Composition tools - Harmony and counterpoint |
- About this program
- Purpose of this composition module
- How to choose a set of rules ?
- Creating a new composition module
- How to use the composition module ?
- The composition module window
- Using the module
- Example 1 - 4 parts harmony with bass line
- Example 2 - 4 parts harmony with a given melody
- Example 3 - Starting from an existing melody and chord progression
- Example 4 - 2 parts counterpoint with a given melody
- Example 5 - 3 parts counterpoint with dissonances and rhythmic transfer
- Example 6 - Checking for errors in an existing score
- Example 7 - Starting from a MIDI file
- What to do if the program finds no solution
About this program [Professional] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] Harmony and Counterpoint is a music software built on
the Pizzicato music notation range of products. It is natively included in the following versions of
Pizzicato: It can be purchased separately, in which case it includes Pizzicato
Light (in fact a little more flexible version than Pizzicato
Light). The Harmony and Counterpoint software can also be
used in combination with the following versions of Pizzicato,
extending the score limitations and other features available
within the program: This lesson is part of the general user's guide of Pizzicato
but it is written as a standalone manual so that if you do not
know how to use Pizzicato, you can however easily find your way
to use the harmony and counterpoint features. For some topics, a
reference to the full manual is given so that you know where to
learn more about a specific tool used inside the program. Purpose of this composition module [Professional] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] This software module has one main purpose, which is to help
you to compose and/or arrange your music. It is not
intended to compose for you. It will help you to master the main
rules of composition, so as to avoid most of the errors that make
a music passage sound wrong. A composition module contains a set of musical rules that can
be associated with a full score or only with a few measures or
even a few beats in a score. It may include two or more
instruments. When adding a composition module into a score, an area is
created where you can interact to arrange and/or create music in
that score. Each composition module can be considered as a context for
music composition. The following composition modules are
presently available: When we say "part" or "voice" in this
manual, it is not limited to the human voice and it may be any
instrument, whether a classical acoustic instrument or an
electronic synthesizer. It merely means "one melodic line, a
time sequence of single notes". Harmony is traditionally the art of sequencing various chords
to reach the best possible musical effects. Counterpoint is
traditionally the art of putting two or more melodies together to
reach the best possible musical effects. Harmony is mainly concerned with vertical analysis of the
notes in the chords and counterpoint is more concerned about the
horizontal structures of each melody. However, this limit is
mainly theoretical as in both cases you will find that both
horizontal and vertical rules will apply. It is mainly a question
of which viewpoint you favour when you compose. When you combine several melodies together, they inevitably
result in a sequence of chords. Reversely, if you sequence a
series of chords, the notes forming the chords inevitably result
in creating various melodies. So both aspects are intimately
related and not strictly separable in practice. How to choose a set of rules ? [Professional] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] If you follow a hamony or counterpoint course, simply select
the set of rules that corresponds to the type of exercise you are
working on. For free music composition, here are some guidelines: In any case, the interactive composition module area is never
forcing you on how to compose music. You are controlling the
process and you can ask the module to suggest combinations of
notes that respect the generally agreed upon rules of music
composition. In all possible combinations, you select the ones
you prefer and you orient the composition process. Creating a new composition module [Professional] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] The first step is to create a composition module. This section
explains how to do it and the following sections will explain how
to use it once it has been added to a score. There are two ways to start working with a composition module.
