This was one of the first tunes I wrote using only 25 keys. It happened right after getting my hands on the Korg nanoKey2, a MIDI controller with a very unfamiliar form factor. It has 25 button-style keys with a novel tactile response and no sustain pedal. Certainly nothing I was accustomed to, as I was more used to full-sized pianos and keyboards with weighted action. I wasn’t even very comfortable with synth-style unweighted keys, and this was one step further than that. I thought I would struggle with these perceived limitations and constraints, but instead the opposite happened.
See? So not a piano keyboard…
This marked my first time discovering how drastic an effect different input devices could have on the final product. At first I just saw the nanoKey as a piano keyboard; a smaller, more awkward piano keyboard. But I soon realized that it was in fact an entirely different instrument, resulting in entirely different types of music. When I play full sized weighted keyboards, it activates very well-trod neural pathway in my brain. My fingers already know what to do, muscle memory kicks in, and some very predictable music flows out. Competent, musically sound, but predictable.
On the nanoKey, I had no muscle memory. It felt completely foreign under my fingers and therefore my brain did not default to the “same ol’ things”. And so I went about the task of figuring out what kind of music this tiny keyboard really wanted to be playing. This turned out to be largely monophonic parts. It did not like playing multiple notes at the same time, although it begrudgingly obliged when I had it play some triads on this track. It loved playing drums, bass, and very rhythmic/percussive parts. What’s interesting is that these are all things that never come naturally to me sitting in front of a full-sized keyboard, but with the nanoKey they felt very natural.
And so the nanoKey earned itself a permanent spot on my studio desk at home. Initially I expected it to just be a travel keyboard, my only viable option for MIDI input while on the go. But as it turns out, it excels at things my more “standard” keyboard is weak at. It fills a very real gap in my studio toolset. And this track I produced with it sounds like nothing I’d ever made before.