Well, the cool thing is that the layout means that all chords are completely movable. Take the pattern for a C major chord: QSD. If you shift over one key for each finger, you get an F# major chord: EFG. You can move that same finger pattern anywhere and always get a major chord, unlike, say, a piano or guitar (assuming you're playing in standard).
The idea of fully movable chords was drilled into my head by the design of the Ableton Push, and I've always loved it, though I think that's far more intuitive than this.
I fully agree. This is one aspect of the common keyboard layout that makes me sad: you have to learn many different patterns for every key. With this you only need to learn functional patterns (major, minor, etc.) and suddenly you know them for all keys. Other layouts have been attempted (see the janko layout), but they never caught on. I wonder if the mobility of accordions is one reason they've been able to have more variation.
How does the ableton push solve this problem? Looking at a video it almost felt like they were switching modes for a scale (almost like a harp does with its pedals). I'm probably off here, but I couldn't quickly find docs on how it worked.
The Ableton Push has several different configurations. I think you can use patterns based on any scale you want (including chromatic). Jordan Rudess did a little video series exploring the push: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz39lPgqfhE
Yeah, after 10 minutes of playing with it chords are starting to feel intuitive. You can do a lot of basic chording once you memorize the major and minor inversions.
The idea of fully movable chords was drilled into my head by the design of the Ableton Push, and I've always loved it, though I think that's far more intuitive than this.