The first one is to start with the Harmony and counterpoint
wizard which will help you to create a score with the required
specification. The second method is to open any existing score
(whether empty or with existing music material) and simply add a
composition module in a specific area of that score. Let's take
an example of each. The harmony rules are listed by progressively including
more types of chords into the music. The labels on the list
specify the new chord type introduced by that line. For
instance, the label "4 parts harmony - Dominant
seventh (on 4 staves)" means it will use the
dominant seventh chord, but also all the other chords of the
previous lines. This dialog can also be used later in any score, if you
need to change the key signature. More information on this
tool can be found in the Help menu, Writing
scores, Using key signature... This dialog can also be used later in any
score, if you need to change the time signature. More
information on this tool can be found in the Help menu,
Writing scores, Changing the time signature... Important note : If you are using the basic version
of the Harmony and Counterpoint software, the
product of staves by measures is limited to
60, like in Pizzicato Light. This means that a score
of 4 staves is limited to 15 measures. A score of 2 staves is
limited to 30 measures. In most cases, this is well enough to
make exercises or to search for a melody and bass line with
chords. Combined with more advanced versions of Pizzicato,
this limitation disappears. In the lower left part of the dialog box you can filter
the instruments according to the style of music. As we have
decided to work on 2 staves, the dialog only proposes two
lists of instruments. The left one will be used by the bass
and the part just above the bass. The right one will be used
for the two other parts. This dialog can be called again later to change
instruments. There is also a Random select the sounds
button. Using it selects one instrument sound for each staff
randomly within the selected styles. Use it to test various
instrument configurations, once you start building your
composition further. In addition to that, the composition module window will be
opened as a floating window. It will be described in details
in the following sections. The other method to create a composition module is to
right-click on a measure and select the contextual menu item Composition
rules, Add... You can also drag it vertically to adjust its position, for
instance in the case it would collide with the above system or
with chord symbols or for any other graphic reason. To extend the
area to the next system, simply drag it vertically down and set
it above the target system. The composition module area is
extended and the green band is displayed above all the covered
measures. You can have more than one composition module in the same
score. However, be careful to avoid that two composition modules
overlap each other, as this may cause unexpected behaviour and
influences. By right-clicking inside the measures of a composition module,
the Composition rules... menu also offers the Modify...
item which will simply open the composition module window in the
same way as clicking the ( How to use the composition module ? [Professional] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] There are mainly three ways you can use a composition module,
only one of them being really creative. The first way to use it is to enter a full melody (or
import it from a MIDI file) and ask the program to do it all
alone. Even if the proposed solution may not sound too bad, it
will lack aesthetic direction and coherence. Composition rules are like the syntax of a phrase in English.
The computer can check for the syntax but not for the meaning of
the phrase. You can have a phrase like "It ate the song
from the house inside the ice shirt" with a correct
syntax but without sensible meaning. Using the composition module
in this way will give you in most cases the impression of a lack
of meaning or direction in the music. In a similar way, you can ask the program to compose one or
more measures totally freely, without giving it a first melody.
The result will of course be even more lacking in direction.
However, by applying some constraints and for short rhythmic
patterns, this may give interesting results, as the program can
easily generate hundreds of them and you can select one that you
like by simply listening to it. One or more solutions may contain
some original combinations that you can then refine and develop.
In other words, the process itself of using the composition
module may stimulate your inspiration. The second and most creative way to use the composition
module is the step by step research of solutions. You can start
from an existing melody and/or freely design the melody at the
same time as the other parts. You work the music note by note or
with small groups of notes. In this way, the number of solutions for each step is
mathematically limited and you can easily listen to each one of
them until you feel the music goes in the direction you want. You
can then go to the next step and do the same. You can backtrack
at any moment and restart or adjust some notes. You do not need
to obey the rules. Sometimes the module will propose a solution
and by listening to it you will have another idea for a
variation. You can simply fix your solution, even if it violates
rules. The rules are only there to help you but never to force
you against your musical feelings. A third way to use the composition module is as a
support when you follow a harmony or counterpoint course. You can
do the assigned exercises given by your teacher directly inside
the software, by using the simple note entry tools. You can hear
the results as you progress through the exercises, but there are
two other major advantages included. One advantage is that you can ask the program at any time to
detect and show you the most common errors like parallel and
direct fifths and octaves, exceeding the range of voices, using
dissonant intervals or incomplete chords,... The second advantage
is that at any moment in your exercise, if you can't find a
solution, the program may suggest you the various possible
combinations of notes in the step mode, so that you can analyse
them and hear how they sound. Sometimes beginners will feel
blocked by one situation and using this feature may help them to
extend their thinking process by exploring solutions they did not
thought about. In using the composition module with the purpose of learning
harmony and counterpoint, you should first follow the directions
given by your teacher and of course not ask the program to do
your assignements by itself ! For the reasons explained above,
the final solution would most probably not be acceptable to your
teacher, as it would lack musical direction and meaning. The
program is there to help you better feel and forecast all the
valid possibilities and sort the ones that will sound the best. We will now examine the main window that helps you to interact
with the composition area. The composition module window [Professional] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] There is one composition window associated to each composition
area in the score. The window can be visible or hidden (in which
case the composition module is not active). There are 4 main sections of the window that can
be reached by clicking one of the 4 blue buttons on top of the
window: Solutions - This is the main
part of the window, that is used to adjust various
options and to apply the suggested notes or groups of
notes. Staves - This section is used to
specify the mapping of the parts to each staff in the
score. You can also determine the rhythmic structure to
be used. Here is how it looks like: Rules - This is the list of the
main rules used for composition. The list depends of the
choice you made while selecting a set of rules. However,
in each case you may disable one or more of the rules,
simply by clicking on one of the small green squares (it
then becomes red, meaning that the rule is temporarily
disabled). Errors - Once you have notes in
the composition area, you can ask the program to check
for errors, against the list of rules. We will now create a few short application
examples and in the next section we will explain these 4 window
parts in more details. The first example is to automatically
arrange a short phrase. In the first staff of the score, enter
the following notes: To do that, open the Notes and rests palette in
the Tools menu: To enter a note, select its rhythmic duration on the
palette and then click on the staff. You can move the notes
up or down. You can easily delete a note by dragging it left
or right through the bar line. The same is valid for rests.
