[sdiy] Where to get special white keys?

[Dave Manley]

John Mahoney wrote:
> 
>>> I'm slowly thinking of building my own keyboard. It would not have the
>>> usual octave pattern/layout, and instead have alternating white and
>>> black keys.
>>
>> Hey, that's an idea I had decades ago! It seemed quite appealing to
>> me: learn two major scales, one starting on a black, one on a white
>> key and you can play them all. ...
> 
> I don't think so. Assuming that each key is one semitone higher than the 
> previous key, a major scale would go like this:
>         white, white, white, black, black, black, black (and then back 
> to white at the octave)
> 

Which is very similar to the whole-tone scale on the standard keyboard. 
   The unique thing about the whole-tone scale being there are only two 
different groups of keys required to play all whole-tone scales. On this 
proposed keyboard, playing all the white keys, or all the black keys 
gives you the two whole-tone scale key groups.  Thelonious Monk might 
have liked that.

There's also the 'Sohler' keyboard.  There was an article in Polyphony 
years ago.  Here's a link to the patent:

http://www.pat2pdf.org/patents/pat4054079.pdf

This keyboard uses 4 groups of keys, with each group W-B-W, so 
transposing by thirds is trivial.  To play all major scales requires 
learning only three different fingerings.

-Dave