It makes playing easier.
Isomorphic keyboards help you learn to play music more easily. The geometric configuration of their layout means that any musical sequence or progression is the same regardless of the key.
For example, imagine that you've been learning the piano for about a month. Determined to make quick progress, you've decided to learn all of the major chords in one day. So you start with C-major and learn all the way up to B-major. That's 12 different fingerings. Quite happy with your achievements, you take on minor chords. Once again, you learn all the chords. That makes 12 more fingerings to learn. And so it goes for every chord you want to learn.
Things are a little different with isomorphic keyboards. With their geometric (read consistent and regular intervals) layout, you learn one chord pattern, or fingering, and you replicate it wherever you want on the keyboard to produce the same chords in other keys. That is because the shape of the chord you learn works for all other keys. As a result, you're learning time is sped up by a factor of twelve as you have 12 fewer chords to learn. On top of that, it also means that while playing you don't have to try so hard to remember a specific chord, scale, and/or progression.
Your expression is no longer strained. This is important for those who don't necessarily want to work long and hard to develop strong piano skills, but rather want to quickly express themselves musically in a new way.
It helps your play more creatively.
Isomorphic keyboards also open up a whole new dimension for your musical creativity. With fewer things to learn and remember, you have more time to express yourself through improvisation and undiscovered lands. Yet, taking your mind off pattern memorisation and reproduction is just one of the many great benefits that comes with isomorphism. It transforms the piano keyboard into a new kind of expressive interface.
How so? For one thing, there are no longer more difficult keys or progressions, on isomorphic keyboards they are all equal. This means that you don't have an excuse to avoid playing "difficult" pieces or exploring compositions in other keys. You are basically free from key constraints.
Isomorphic keyboards also feature what music nerds would call a "tuning invariance" - the idea that a musical progression or sequence maintains the same pattern regardless of tuning.
What's the benefit? It allows for a focus on progressions and tonality in a new way and for exploration of new facets of music, such as microtonality, dynamic tonality, and new chord progressions. The possibilities are endless.
How to Use A Key Grid on the ERAE Touch?
On the ERAE Touch, the key grid is an isomorphic representation of notes that have the same size and shape, unlike the classic piano keys structure, where semi-tones have a different shape and size.
Chromatic Vs. Non-Chromatic
Chromatic mode enables you to play off-scale notes on the keygrid. This mode gives you the freedom to play any notes that you stylistically want to use outside of the scale that you have selected.
Non-chromatic mode is particularly helpful for anyone who does not have any background in music theory knowledge, since it allows you to have all the notes in scale present. So no matter which notes you play, you will always be on the scale that you have selected.
Chromatic Mode (shows off-scale notes)
1. How to Enable Chromatic, make sure to select keygrid not keyboard, and choose layout.
Where to find the CH (Chromatic mode) :
By default the “CH” symbol is enabled for all keygrid elements in the scale menu. This mode (Chromatic mode) shows off-scale notes on the keygrid:
Keyboard / Keygrid correspondence
Here you can see how the keygrid is corresponding to the keyboard, every semitone is shown and the notes in the scale of C major are highlighted:
Here you can play triad chords, corresponding to C major of notes: C, E and G
Non-chromatic Mode (doesn’t show off-scale notes)
1. How to Enable Non-Chromatic
You can remove “CH” from same menu like before, by tapping the Bass clef then tapping on “CH”
C Major
Here you can see that we have only access to C major scale notes, the off-scale notes are removed
E Minor
Changing scales will not change the keygrid representation. The root note, third and fifth are still highlighted and we can play this scale the same way we can with others.
