Came across this site https://deltarray.com/ while I was looking for something else and it does look interesting, so may be of interest to SZ users, particularly as it is one of the few ones that will run on a Mac.

Bill

Interesting and generally comprehensive. Unfortunately, they copied Yamaha's mistake of making "on bass" (slash chord recognition) one of the chord recognition "modes," instead of an individually selectable setting. So if I need a chord like C/Bb I'm stuck with "Fingered on Bass" and have to play at least 3 notes for all of the chords. This is much less convenient than Roland and Ketron's system, which would require only Bb below C when "bass inversion" is active, and otherwise acknowledge chords with a minimum of notes, including majors with a single note.

Nimbu is a similarly comprehensive software arranger. Since at least 2022 they have implemented on-bass chord recognition as a separate function, so that it can be used in conjunction with any mode. Including one that faithfully emulates Roland Chord Intelligence. For alternative consideration: https://www.nimbu.de/en/release_notes.html

Five fingers on each hand, only need 3 for an inversion, I'm not seeing the problem..!

It's true that most of us five fingers on each hand. [I use my RH strictly for melody, so in my case it's only the left hand that matters.] Some of us just don't have copious skill or time to practice. The problem is, for people transitioning from Roland, GEM, Casio, or even Ketron since 2015 or so... if those folks were making full use of the ergonomic aids their keyboards have to offer (aka "Chord Intelligence"), they would not be able to play Giglad without re-learning.

Consider: the best typists can accurately type 90-100 words per minute. Meanwhile, stenographers can type 200-250 words per minute using a special ergonomic keyboard. Modern cars with automatic transmissions, dual-clutch, etc., are faster in a straight line, and even around the Nuburgring compared the best human drivers with a stickshift. Technology is a great equalizer and force multiplier. If you're playing a fast progression where the chord and bass note change on multiple successive beats, one finger major chords and two-finger slash chords HAVE to be faster and easier (although Roland doesn't penalize you for playing all of the notes.) Often times being able to trigger the chord with a subset of notes makes the difference between moving your whole hand, or reaching the chord(s) from your current position. And for me personally, hand "jumps" are an almost guaranteed mistake or late note. I've even thought about sticking a post-it flag to the SIDE of a key, as an aid to hand positioning.

As I see it, organists and arranger players are playing three parts simultaneously: melody, harmony and bass. Perhaps I wouldn't mind 3- and 4-finger chords so much if I also had the skill to kick pedals, because then my feet would control the bass and any convenient inversion would do. But I've never tried pedals, so to control both the bass and harmony my left hand ends up jumping around like Daffy Duck on speed. If I'm going to play three parts "live," I want all the help that technology can afford!

My point remains -- there's no logical reason to limit slash chord recognition to 3-finger chords. By making "on bass" a separate setting that can be used with ANY chord recognition mode (as on Roland, Ketron, etc.), it helps folks like me without making anyone worse off. It's just software, easy enough to change it to accommodate players of all backgrounds and skills.

A pedalboard is no different to a keyboard, except the keys (Pedals) are longer, wider and larger spaced, so you can play them with your feet.
There are however 2 types of pedalboards, a full pedalboard where the pedals pivot from the rear, and a spinet pedalboard that pivots from the front, with a different technique required for each one.
My advice is to go for a spinet one unless you will be playing a lot of classical, church or theatre organ style.
With a spinet make sure you sit with your foot off the floor and can swing your leg over the pedals, ((If you need to lift your leg you are doing it wrong) and depressing the pedals with your toes, after that it is the same as learning the keyboard. (Just start off by playing the root note of the chord you are playing on the keyboard on the pedals)
It can be great fun, so have a think about it. (You also won't need to have your left hand bouncing all over the place unless you are playing piano)

Bill

As we've discussed before Ted, the major problem with 'shortcut' fingering systems is, once you get heavily (irretrievably!) invested in one, you are completely at the mercy of manufacturers to adopt it across ALL brands (never going to happen, each manufacturer thinks they have the perfect system and their users have boxed themselves in to where they HAVE to agree) or the brand that has the system you have trained yourself in must continue to produce arrangers AND not decide to change it...

