love. More so than John Carpenter Albums.
Band MISEX guitarist Kevin Stanton and keyboardist Murray Burns did the Beyond 2000 music in the 1980s. I always loved that and this must still be a significant influence on me still:
That makes me realize how rewarding making those bits of music have been. Make the music you want to hear. Make the Art you want to see. Make the comics you want to read. Write the articles you want to read. I can hear my music on repeat a lot and not get sick of it. I don’t go back and look at my other art often at all though.
All just a grandfather entertaining myself with his hobbies. No professional musician, and consider what I do compositionally very unsophisticated, but I like that. I like many of my MUSIC+COMICS too when they actually say something.
But how many more similar to what I have already done do I want to do? I ask my self that often recently.
In the last 6+ years since coming back to Japan as a retired old guy, I have spent each year or so doing “a project” pretty constantly, while doing background tasks like Japanese study, studying/reading manga and recording my own music. Been so busy I don’t know how I ever had time for a fulltime job.
Been thinking I should do another multi-page comic project. I am most interested in NON-FICTION stories. A mix of TOPGEAR and AMERICAN SPLENDOR isn’t far off. It has to be a subject that means something to me. I can reuse existing characters, as I know how they talk and think already, and maybe add some new ones too?
But on what theme?
It hasn’t come to me yet. Really don’t need to rush, and something will eventually.
It is May 1st as I write this. 2026 will be half over in no time. Wife and I are in our late 60s now. Just chatting earlier about how we spent 19 years in Australia, and that time went past in the blink of an eye. We may have about the same years left, maybe more, maybe less ourselves and that will go in a flash too. That makes you think...
The thing have to be so careful about now is the energy I have each day. Conserving that each day to get the most out of a day isn't something I considered when younger.
We can be found at ArtAndTechnology KYOTO JAPAN
No comments:
Post a Comment