CutlerKeys MKE Inc. is an innovative musical keyboard design and manufacturing start-up founded in Kingston, Ontario in 2016 by pianist/composer/music educator Douglas Cutler.
Our Vision
As our company tagline suggests, we’re pursuing a whole new era in musical keyboard design beginning with our breakthrough Thumbdrop Keyboard. It’s a bold initiative but guided by the overriding CutlerKeys design principal: easy, affordable, effective upgrades for existing musical keyboards. It’s a practical approach that gives us a shot a really making this happen. By upgrading existing keyboard instruments, rather than build new ones, we avoid overwhelming manufacturing and marketing obstacles allowing us to go direct to musicians with affordable and practical breakthrough products. After the initial white key Thumbdrop Keyboard launch we plan to introduce the Black Key Upgrade followed by versions for digital keyboards. Our goal is to make the dramatic new performance possibilities of our products universal to ALL musical keyboards. But we even have plans beyond that . . .
Moonlight Through Branches Album and the CutlerKeys Mark 5 Keyboard
Moonlight Through Branches is the name of an album of solo piano music written and performed by CutlerKeys founder Douglas Cutler. This project will mark the first ever commercial recording made with the still secret CutlerKeys Mark 5 ergonomic keyboard. Though not as radical as the Thumbdrop design, the Mark 5 may yet prove more universal as it presents an ergonomically enhanced, low learning curve version of the conventional keyboard with marked benefits for any style of piano including classical. While Doug’s laid back collection of themes and solos is anything but groundbreaking, the project yet aspires to its own type of watershed foreshadowing the launch and production of the Mark 5 keyboard in a future campaign.
About Founder Douglas Cutler
With the introduction of CutlerKeys Thumbdrop Keyboard, Douglas Cutler might be considered a leading pioneer in ergonomic innovations adapted for conventional musical keyboards . . . then again, it’s not exactly a crowded field. It is, however, an area that Doug has devotedly pondered, researched and experimented in throughout his life. Otherwise, Doug is an obscure Canadian pianist, composer, songwriter, music educator and veteran of various 70’s and 80’s Southern Ontario bar bands and 90’s piano lounges. Performance credits include a stint as keyboard sideman for Skip Prokop (Juno award winning leader of legendary Canadian 70’s orchestral rock band Lighthouse). Doug also holds a BMus degree from Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario where he studied piano performance with Michel Szczesniak and composition with John Burge including studies in modern piano with Casey Sokol at York University, Toronto. Currently, when not working on his various keyboard innovations Doug teaches piano privately in Kingston Ontario, Canada.