I've been playing around with a new kind of isomorphic music keyboard that uses a base-12 notation, and wanted some sheet music to learn some new music for it.
The idea is to represent each note in 12-TET as a number, so N ∈ (0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,X,Y).
I used codex to build a music score rendering backend based on MuseScore with custom note heads that display the pitch class of each note.
I've found it pretty helpful for learning how to play my own instrument, so wanted to share in case anyone else was interested.
I was working on a similar idea, I grabbed 2x PartyKeys and I was going to map each key to a finger ( left-pinky = orange ), but the API is such that -- if you have two boards (72 keys) and send a msg to a single board ( 1st key = orange ) -- it lights up both 1st keys (there's no way to address a single board). Was disappointing.
I like the use of base 12, but IMO it's somewhat wasted on a diatonic staff. This is basically just traditional notation with special coloring to make it easier to read. To better match the keyboard, I'd rather use an isomorphic staff (a.k.a. "chromatic staff", although I dislike that name because it implies diatonic music as a default).
There's a web site you might be interested in with many examples of isomorphic notation at:
It took me a while to understand what the numbers were actually trying to indicate (in part because I'm used to numbers in sheet music being suggestions of which finger should play the given note). If I understand correctly now, are you numbering zero-indexed with C as the beginning (0) and B as the end (Y), as a proxy for remembering which key notes are meant to be played in?
That's right - so a major triad in C would be (0-4-7), or a B-flat minor triad would be (X-1-5).
It's not required that the pitch notation is absolute though, e.g. you can transpose the numeric notation to any key (e.g., use A == 0 instead of C ==0)
I think you’d be better off with something compatible with an existing system. Perhaps start with nashville numbering and add accidentals?
relatedly does anyone have a tool to generate piano synthesia videos from sheet music, maybe with or without AI? They seem fun to play along with. (I'll just look it up, commenting to share the idea too though)
What does "isomorphic" mean?
Iso - same, morphic - shape.
Basically it uses a regular pattern of keys, instead of staggering keys into pentatonic and diatonic scales, like a piano does.
This makes it harder to "find" the diatonic scales, but easier to transpose between different keys.
You can see an example here: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/kMD1qXtDAdg
It's also easier to learn because there's one consistent mapping between notes on the page and the sound, instead of many different irregular mappings specified by "key signatures".
But traditional notation is more compact, and for music based around diatonic scales, implies information about the harmonic function of notes that could be useful for interpretation.
It's harder to learn because fingerings are based on key notes and transpositions around that.
If the key is G you don't start with your hand on C and move it up to G, you start on G and move it relative to that root.
This matters because over/under moves usually happen at certain scale points. So if you learn the scale you have good chance of defaulting to the most efficient movements with muscle memory.
If you're referencing everything to C you'll never understand the scales and their different fingering patterns.
Anyway, here's Martha Argerich playing Prokofiev's Toccata. (What happens around 3:14 may be illegal. But here we are.)
But on an isomorphic keyboard you can just move your hand up or down and use the exact same fingering. You only have to learn how to play the scale once, not a different way for each key. You don't reference it to "C", you reference it to the first degree of the scale, and the key doesn't matter. IMO, the traditional keyboard has been obsolete ever since the Jankó keyboard was invented:
Site is illegible on mobile.
Sorry about that, it's fixed now.