That's an awful lot riding on a system that, if you had taken the time to simply learn 'normal' fingering, you would be independent of brand and system! It took YEARS for you to get automatic with that system, and no matter how skilled or unskilled you think you are, ANY system can be learned in years!

Yes, shorthand gives a faster transcribing of dictation than longhand, but years ago there were several other shorthand systems, and no doubt there were many that had picked the wrong system to learn. But I bet that rather than deciding to leave the profession (if others can't transcribe your shorthand, you leave yourself few that can employ you) most of the users of systems that got left behind simply knuckled down and learn the eventual winner.

The shorthand analogy unfortunately rather falls down when compared to keyboard chord recognition, because, while shorthand IS faster than longhand, once learned, 'normal' fingering is just as fast as one finger systems. And considerably more chords can be fingered with four fingers than two or three!

You've painted yourself into a corner. If you're happy enough there, that's okay. But the world of other manufacturers AND the expanding world of software arrangers is out of reach while you cling to a system NOBODY uses any more.

A half an hour a day would have you mastering 'normal' fingering or Yamaha's system in a few months. What's that against YEARS stuck in that corner unable to progress..?

You can do it!

I appreciate the encouragement from everyone. However, this isn't about what I might be able to learn (and unlearn!) in my remaining years. My point is that it's SOFTWARE and I shouldn't have to. In some ways your recommendations are tantamount to saying that soldiers should learn how to make and shoot longbows in case an Apocalypse ends the industial production of guns and bullets. As a species we have advanced on the assumption that technology becomes the basis for even greater technology in the future.

Giglad is first and foremost an arranger software. The purpose of which is to generate polyphonic output in a semi-intelligent way, based on a (relative) minimum of input. It's evident to me that the programmer/developer aped Yamaha's unfortunate approach without considering the implications. Yamaha is currently the 900-lb gorilla of the arranger world so it seems logical to copy them. However, Roland had standardized on their excellent Chord Intelligence by 1991, and by the late '90s had a dominant market share. Yamaha was still fumbling to release their first pro arranger. [Do any of you know how many different chord recognition modes the PSR-9000pro had!? (Check out the manual)] If Roland hadn't removed their foot from the accelerator on arranger development, and also made some different decisions about distribution and sales, they would STILL have a large user base that could not be so easily ignored.

Playing a 3- or 4-note chord CANNOT be easier, faster, more ergonomic or accurate than playing a 1- or 2-note SUBSET of that same chord. As long as the "intelligent" system doesn't require you to play notes that aren't part of the original chord (and sometimes Yamaha's does), you'll always be doing less work, or the same amount. Consider: in the Megahertz world of integrated circuits, even the best players are NOT playing those 3- or 4-notes at the "same time." On a piano or organ it's not critical. But on an arranger, if the timing difference exceeds a certain threshold (20ms?) false notes, or even falsely recognized chords appear in the MIDI. The best boards disguise this phenomenon with portamento, but if the player is sloppy it's audible and sounds "arrangerish." The more notes you have to press to trigger a chord, the greater the risk of one of them being late or incorrect. My other observation also remains valid, that successive 3- or 4-note chords are much more likely to require hand repositioning than successive "shortcut" chords. Single-note majors (assuming root bass) completely avoid the timing issue and are a boon to hand positioning.

Many of you are pros and can play two-handed piano, AGO-type church organs, the B3 and other non-intelligent instruments. You have my admiration and respect! My own music-making ability has never extended beyond chord organs like the Hammond S6 (brilliant for 1950) or its successors, intelligent arrangers. Others in my camp should know that neither Giglad (as of this writing) nor Yamaha's current-production arrangers offer an optimal system for playing common chords ergonomically and with a minimum of fingering. Yamaha will probably never correct its "mistake" but I hold out hope that the programmers of Giglad will stumble across this post and pity our plight!

