Advanced musician asks: piano or button PA or CBA

[saundersbp]

Anyway, I invite the CBA players to comment on how significant an advantage they really feel it is, that 5 rows hands you transposition on a plate.

Sure - a big advantage if you are playing with other instrumentalists or singers that like singing in a certain range. I learnt a Sea Shanty called the Wellerman (massive hit here in UK!) in Cm and the guitarist wanted it in Am. If I was playing a piano keyboard I'd be panicking! On CBA I just kept exactly the same pattern and just moved my fingers one button to the left. I've found this really useful with folk music especially when guitarists like playing in particular keys without capo.

 

[Walker]

I think in agreement as ever!

In most artistic matters we agree nearly 100%. In matters relating to treble and bass systems, the percentage drops a little. But regardless of this I appreciate your opinion and feel confident that we can disagree with one another in a most agreeable way.

 

[saundersbp]

In most artistic matters we agree nearly 100%

The beauty of discussion! In the Yorkshire Dales we sadly lack the local Uisce beatha which I'm guessing might happily lubricate your own nocturnal musings, but certainly share a fair amount of heather, fresh air, cows and (too many) sheep, perhaps more trees - they are planting like mad!

 

[Walker]

sadly lack the local Uisce beatha which I'm guessing

Sadly Ben that's where you would have me wrong. For I do not partake, I just enjoy words and language - maybe it's the Irish influence from my mother's side.

 

[Siegmund]

Anyway, I invite the CBA players to comment on how significant an advantage they really feel it is, that 5 rows hands you transposition on a plate.

I am a big fan of CBA. But I describe it more generally as "easy to play in any key with a minimum of re-learning." That CAN take the form of easy transposition -- no matter how many rows you have, you can use exactly the same fingering in 4 keys, so you only have to learn how to play in three keys to play in every key.

But I think the bigger advantage is in re-using familiar fragments learning unfamiliar pieces. A beginner on a 5-row instrument can learn ONE four-finger position, the whole-whole-half pattern of CDEF or GABC, and play a slow melody, in any key, on the first day, if he wants to. A slightly more advanced student ought to learn four or five hand positions rather than just one, then slowly expand his repertoire of finger motions outward from there. Once you know that much, just about any fiddle tune or folk song ever written is within reach.

Using 5 rows vs. using 3 is a tradeoff, really. 5 rows gives you more fingering choices, but the two big advantages of CBA -- a small hand can span a larger interval, and there aren't 12 different keys to learn -- are there with any number of rows.

I belatedly realized that it smacks into a cognitive weakness of mine - when I am confronted by two different ways to do something, it takes me at least twice as long to do it.

Presumably you have a workaround available, in the form of simply ignoring the alternative fingering rather than trying every note on two different rows and seeing which you like better.

 

[Ffingers]

Anyway, I invite the CBA players to comment on how significant an advantage they really feel it is, that 5 rows hands you transposition on a plate.

Having read extensively on the playability advantages of B griif before buying a box to learn on, my searching for a good instrument landed me with a six row of treble buttons!
Too many options for a beginner, perhaps, but I also have a very folksie three row unit with the keyboard very close to the body of the box, so that I can play on the inner 3 rows of the big one, which replicates the small one, or the outer keys depending on the level of pain in my right shoulder.
Ah! Decisions, decisions - always decisions

 

[donn]

Presumably you have a workaround available, in the form of simply ignoring the alternative fingering rather than trying every note on two different rows and seeing which you like better.

No, I'm not trying the two alternatives and seeing which I like better, it just takes me almost as long as if I did. I think I'm really better now and it's only an occasional problem, so I must have worked out a kind of unconscious rules of thumb for whether I go up to the 4th row or down to the first. As I mentioned, same as with other instruments. Perhaps not everyone has the same problem. But if you learn to play on 3 rows, it can't happen to you.