A Thummer is a proposed commercial musical instrument characterized by
The Thummer was to be a type of jammer keyboard. Research suggests that the jammer's combination of thumb-controls and internal motion sensors could give more expressive potential than other polyphonic musical instruments such as the piano, guitar, and accordion.Isomorphic keyboards similar to those used in a jammer have been shown to accelerate the rate at which students grasp otherwise-abstract concepts in music theory.
The jammer keyboard was invented by Jim Plamondon in September 2003, whereupon he founded Thumtronics to design its "Thummer(tm)-brand jammer" and bring it to market, the trade name was to empathize the unique thumb-control feature. Prototype Thummers were produced, but the effort to commercialize them failed, and Thumtronics was disbanded in mid-2009.
However the concepts developed and publicized by the company are still being developed by alternate-keyboard enthusiasts.
Just as Kleenex(tm) is a trademarked brand of facial tissue, and the (tm) is a trademarked brand of electric guitar, the Thummer was intended to be a trademarked brand of "a new kind of musical instrument." The term jammer was introduced to give that "new kind of musical instrument" a generic, non-trademarked name.
Thumtronics' design goals for the Thummer, which continue to influence the independent development of jammers, were the 7 "E"s:
The Thummer was intended to have these advantages over a piano-style keyboard
Of the large number of isomorphic note assignments possible, the Thummer's Wicki-Hayden format was chosen since all notes of the major and minor scales fall under the fingers and the relative simplicity of relating it to conventional music notation.