You can learn more about entering the notes by going in the Help
menu and choosing Writing scores... Introduction of
notes and rests (1) to (5). Each time when you press that button, you may
get a different solution. You will notice that the added
notes are displayed in green, which means that they are
suggested notes. The original melody is never modified by the
program. At any moment, you can play the music by
clicking on the If you click on a green note (or if you move
it), the note becomes black, which means that the note will
no more be changed by further suggestions. If you want to
free a note again, right-click on it and select Free the
note. It will then become green again and the next
suggestion may change that note. Click on the Clean button. This
button will remove any green note from the active
composition area and leave the original melody untouched. Let's see now how you can work step by step, which is in fact
the most interesting way to use the composition module to compose
your own music, because you give direction to the music at any
moment according to your inspiration and feeling of musical
aesthetics. They correspond to the various time slots where the
program will analyse the music and suggest the missing notes
according to the set of rules present. They can be used to
specify a local selection of one or more time slots where the
suggested notes will be added, so that the analysis is only
applied to that local area inside the whole composition area.
This is the step by step mode. Here is how to do it. Each icon is in fact a shortcut to an important button
inside the Solutions section of the main window. As
they will be used intensively in the step by step mode, they
are assembled above the chord so that you can easily access
them without the need to move the mouse back and forth
between the main window and the selection of the time slots
you want to work on. Note that the solution you will see on your screen may not
be the same as shown above. The program uses a random number
to suggest one of the possible solutions, so that each time
you can have another one. However, if there are for instance
only 5 possible solutions, the five solutions will always be
the same, but they may present themselves in a different
order. As you can see, only the first chord has been suggested.
No other notes outside the limited area has been changed. The
green square limits the area of the suggested notes. Here is
an explanation of the icons found near the green square: So after deciding which solution we prefer (by listening
to them), we can now click on the second square (above the
second note of the melody and then click its ( According to the context, there may be one or more
solutions, but sometimes there can be no possible solution.
In such a case, you can go back and use another solution for
the previous note. Further in this manual, you will find a
section that explains what you can do when the program does
not find any solution to a given musical situation. In any case you can always click on the ( In this way you can proceed further and continue through the
arrangement of the melody. When you get into a situation where there is no possible
solution and where you must go backwards to change the previous
solution, there is an easier way to explore the possible
combinations around a small group of notes. Here is how to do it. If you now click on the ( In this case the program found 9 different solutions. You
can simply browse through them and play them as explained
above, so that you can select the one that gives the best
result according to your own musical direction and feelings. When you click on the error line, the score will also show
the notes that are related to the error, in this case
parallel octaves, with red circles: The set of rules used here was the simplest one : only fifth
chords in their fundamental position, but it nevertheless gave
you an overview of the most important actions involved in the
process of interactively compose and arrange your music using
this module. We will now explain the various options of the main
window. Using the module [Professional] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] This section explains each option of the composition window.