Here in lies the problem, too many people rely on technology to get things done, and when it fails, which it always does, (Just look at the recent problems caused by a faulty update) your stuck left hanging there.
As to soldiers, on the battlefield if your supplies get cut off (Even if it’s only for a short time) you will have to be careful with ammunition or use more basic forms of combat to survive. (This is why they are taught to fight with basic things as well as guns)

Yamaha and Korg are the only two main players left as they did things the way people wanted, whereas others (Even though they were more advanced in many ways) didn’t and fell by the wayside as they couldn’t make a profit. (Exactly the same happened in the home organ market which the arranger took over from, however just like the home organ market became niche, arrangers are now coming close to the same)

If you’re playing an organ (With pedals) your left hand can remain within 1 octave to get virtually all the chords you need, (Many chord changes just require the movement on one or two fingers) so there is actually less chance of getting the chord wrong.

You are perfectly correct about professional players; however for home players it is just as easy to learn full chords as it is 1 finger, (Which is really a misnomer as you have to use more than one finger to get all the chords you want) in fact in their heyday there were plenty of schools that taught people to paly home organ and arrangers and not one of them used 1 finger chord lessons as they were more difficult then learning full chords. (To be honest 1 finger chords just made marketing easier, rather than making the playing easier)

In the end it comes down to what the user wants and so you just choose which is best for your enjoyment. (There are 3 main computer OS (Mac. Linux and Windows) with each of their users claiming there’s is better than the others, whereas in reality they are just variations of the same thing, and you just choose which does what you want the best, with the same applying to home organs and arrangers)

Bill

Yamaha and Korg arrangers are still around because of better marketing/sales, so their arranger product lines have retained the continued support of management. Not because they have a better system for simplified chord fingering. Roland's was first, not perfect but quite good. GEM, (and for the last nine years or so) Ketron and Casio, have very similar systems. I can play most songs on their boards without re-learning. (It's harder to "unlearn" a song that you know than to learn a new one!)

But because of Yamaha's success, most of today's hardware and software arrangers have added a fingering mode that emulates Yamaha's; for all its faults it has become a quasi-standard enabling people with no musical training to play a limited repertoire of chords. What I've been trying to communicate here is that the "Roland system" is an alternate quasi-standard, with greater merit to be preserved and promulgated. If Roland really has abandoned the arranger market, they should put their Chord Intelligence in the public domain; bake it into the firmware of their MIDI controllers like the A-800 and license it to Ableton, where it can benefit future generations of music-makers. It lives on in the recent FP-E50 and Go:Keys 5, so there is hope.

One tone per key was a physical necessity due to the construction of the pianoforte and organ-type instruments going back to ancient Rome. With electronics we've moved beyond that constraint. Perhaps even beyond the form factor of the black-and-white piano keyboard! I've spent years of my life NOT learning to play the organ (largely because I never had a realistic opportunity while I was young), but instead learning how to cover songs in the easiest way possible. There were no clip launchers in the '70s or '80s. At the whole song level, you could make a mixtape. Getting more hands-on than that meant a chord organ or autoharp, which were fine for the casual musician playing carols 'round the tree. Things got much more difficult (and expensive) from there.

Somewhere through the decades it seems that a philosophy took root that no one should be a casual musician. "If you're going to play music, knuckle down and learn your scales! Otherwise, just play a tape!" As I've gotten older I guess my world view is going away with me, and I think that's unfortunate. Arrangers with all of their proprietary gimmicks are an excellent bridge for the musically curious. And if there IS an easier way for someone with minimal training to cover pop songs and standards, I would like to know about it!!

Learning proper chords is way easier than learning 1 finger chords, (Thats why schools and teachers never taught 1 finger chords) plus most pop songs have a limited chord range so will be easy to get into.

Bill