In my recent Youtube electronic-music videos I play on a orthogonal 8x8 keyboard, with keys placed in a special way called OWH layout (Ortho-Wicky-Hayden layout).

OWH is ortholinear modification of Wicky-Hayden layout, while original Wicky-Hayden layout is a representative of isomorphic layouts.

In the article below you will find what all those aforementioned words actually mean.

Pitches corresponding to OWH-layout

Table of contents:

[1] Piano layout irregularity

The problem with traditional piano layout is that in order to play for example major chord in all possible tonalities, you’ll have to learn 12 different finger layouts. The same problem applies to all other chords.

The root of this problem is irregular «semitones-distance» between neighboring keys. For example:

• Distance between C and D is 2 semitones
• Distance between E and F is 1 semitone

[2] Regular («isomorphic») layouts

So-called isomorphic layouts fully adress aforementioned issue:

• «Semitones-distance» between neighboring keys is always the same.
• So, If you learn finger pattern for any chord — pattern stays the same in every tonality.

In theory, this will significantly reduce the time required to learn the keyboard.

See for example how major chords for C, F#, G and F has literally the same finger pattern in one of the most popular isomorphic layout (Wicki-Hayden layout):

Examples of major chords (C, F#, G and F) in Wicki-Hayden layout

«Semitones-distance» between neighboring keys in Wicki-Hayden layout

Other popular isomorphic layouts are Linnstrument, Janko and others.

Linnstrument

Janko

[3] OWH layout (Ortho-Wicki-Hayden layout)

After researching and trying various isomorphic layouts, I decided to stick with Wicki-Hayden layout. The problem is that hexagonal grid keyboards are much harder to get your hands on. So I modified Wicki-Hayden to be placed on orthogonal keyboard. I call this new layout Ortho-Wicki-Hayden layout (in short OWH), however it is not official name, it is just a name that I use.

Wicki-Hayden on hexagonal keyboard

Wicki-Hayden on orthogonal keyboard

The best way I found to try OWH layout on a decent keyboard is using Novation Launchpad with custom User layout (in 2023, MK3 Mini costed me around $150). Novation has user-friendly software for user to map Launchpad keys to whatever MIDI signal they want.

Once Ortho-Hayden-Layout was loaded into Launchpad it looked like this:

Novation Launchpad MK3 Mini (stock picture with random notes coloring)

Custom User layout in Novation software that I use

Corresponding pitches