A developer has been experimenting with a new kind of isomorphic music keyboard that uses a base-12 notation system for learning and playing music.
The approach represents each note in 12-tone equal temperament (12-TET) as a single digit, using the symbols 0 through 9, followed by X and Y. Each pitch class therefore has one character, which simplifies how notes are read and mapped onto the keyboard.
To make the system practical, the creator used Codex to build a music score rendering backend based on MuseScore. The backend includes custom note heads that display the pitch class of each note, so players can read the pitch directly from the sheet music.
The developer reports that the tool has been helpful for learning to play their own instrument. They shared it on Hacker News in case other musicians with similar keyboards would find it useful, and the post received 10 points and 5 comments.
Source: Hacker News · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing