[JoshTriplett]

Fun idea! The note mappings shown at the end of the article seem quite specific to producing the code written for the demo, but I could imagine a more general mapping. Velocity also allows for some interesting possibilities, such as uppercase/lowercase. Rather than mapping chords to individual letters, notes could map to letters and chords involving those letters could map to common patterns with the letters as mnemonics.

[userbinator]

notes could map to letters and chords involving those letters could map to common patterns with the letters as mnemonics

This is the basic working principle of the stenotype, which enables extremely fast typing (200wpm+) but needs a lot of practice to learn. A MIDI keyboard does seem like an ideal input device for this, if anyone wants to take this idea further they could try to make it work with Plover (http://stenoknight.com/wiki/Main_Page )

[sqrt17]

Actually, a midi keyboard has a longer way from keyup to keydown because you need to express differences in the velocities.

Then again, many more people have midi keyboards than steno machines, so it might be worth the try to adapt it for plover.

An even more awesome idea would be to use something like the EWI or the Eigenharp pico as a steno device, since those are more portable than either a midi keyboard or a normal keyboard. Not sure about the Eigenharp, but for the EWI you'd have to use another firmware (than the current one which translates fingerings into single midi notes and doesn't support chording), which sadly puts it out of the frame.

[gcb0]

watching it i thought the opposite would be better

playing the piano i would often struggle with not enough finger opening/movement.

i seeing how slow he 'typed' that code, i think the other way around would make more sense. i.e. learning the piano with a matrix keyboard.

We just need pressure sensitive switches. but after that, you would get much more agility. not to mention be able to play pieces that are impossible without 4 hands.

[metaxy2]

There's actually a whole class of keyboards like this [1], the most popular being the Jankó keyboard [2]. Here's [3] a cool demo by a Jankó virtuoso.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jank%C3%B3_keyboard

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isomorphic_keyboard

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cK4REjqGc9w

[lotyrin]

As someone who regularly uses such a device, I agree fully.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIovU2tpNWg

[yuriyguts]

You're right, those particular mappings were mainly for demo purposes. I guess it would be quite inefficient to use the approach from the video on a regular basis. If I used it in real life, I'd probably map the keys to complex macros, unmapped IDE commands, or other features that are hard to memorize on a regular keyboard.

In addition to @JoshTriplett's idea about velocity, I guess knobs and faders might have some interesting applications too.

P.S. Btw, it's a "she", it's my colleague performing :)

[kybernetikos]

You can use the eigenharp as a matrix, pressure sensitive 'piano' http://www.eigenlabs.com/