Guitar vs. Keyboard
The guitar was invented a bit earlier than the piano. So was the harpsichord. In fact, stringed instruments have been around since before the dawn of written history. Pianos and harpsichords were invented to make it easier for "those lacking the subtle dexterity of Olympians" to play music. And they do. Far, far easier. In fact, no instrument comes closer to the quintessence of 12-tone music than the piano. You might say it is the Mac OS of music.
Sure, we love stringed instruments for all their nuance and direct feel. But lest we come to disdain pianos, harpsichords, and other keyboards, remember that they too are stringed instruments.
The Layman's Layout
The white keys on a keyboard represent all the natural notes in the key of C / Am. The black keys represent all the sharp and flat tones that surround C Major. (The black keys also happen to represent the F# Major / Eb minor pentatonic scale.) The relationship between scale tones and keys on the keyboard is easier to understand if we follow the Circle of Fifths order:
As I've already mentioned, the C Major scale has no black keys. Moving up a Fifth, we see that the G Major scale gains one black key (F#). Next the key of D gains C#. This progress continues until we get all the way up to B which has all the black keys in the scale. Then F# (Gb) and C# (Db) have all the black keys but different white keys. Beginning with Ab (G#) we begin to lose black keys one at a time until we get back around to C again.
Color Coding
- Tones in the Current Scale are Blue
- Blue is the color used in the Keyboard and Circle Palettes to indicate Scale Tones. In the Keyboard Palette there are two different shades of blue - a lighter shade for white keys and a darker shade for black keys.
- Tones outside the Current Scale are White & Black
All the scales in FretPet are 7-tone scales, so there will always be 5 tones left over that aren't colored blue. These tones will be left uncolored, white and black.
- Tones in the Current Chord appear as Dots
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Just as in the Guitar Palette, chord tones are shown as colored dots. Yellow dots represent the root of the Current Chord. White dots represent other Chord Tones that lie within the Current Scale. Chord tones outside the Current Scale are drawn in a darker shade. gray.
Tickling the Ivories
As you might have guessed the Keyboard Palette is totally interactive.
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- Click a key to play a tone. Drag to play several.
- Hold the ⌘ key to only play notes that are in the current key.
- Double-click to toggle a tone in the Current Chord.
- Triple-click to add a triad to the Current Chord.
- ⌥ Triple-click to remove a triad from the Current Chord.