Let us start with the Solutions panel of the composition
window. You can specify fixed notes anywhere in the parts. For
instance, you could write the melody of the first measure and
the bass of the second measure and let the program fill the
missing notes. By increasing the Global evaluation value, you
increase the global quality of the solutions that will be
presented. By increasing the Local evaluation value,
you prevent the various elements of the solutions to have a
lower local quality. You can play with these values for
instance when there are too many solutions proposed and you
want to filter them. By decreasing the values, the program
can find solutions where it could not find any with the
default values of these evaluation values. With a few chords only, it is quite easy and fast to
examine all possible combinations and evaluate the resulting
solutions to find the best ones. When the number of notes of
a melody increases, the number of possible combinations
increases very fast to millions of millions of possible
solutions. In this case, even a fast computer will take more and more
time to complete the research and another method, the progressive
research method may be used. This method is more
similar to the way a human being would process when trying to
solve the same problem: You will often see this process in action when you ask the
program to harmonize more than a few measures at a time. The
dialog showing the progress bar will increase and sometimes
go back, until it finally reaches 100 %. If there is really a
problem in the original melody that is impossible to resolve
without disabling a rule, the program may take hours to try
all the possible paths. In this case you can click the Cancel
button of the progress dialog and the longest valid solution
that was found until then will be displayed. The default value is Automatic research, which
means that the program will first evaluate the number of
possibilities that must be examined. If there are more than
one billion, it will automatically use the progressive
method. Otherwise it will use the integral method.
Note that in progressive mode, it will only find one
solution, even if the "Number of solutions to
find" slider is set to more than one. If you want
to examine other solutions, you can simply click the Compute
button again, as the program uses random generators to order
the solutions. You can also decide yourself which scale must be used at
which point of the score. To do this, simply right-click
inside an empty green square marking a time slot. A
contextual menu lets you change or remove the scale
specification at the point in time. However, if you click
again the Estimate scales button, all scales will
come back to their default values according to the key
signature and the notes of the melody. If the program suggests dissonances, they will be
displayed in orange. The second column of controls have the following options. You can learn how to add chord symbols above the measures
in the Help menu, at Writing scores, The chord
tool... Graphic musical vectors are further explained in the Help
menu, in Intuitive music composition... Composition tools
- The graphic vector... Beginning and end rules only apply to the start and end of
the composition area. When you select a few green squares to
suggest notes in a limited area, these rules do not apply to
the beginning and end of the limited area (except if the
limited area starts at the beginning of the area or stops at
the end of it). Let us now examine the Staves section of the main
window. Inside each folder, there is by default one assigned staff
in the score. If you click for instance on the first square
(in the first folder), you will see the following additional
options: Here are the details: By using 4 parts harmony on 4 staves, only the first
rhythmic voice is used in each staff. By using 4 parts
harmony on 2 staves, here is how the parts are assigned
to the staves and rhythmic voices : When you need to enter notes in the score with the
note tools, you can specify which voice you edit by the
small popup menu found in the upper left part of the main
tool bar above the score. By default it displays
"1-8" which means that the voices will be
automatically assigned. You can learn more about rhythmic
voices in the Help menu, in Writing
scores... Introduction of notes and rests (4). You can specify the limits by using the left and right
mouse click on the displayed keyboard. You can also specify the range of notes by moving up
or down the handles above and below the thick green bars
that appear in front of each part in the score : These bars roughly show the range of the notes that
can be used in the current clef of the part. To assign a new staff to one of the parts, simply
right-click on the folder of that part (in the above left
tree of parts) and select the Add a staff item.
You can then specify which staff you want to use in the
existing score (the staff must already exist in the
score). Right-clicking a staff in the tree will remove it
from that part (but not from the score). By default, the Original choice is selected,
meaning that the suggested notes will be applied directly
to the related staff. The Rhythmic choice will
in fact keep any rhythmic value present in the
destination staff but will replace the note pitches by
the one from the composition part. In that case, it can
also use a transposition value that is added to
the original note (so that you can assign one part to
multiple instruments in the orchestra). There are two other modes that will in fact arrange
the melody already present in the score, based on the
scale or the chords proposed by the suggested notes. The Version number is by default 1. Pizzicato
handles several versions of the music in one measure. You
can find more information about this in the Help
menu, in Advanced features... Measure versions... The right part of that window shows the following options: Each time slot is shown by a green square above it. The
program only takes into consideration the notes that begin on
a time slot for the analysis. For instance, if you have a
melody with the following time slots arrangements, only the
notes marked in red will be taken into account and the others
will be considered as transition notes: Here are the various possible ways to structure time in
the composition area: This is mainly used for the exercises in couterpoint.
