Keyboard

This is a keyboard instrument that’s analogous to a fretless stringed instrument. It doesn’t have keys, as such, but rather a touch sensitive pad resembling a keyboard. Very small tonal increments are delineated thereon, corresponding to microtones, the granularity of which is programmable.

(Sorry, my command of music theory is not what it could be. I don’t actually understand the mathematics of how many microtones are in between C and C sharp, e.g., or how small your finger would have to be to play a microtone. Hence the granularity reference.)

Anyhow, you play this gizmo (the sound of which has probably been emulated in cheapo synthesizers for years). Put a finger at middle C perhaps. Move it up an octave and you hear *everything* in between, not just the normal Western incremental notes. Apply that idea to playing chords, etc. Playing a blues progression, you could keep your left hand in the same position, move it across the “keyboard” and perhaps produce an interesting effect. Easy tremolo effect, too, just the way stringed instrument players do it.