The Wicki–Hayden note layout is a compact and logical musical keyboard layout designed for concertinas and bandoneons.

History

The Wicki–Hayden (W/H) layout was initially conceived by Kaspar Wicki for the bandoneon and patented in 1896. It was independently conceived and refined by Brian Hayden, a concertina player, who patented it again a century later, in 1986. Since then concertinas have been built with this layout. Compared to the prior bandoneon and concertina layouts the notes are arranged in a much more logical way. It is an isomorphic note layout, which means that musical intervals always have the same shape, allowing the player to use the same patterns and fingering in different keys.

Compared to the standard piano keyboard

The piano keyboard has the seven notes of the diatonic scale on the white keys (CDEFGAB). These can be grouped into two groups with consistent whole note steps, the first 3 keys (CDE) and the following 4 keys (FGAB). The black keys can be similarly divided into two groups of 2 and 3 keys. The same groups can be found in the Wicki–Hayden layout, with benefits that a step to the right now always is a whole note, and that the notes within a key are closer together.

Advantages

In western music's preeminent major scale, the important notes are the white keys on a piano. However, their linear layout presents ergonomic challenges: The W/H layout avoids these problems: To summarize, the Wicki/Hayden layout moves the keys to where they are more reachable, useful and less prone to mistakes. Some studies and the consonance/dissonance diagram to the right indicate there may be strong parallels to the way the brain hears music.

Disadvantages

A proposed problem with the Wicki/Hayden system is that the keys are not in chromatic order. It is argued from this that playing impromptu ornamental flourishes and accidental passing tones are less intuitive than on chromatically ordered key arrangements. In the common practice of much modern western music, especially improvised music like jazz, almost every chromatic note is commonly used within any key signature. It initially was argued that the less-intuitive ergonomic access to chromatic intervals would prove to be a detriment to performing musical styles that make heavier use of dissonance. However, experimental players of the layout report the isomorphism provides a firmer framework to choose desired sounds and effects.

Color schemes

These are some possible color schemes that can be used with the Wicki/Hayden layout: The color schemes above divide the 12 basic notes of the chromatic scale into groups in different ways: (Note that the whole tone scale (6–6) color scheme by itself is not very practical for the Wicki–Hayden layout since this pattern is already the basis for the physical layout of the keys—each row is a whole tone scale. It is more useful when combined with the piano (7–5) color scheme, particularly for better orientation along the vertical axis.)

Instruments using the layout