You can determine the species of the counterpoint (whole
notes against whole notes, half notes against whole
notes,...). For each voice, you can select one or more of
the above rhythmic patterns, simply by clicking on them.
If there are fixed notes in the score, they will not be
modified by the rhythmic patterns. You can select the basic duration (the whole note by
default). Warning : whenever you select another choice in the
rhythmic structure frame, all custom editing of the time
structure will be lost and the time structure will be set
back to the new one you have selected. The Rules section of the main window contains the
list of rules that are present in the composition module: Some of the rules are expressed as limitations (like
direct and parallel fifths and octaves) and some contain
items that can be used, like chords. You can disable one
specific rule by simply clicking on it. The square becomes
red, showing that the rule will be ignored for analysis. The set of rules used is determined when you create the
composition template or add it to an existing score, but you
can at any time select another set by clicking in the Change
the rules... button. Notice : In the more advanced versions of Pizzicato
(Pizzicato Professional and Pizzicato
Composition Pro), you can examine the details of the
rules and even modify or add new sets of rules. Doing so is
however a more complex process and requires a good knowledge
of music and computer logic. The document that contains all
the rules is located in the third configuration of the
document manager, under Libraries / Music libraries /
Basic libraries / Composition. This manual does not
detail the structure of the rules but any person with good
knowledge of music and computer logic can examine the
existing rules and their definitions so as to modify them or
create new sets of rules. The Errors section of the window lets you click on
the Check error. The program analyses the composition
area against the active rules and make a list of the errors
found. By clicking on one error in the list, the corresponding
notes are shown in red in the score itself: When you have finished a composition, you can export it to an
audio WAV file, to a MusicXML file (so that you can read it and
arrange it in your favorite music software), to a MIDI file or to
a PDF file. These options are available in the File, Export...
menu. Now that we have explained every option of the composition
module, we will demonstrate their use with a few practical
examples. Example 1 - 4 parts harmony with bass line [Professional] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] Here is how to find a harmony based on it. As it is the first chord of the score and as we are in the
key of C Major, the chord is always built on the first degree
and the program only changes the way the 3 parts can be
arranged on that chord. Check some of the suggested
possibilities and select one that sounds good to you for a
first entry. Here is one example, but you can choose the one
you prefer: From here on, you can either continue step by step or with
a small group of notes. You can of course also directly decide and test notes of
the melody. Let's say that by hearing the above solution, you
suddenly feel that the next note should be the G note above
the staff. Let's try it. There may be cases when you select a note that will
prevent any solution to be found. In that case, you can also
change the bass line if needed (for free composition) and/or
reduce the number of rules. See the section entitled What
to do if the program finds no solution. Example 2 - 4 parts harmony with a given melody [Professional] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] This musical phrase is written in the key of D (with two
sharps) and an A# appears in measure 3, which can be seen as
the augmented 7th degree of the relative minor scale of B. As
you can see it in the green band, the program has detected
the scale change (the key signature was forced into D Major
and not B minor) : If you do not shift it, the program would suggest nothing
for the first rest, but the point is that the beginning rules
would then no more be applied to the first chord of the
composition and could then start on any degree. You can do
it, but you have to know this. As you can feel when you listen to this phrase, it is just
the beginning of a phrase. The last note does not finalize
the musical idea. For this reason, we will disable the end
rules by checking the corresponding box Disable end rules.
You can do that whenever you analyse only a part of a phrase.
If the phrase is not the beginning of an idea, you can also
disable the beginning rules. The program proposes several time slots to do an analysis.
In this phrase, we only want a new chord on the main notes
and not on transition notes. We will use the custom time
structure. Let's change the sound used for this piece to string
ensembles. Click the Sound selection... button in
the Solution section of the window, select the Strings
(ensemble) for both staves and click OK. If you go further, you will notice that the program will
find no solution that satisfies the next measure. There are
several ways to handle this situation and they are explained
in the section entitled What to do if the program finds
no solution. You can then easily continue the arrangement and find a
solution you like. One example would be: As this example shows, you can use the composition module
to find a harmony for a part of any phrase. This may be
useful if you have composed a melody with some chords, but
you want to explore other possibilities. The above melody
would obviously require a second part as it leaves the
listener in suspension. When this tool is selected on the palette, you can click
anywhere on the score and the program will play all the
instruments at this location. By holding the mouse button
down and moving horizontally, you can hear carefully the
chord transitions, go backward and forward and even sequence
chords that are not consecutive, simply to test them. By
holding the CTRL key, you can click on a chord and it will be
hold until you click elsewhere on another chord. It is like a
magnifying glass but for music. There is also a shortcut to use this tool without
selecting it : click in the score while holding down both
SHIFT and CTRL keys of the computer keyboard. Example 3 - Starting from an existing melody and chord progression [Professional] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] In this example, we will examine a different situation. Here
you have an existing melody as well as the chords progression.
