Slow going, and my thoughs on ergonomics.

I'm sorry for the lack of information on this blog.

I have been having some health issues with my cardiovascular system, and I need to take it easy.

During my vacation time I was planning on creating yet another prototype, I am overwhelmed with possibilities to the point that I don't know what my next step is. I have learned alot though in my research, so at least I'm informed going into this. I have very little as far as knowledge, skills, experience, money, time, energy, and I'm taking this one small step at a time.
This is where I was hoping others could come in, and help fuel the fire, and contribute knowledge. Right now I'm not sure what questions to ask, and what people know. Just hearing a sample of music doesn't help much.

I am forcing myself to indefinitely put this project as far as a schedule, and promises go on hold. It may happen this weekend, but for now it's just up in the air.

Here is a brief description of the project:

Musical instruments do not tend to be ergonomic, and because of the complexity of music it is not ergonomic, nor is it easy to master. But this ability to master a difficult music is something to be admired in people, but I believe it has become a problem to a certain extent (because in regards to admiration now it's more about looks than skills, and the music takes the background).

One of the more easy to play/learn instruments surprisingly is guitar. Of course it is also one of the most difficult instruments to play in some sense due to the complexity of picking, and fretting, hammer-ons, etc. However the original concept was that the guitar was portable, self amplified, and you could learn 3 chords and basically sing, while using the 3 chords as an accompanyment.  This works great, however one still has to practice quite a bit to develop the right playing ability, and 3 chords is limited.

Since the advent of personal computers, people have tried to make music easy to play, and learn to some degree of success by putting together loops. However this tends to box in the person, and exclude them from becoming a true musician in the sense that it is somwhat rigid, and not improvised easily (although some have this capablitiy and it's amazing - but that takes practice too).
Alot can be done with loops, but it's very very rigid if you want to experiment with different styles, and are oriented toward singer/songwriter styles like Neil Diamond, James Taylor, The Beatles and many more. This however is the basis for much of the music to listen to, a guy strumming chords on a guitar and singing.

Also it's quite expensive to get musical instruments, and now with software technology costs can be cut quite a bit as long as you have the computer platform for it.

Another aspect of this is the challenge of innovating a musical instrument. That is part of what motivates me. I want an easy to play instrument, but I also want to innovate.
So in the course of my innovation, thinkng of a software based solution, I saw the computer keyboard, and various innovations based on this, the samchillian comes to mind, but it's very difficult to play.
The problem with the computer keyboard is that it's not ergonomic for playing music. I also see this with other various grid based touchscreen instruments. You have to do some gymnastics on the screen to play it.  So I was imagining "if the computer keyboard was an instrument, what would it be?". In other words, we all expect something with keys to be a piano, or synthesizer, or something really wierd. But what would someone naturally who was trained to type want to do? So I started typing naturally, and I noticed that it was not difficult to type for the most part, because your fingers are on the home row.

So I'm thinking and imagining an instrument that plays like a computer keyboard does when you type on it.
Then I thought "chords!"  The computer keyboard could play chords, and since what many composers, and performers do is just accompany thier music, this could work.
I expanded on that idea, and have several things in mind.
The other aspect of this is that we have discovered that computers can quickly transpose, meaning they are not rigid as far as tunings, and what this or that key does. All of that can be flexible, and changed real time.

So my innovation is an easy to play musical instrument that's also ergonomic and practical. It is somewhat limited (and the challenge is to make it as flexible as possible). I can't really use it if it just does major, minor, seventh, diminished, and augmented chords. It has to do more than that. It doesn't have to be the easiest to play melody on, but it would be nice to have some capablitity to at least suggest a melody.
Soloing is probably out of the question, but I already have some ideas on how to create something similar that you could possibly play quite fast on. I found soloing to be very shallow when using "cheating" techniques where the computer enables you to play extremely fast, but it would be nice to play a good bass line, or melody.

This idea is part of a far bigger, and greater concept that blurrs the line between the artist, and the listener.
This idea would enable more listeners to become players, and possibly interact with the music, and learn about the music they are listening to, which we desperately need.

Intro

This is my first blog. I don't have much time to type now, and I typed something that got erased so I'm annoyed. Thinking of starting a blog elsewhere.