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Vocal tract mapped keyboard

keyboard arrangement that maps the vocal tract
 
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This keyboard would map the vocal tract underneath the fingers, thumbs and wrists so that as much as possible the operation of the vocal tract in speaking could be simulated by the fingers, thumbs and wrists. I dont know whether the g would be on one pinky and the p on the other pinky or if the g would be at the wrists and the p at the index fingers, or if vowells would be up for e and down for o with a spectrum inbetween or some other configuration but the idea would just be to experiment as much as possible until you found a configuration that allowed the user to use a conceptual map that is as low as possible in the cognitive process, so that they could as easliy as possible map the process for speaking onto the keyboard. Could touch screens make this easy?
JesusHChrist, Apr 05 2012

Voder demo http://www.youtube....watch?v=e5gQBei-z-c
[JesusHChrist, Apr 06 2012]

Pink Trombone https://dood.al/pinktrombone/
[JesusHChrist, May 09 2017]

[link]






       When I see "vocal tract" I usually think "throat stuff", but I know that the mouth/lips/tongue are quite important parts of the vocalization process.   

       Ordinary English has more than 30 distinct sounds used in the various combinations for producing words, and most of those sounds are mapped to the alphabet (most of the vowels get two sounds each). A few sounds, like the two "th" sounds of "thin" and "then", are mapped to combinations of alphabet letters.   

       This Idea doesn't work simply, since most humans only have ten fingers, although of course if combinations of fingers are used, like playing a "chord" on a musical instrument, that would be fine.   

       I wonder if a long-term benefit might happen, if the Idea became widely used. Imagine a new "alphabet" being designed to be associated with those finger-chords. Then every word in the language could be written using that new alphabet, and the entire language would then become perfectly phonetic.
Vernon, Apr 05 2012
  

       The linked Voder demo is more interesting expression-wise than any current synthesized speech project I know of. How did we lose this?   

       Maybe the letters of an alphabet could be cartooney images of the vocal tract with the key areas exaggerated to simplify, differentiate and represent the shape that makes the sound.   

       I wonder if the extra sounds could be mapped onto other body parts rather than using the "decimal point" of finger chords, so that the original simple spectrum-like arrangement of the phonological map is preserved? So maybe map the spectrum from g to p over the whole body starting at the feet and using the knees for "k" and the torso for "sh" and the elbows for "s" and mapping only the ts, bs, ps etc over the fingers.
JesusHChrist, Apr 06 2012
  
      
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