This is for instance the case when you want to custom arrange an
existing song. In such chord progressions, you will often find more
modulations and chord variations than in scolar harmony. If
you keep the standard parameters, the program may find no
solution that satisfies the rules. We will see how to handle
this situation. As the melody and the chords are fixed, we do not want the
program to modify them. We will use the two empty staves to
create a string arrangement that will play the chords. You need to use a set of rules that contains all the
chords present, otherwise the program will not find solutions
for all chords. The above set of rules contains all major and
minor chords, as well as the 5 types of seventh chords. If
your melody uses other chords like 9th, you should simplify
them for this type of harmonization, as this program
presently only handles the sevenths chords. This time, the green band appears below the first staff.
You can adjust its vertical position by dragging one of the
squares present at both sides of the band, so that it does
not hide a part of the melody. The scales are proposed so that all the notes of the
original chords will correspond. There may be other possible
configurations and you can modify them by right-clicking on
the time slots and modify or delete a scale. This would also be the case if we were using a modulating
melody inside the composition area. The program would try to
find the best scales that contain the notes of the melody. This is an important step to remember, as if you do not
adjust the scales, the program may never find solutions for
the time slots where the scale is not adjusted to the notes
or chords. This is because this type of chords progression goes
outside the standard range of classical harmony and for this
type of music, some rules are too restrictive. In this case,
there are many abrupt and non prepared (in the
classical harmony meaning) modulations that will generate
several kind of errors and chromatic passages that are not
allowed in classical harmony. We need to disable some of the
classical rules that are likely to cause problem. There can be hundreds of variations and one of them is for
instance: You can also influence the range of the arrangement,
simply by adjusting the vertical thick green bars found to
the left of the composition area. There is one bar for each
voice of the arrangement. Example 4 - 2 parts counterpoint with a given melody [Professional] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] In this example, we will first add a bass line playing
with eighth notes. You can also work it step by step, which would be more
creative, as you can influence the way the bass is playing
all over the melody. By default, the rhythmic structure is exactly the same as
the original melody, but the music would be more interesting
if the second voice has a different time structure. Let's say
we would like only eighth notes at the bass, so that the bass
line would give the feeling of a regular flow against a
changing melody. If you ask the program to suggest new solutions, you will
get a continuous bass line using eighth notes except for the
second part of the last measure. If you listen to it, you may notice that the bass line for
that instrument may be too low in pitch. You can adjust the
range of the bass so that it occupies a higher range and you
can get a solution like this: Once the composition is finished, remember that you can
click on the Set button to fix all green notes. You
can also remove the composition module and only the result of
your work is left in the score. Please note that this type of exercise can be done while
interactively composing the melody, so that both melody and
bass line progress according to what you feel. Example 5 - 3 parts counterpoint with dissonances and rhythmic transfer [Professional] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] We will first add two voices with different time
structures. This is one example on how to use the various
species of counterpoint. Notice that the use of dissonances is shown by drawing the
notes in orange. You can influence the general solution by adjusting or
moving the ranges of the two voices. As the program displays the figured bass and degree by
using the lyrics tool of Pizzicato, it will always add them
on the time slots where a note starts (here on the first beat
of each measure). If you want to have them on all time slots,
select another staff for the placement of the figured bass.
