[Melodica-Me]

As I was doing my usual Saturday morning ritual of coffee and Internet reading I came across this interesting video of a Jenko Melodica. I am not sure how it actually works but I am trying to get a hold of this person to ask him some questions.

[Melodica-Me]

Jenko Melodica

[Melodica-Me]

Sorry all it’s Janko not Jenko
Melodica-Me

[Quetscher]

Melodica-Me,

it might be difficult to ask Mr Janko himself, he died in 1919…

But if you want to find out the layout of the Janko keyboard you can have a look at this link:

http://www.logikordeon.de/griffmuster.html

In short, it is built like two rows with whole notes, the third row repeating the second row, the fourth row (sometimes there exist keyboards with four rows) repeating the second row. The big pro of that layout is that you can play each key in exactly the same way.

You can actually buy accordions with that layout on this site:

http://www.musiker-laden.de/tasteninstrumente/weltmeister-knopf-akkordeons/knopfakkordeon-logicordeon.php

I’ve been considering for quite a long time to buy one and re-construct the right side as a melodica, but I have enough to do with refining my Vibrandoneon and didn’t want to get off course.

[Shannon M]

I am going to have to modify one of my melodicas to this keyboard arrangement. As a longtime blues harp player, I have been frustrated by the need to know at least five (usually more) different scale patterns to jam with the local blues groups. Blues harp always uses the same patterns, so I could work on my licks key-independent. Looking at the various whole-tone keyboards, the Janko looks most suitable for blues. Thanks for sharing.

[Stephen]

Thank’s for this post, I’m going to have a look at this, and try to modify my piano melodica into a 3 row chromatic button layout.
The Janko / J. Caramuel y Lobkowitz layout (dating from circa 1650s , cfr. Patrizio Barbieri articles on Juan Caramuel y Lobkowitz and the history of the 6+6 whole tone layout), offers some advantages.
But a division of the 12 semitones of the octave in 3 equally uniform layout (C-system or B-system) (4+4+4, instead of 6+6), this layout compacter and offers more flexible ways of fingering difficult passages.
A Janko layout is closer to fingering patterns of traditional piano keyboard layout.

The plastic piano melodicas are lightweight. Converted in a Janko or 3 row CBA layout, they would have a weight half of the accordina.

[Binyomin]

Quetscher, not to derail the thread, but I’m wondering if you would elaborate on how you are refining your vibrandoneon. I have one too, and I’m very interested to hear about improvements.

[Author]

Posts