Left Handed Piano!

[Cazzbar]

OK, I'm a southpaw! Lead with my left! But have been playing piano the same as everyone else for the last 15 years.

It's never really been a problem, but my biggest weakness is the exceptionally fast Blues / Rock 'n Roll style'y which requires a lot of strength in the right hand. I know all the notes to hit, just can't hit them as fast as other players!

I have been hunting around and there appears to be a MIDI module available which will turn a MIDI Keyboard into a 'left handed' keyboard (i.e. the highest notes on the left, going to the lowest note on the right.) This will enable me to play all the fast bits with my strong left hand.

http://www.lefthandedpiano.co.uk/midi.html

Problem is it's battery powered! And very expensive!

Just for home practice, would anybody know of a MIDI program which I could run on my PC which would accept standard MIDI signals from my keyboard, flip the notes around, and then pass out the altered 'left handed' notes back to my keyboard?

Thanks,
Mike.

 

[ssscientist]

Your best shot is probably to have a computer programmer friend make a simple macro using an application like this as a starting point:

http://www.midiox.com/

What you're asking shouldn't be too tough to find - but the flipping around of your brain to match may be another story...

 

[Cazzbar]

Thanks for the link! That looks very interesting.

I just need to find a computer programmer now! *takes a quick look at job description... * (that explains why I'm still single then)

As far as playing 'left-handed', I've already been practising (with the sound off!). It can melt your brain if you're constantly re-mapping all the notes in your head, but if you think of it as 'the same' as your right right hand (for example you always play away from your body to get the high notes) then you can quite quickly get the hang of it. I can already play pieces at a speed I could only dream about before. I just don't know what it sounds like yet!

 

[ssscientist]

Cool! Sounds like you've got it well in hand, so to speak. There may be something in MidiOx that will re-map note numbers but I've never dug in that far.

What you will be looking for (and what I would recommend telling any programmers that you contact) is that you're looking to remap midi note numbers, exchanging 0 for 127, 1 for 126 and so on.

Good luck.

 

[Dr. Rats]

Sorry for the out-of-date reply, but recently I've found a solution for this problem and would like to help people with the same problem by letting them know it.

I have found a program that does it - turns a MIDI keyboard into a left-handed piano. It is called MPL - Midi Programming Language - and here it is. All you need is to download it, download "lefthanded.zip" from the same webpage, extract it, install the program, run it, open "lefthanded.mpl" from the "File" -> "Open program..." dialog, and o choose proper "Midi in" and "Midi out" Ports in "Settings" menu to hear the sound.

I have a little bit updated this "lefthanded.mpl" file to hear all the sounds coming out loud. By default, MIDI sounds are played as loud as hard you hit the keys on your MIDI keyboard, but I didn't like that and made it so that all the sounds are heard the same level of loudness. For doing so you may insert a string "Let DataByte2@1 = 127" (without quotes) at the end of the program before the "SendEvent" string in the "Midi in" section. Don't forget to save the updated program with a different name (e. g. lefthandedloud.mpl) (by "File" -> "Save program as..." dialog).

Thank you!

 

[witzendoz]

Just play like this, then it's all left handed ha ha ha

Alan.

 

[frederic]

Another option is to do a "split" on your midi keyboard controller and put the upper registers on the bottom half of the keyboard and the lower registers on the right side of the keyboard, with the split say, at middle C or maybe B

This way your keyboard isn't totally reversed, and you can play it normally, just using the "best" hand for the lead part.

Many keyboards support this feature right in the firmware, and if not you can do it with a variety of things.

 

[Seafroggys]

Keith Emerson was so insane.