In this case the first staff would show it for each time
slot. If you compose for a group or for a whole orchestra, each
part coming from the composition module may in fact be
automatically assigned to one or more other instruments. We
will use a simple example with the first empty staff of this
example and we will use the rhythmic transfer mode with a
transposition of one octave up. The idea is that the main parts can then be assigned to
various groups of instruments. You can even do this before
starting to compose or arrange, so that you can directly hear
the combination resulting from the rhythymic transfer to the
other instruments. To introduce new rhythmic values and rhythmic variations,
you can also use the rhythmic variations dialog box, as
explained in the Help menu, in Intuitive music
composition, Composition tools - Rhythmic variations. Example 6 - Checking for errors in an existing score [Professional] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] You can use the program to correct existing exercises, from a
MIDI file or by simply entering the notes with the note tools, as
you yourself work on a harmony or counterpoint exercise. Let's
open an existing score and check for any error according to the
rules. First of all, this program only implements a simplified
set of the main rules of harmony. There are several special
cases and exceptions to these rules and even then, they vary
amongst different treaties on harmony. But most importantly, harmony comes from the observation
of the masters of the past. General rules and more specific
cases have been deduced from the music already composed. That
does not mean that each master piece of the past could have
been written from that set of rules. They can serve as
guiding rules and should never prevent nice music to be
written. If you prepare an examination in harmony, you better
learn the rules and be able to apply them. This program will
help you in this way. But if you simply want to compose
freely, then use the rules as a guide and never as a master. Example 7 - Starting from a MIDI file [Professional] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] As a last example, we will show how to import a melody from a
MIDI file and to add counterpoint on it. It is a melody extracted from Chopin. We will copy the
content and use it in a 2 parts counterpoint score. As you may expect, the harmony is not the one that Chopin
used. Using the Compute button for a one shot
suggestion is of course leaving the direction of the music to
chance. Using the step by step method or measure by measure
would let you give more direction to the resulting music. What to do if the program finds no solution [Professional] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] As we have shown in the above examples, there will be many
cases when the program will not find any solution to your
request. This always means that there are too many constraints
used and here is a list of things to check and correct so that
the program can find solutions.
) is used to
open and close the corresponding composition module
window. Click on it and the window disappears, as well as
the upper band and the range indicators. Only the two
icons stay visible, showing there is a composition module
associated to that measure :
) the window
is displayed again.
) and the composition module is
removed from the score. This will only remove the
associated composition module. Any note that has been
generated by the module will stay in the score. A
composition module is useful during the process of music
composition, but once the notes are playing as you like,
you can simply delete the module.
) icon, and the Delete... item that will
simply remove the composition module from the score (but not the
notes of the score in that area).
icon displayed on the upper left part of the
composition window. Using it a second time stops the
playback. This playback control will start playing at the
beginning of the composition area.
) icon that is just below the green square,
inside the green band. This is the shortcut for the Compute
button of the main section of the window. The score
displays for instance:
) icon on top of the green square is a shortcut to
the Clean button of the main window, which
simply removes all suggested notes from the limited
area.
) will fix the notes of the limited area. The notes
are displayed in black and they will no more be
changed by further suggestions.
) icon. This will display the next
solution that was found during the last computing of
solutions. The number of the solution will now
display 2 / 10. Click a few time on this
icon and examine the other proposed solutions.
) that is just next to it. This will start playing 2
time slots before the current chord, so that you can
hear the transition and decide if you like it or not.
Clicking on the same icon again stops the playback.
) displays the previous solution (the
icon is not shown when the first solution is
displayed).
) icon to propose
solutions to harmonize the second note. The proposed solution
will also take into account the transition from the chords of
the previous notes.
) while holding
down the CTRL key, to force the program to ignore the chords
that are before or after the selected passage. For instance,
if you have only one selected time slot and click on the (
) while holding
down the CTRL key, the program will suggest all the possible
chord positions for that time slot, regardless of any rules
interacting with the previous chord or melody. In such a
case, there may be of course errors in the listing, but you
can decide what to use according to your feelings. Rules are
there to help you and not to force you in any way.
) icon, the program will compute
possible combinations of notes that respect the rules in this
extended area. You may get something like this:
) icon under the green square to display the
first solution. Then browse through the solutions with
the arrow icon that appears just to the right. Each time,
listen to the solution by using the (
) icon (it
starts and stops the playback).
) icon
under the green square and you will see that this time
the program has found 37 solutions :
) icon, the
program displays the first solution amongst 100 found. By
browsing them and listening to them, select the one that
gives the best sounding melody in the upper voice (you
can use any other criteria, but the upper melody is quite
important). Here is an example:
) icon. The score now displays:
and click in front of the second staff. The
staff is selected. Go in Edit, Apply
symbols..., select the first symbol (staccato) and
click OK: