The Jankó keyboard threatened a 400-year old way of thinking and playing the piano, which included a very lucrative business for builders and publishers; in addition, teachers and students were reluctant to relearn their training to accommodate the strange configuration of keys. Consequently, though championed both by Perzina and Blüthner, by World War I, the Jankó Keyboard became extinct.
See LinK https://www.houstonpianocompany.com/...on-janko-piano
Fascinating. I had never heard of it before.
There's a Facebook group - The Janko Keyboard Group. They have a lot of links. I find the keyboard and its creator very interesting. I shot this at The Steven Foster Mausam located on the Suwanee River in Florida. I had to crop the original because of the bad light on a few keys. I was unable to repair it. Thank you, Peter, for commenting.
I do like listening to the piano. As a kid I had lessons but never even progressed to grade 1 exams. I think my parents were a little disappointed.
Don't even ask how my violin lessons went !
Fascinating. Well worth watching the video.
That comment brings back some childhood memories for me too. I had to take the family dog for a walk every time my younger brother practiced on the violin. Having a large German Shepherd "singing along" was an unpleasant experience for the whole family....
The video is quite interesting and I am not at all surprised that this revolutionary keyboard was killed off by "established interests".
We see the same thing with the Dvorak keyboard; the QWERTY keyboard still reigns is spite of there being a more ergonomic design.