Keyboard Layout: Dvorak vs Colemak: is it Worthwhile toImprovethe Dvorak Layout?

[Lie Ryan]

On 06/19/11 15:14, rusi wrote:
> On Jun 19, 9:21 am, Lie Ryan <lie.1... at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 06/18/11 03:53, Xah Lee wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> On Jun 15, 5:43 am, rusi <rustompm... at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> On Jun 15, 5:32 pm, Dotan Cohen <dotanco... at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>>> Thanks. From testing small movements with my fingers I see that the
>>>>> fourth finger is in fact a bit weaker than the last finger, but more
>>>>> importantly, it is much less dexterous. Good to know!
>>
>>>> Most of the piano technique-icians emphasis, especially those of the
>>>> last century like Hanon, was to cultivate 'independence' of the
>>>> fingers.  The main target of these attacks being the 4th finger.
>>
>>>> The number of potential-pianists who ruined their hands and lives
>>>> chasing this holy grail is unknown
>>
>>> Hi rusi, am afaid going to contradict what u say here.
>>
>>> i pretty much mastered Hanon 60. All of it, but it was now 8 years
>>> ago. The idea that pinky is stronger than 4th is silly. I can't fathom
>>> any logic or science to support that. Perhaps what u meant is that in
>>> many situations the use of pinky can be worked around because it in at
>>> the edge of your hand so you can apply chopping motion or similar.
>>> (which, is BAD if you want to develope piano finger skill) However,
>>> that's entirely different than saying pinky being stronger than 4th.
>>
>>> there's many ways we can cookup tests right away to see. e.g. try to
>>> squeeze a rubber ball with 4th and thumb. Repeat with pink + thumb.
>>> Or, reverse exercise by stretching a rubber band wrapped on the 2
>>> fingers of interest. You can easy see that pinky isn't stronger.
>>
>> Except that the actual finger strength themselves are not very relevant;
>> the dexterity of the fingers turned out to matter more because pressing
>> the keys in a keyboard does not actually take a lot of power.
> 
> Actually there are 3 factors: strength, dexterity and independence.

In piano playing yes; but in typing dexterity is the most important
factor. When typing, you don't usually need to press multiple keys at
the same time except for capitals (or if you're an emacs user) and even
when you do the keyboard will still correctly register the keypresses
(unlike playing piano, which may produce different sound), also the
range of movement in typing is much less than a piano, so finger
independence aren't as necessary in typing.