Tune and rhythmic pattern generator

This screen provides a range of facilities designed to assist you in composing fragments of melodies, for later use in assembling a complete piece of music on the Composing Board.

There are three stages in this process:-

Set key signature, instrument, and tune parameters.
Choose a key from the drop down box,  (the default key is C major),  then select a scale by clicking one of the option buttons Major Scale, Melodic Minor,  Harmonic Minor, Pentatonic Scale, or Chromatic Scale. The Pentatonic scale uses only 5 notes of the major scale, by dropping the 4th and 7th degrees.  It is commonly found in Scottish music, and in the folk music of several other countries. This choice may provide a higher proportion of decent fragments.  The chromatic scale consists entirely of semi-tones, of which there are 12 in the scale. This choice will give the weirdest sounding tunes. You may also select an octave, from 1 to 8. The default is 4, which is the octave starting on middle C.

Choose an instrument from the drop down box. If you tick the Show Favourites only check box, the drop-down list will only include instruments flagged by you as your favourites, otherwise it will include the full set of 128 General Midi instruments.

Set your tune parameters such as beats per bar (default is 4), Number of bars (default is 2) maximum number of notes (default is 8) and the tempo (default is 120 crotchets or quarter notes per minute).

Create a Series of Notes
You may generate notes randomly in any of three ways, by selecting one of the 3 Random Note Generator option buttons:-

  1. Fully random within a one octave compass.  Here again, the first note will always be the tonic, mediant, or dominant of the selected key. However, subsequent notes are totally selected at random, within the selected scale, and within a compass of one octave. So leaps of a major seventh are equally likely to leaps of a major third or a second. When used with the Pentatonic scale, this reduces the possible notes, and possibly increases the likelihood of a decent tune emerging.
  2. Intervals with sampled probabilities       The computer will always make the first note the tonic, mediant, or dominant of the selected key. Subsequent notes are random within the scale of the selected key, but subject to a standard probability for each interval. For example repeated notes are very common, going up or down the scale (i.e. intervals of a second) is also very common. Leaps of a major 7th are fairly rare.
  3. Fully Random over 4 octaves.  This gives an enormous range of possible random notes, so the result is likely to be fairly weird, especially if you have selected a chromatic scale.

Then click the pink button  Generate Melody.  You will hear your fragment played as even crotchets or quarter notes. You can click the pink button as often as you like, until you hear a fragment that you like.

Once the notes have been determined using any of the above 3 methods, your tune can be played by clicking the Play button on the PlayBar. However at this stage the rhythmic pattern will be a very boring string of even crotchets or quarter notes. The panel on the right is designed to facilitate experimentation with varied rhythmic patterns on the same string of notes.

Apply a Rhythmic Pattern
In the panel on the right, there are 1 to 4 boxes, each  filled with 4 crotchets (or quarter notes), which fills one bar, assuming a time signature of 4/4.  The duration of each note can be changed to a shorter one by left-clicking it, or to a longer one by right-clicking it. The number of rhythm boxes shown depends on the number of bars you specified on the lower left side of the screen. If you specified 4 or more bars, these boxes will initially be configured to store rhythm patterns for the first 4 bars in order, because the drop-down box is set to Specific Bar.  

If you wish to employ the same rhythmic pattern on every bar of your melodic fragment, you only need to set up the top one of these 4 boxes, set the drop-down box to All Bars,  and then click the yellow button Apply Rhythmic Patterns.  

If you need a different pattern for some bars, you may set up each of the 4 boxes with a pattern for one bar. Then use the drop-down boxes to the right of each box to specify - all bars,  odd bars,   even bars,   specific bar,  or  not used. When you choose Specific Bar, a new box will appear beneath the drop-down box, into which you mat type the bar number to which you want this pattern to be applied

When you have finished setting up the rhythmic patterns, click the yellow button Apply Rhythmic Patterns.   You should hear your melodic fragment played in your chosen rhythm. You may alter the rhythm pattern as often as you like, till you are happy with the result. Also, having established a rhythmic pattern, you may also change the note pattern by using the features on the left of the screen, and listen to the new notes played using your stored rhythm.

The PlayBar at the foot of the screen allows you to play, pause, stop, or rewind your tune just like a tape recorder.   If you want to utilize your fragment in the composing board, to assemble a larger piece of music from several fragments, then click the purple button Store as fragment for use in composing board


ComposeRandom.htm    Sunday, 29 October 2006 18:41