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Modal substitution

Posted

Would it work to give color coding to vertical scales once a harmony is established, in a similar way that chord pallets can be marked by fragility etc?


Tue, 2009-07-07 - 23:45 Permalink

Sounds like a cool idea.

What property do you have in mind that should be mapped to the color spectrum?

Wed, 2009-07-08 - 00:25 Permalink

To be honest I'm not sure. I usually just work my way outwards from the circle of fifths, inching further away as I need to introduce more controlled chromaticism - this methodology is coming from more of a jazz harmony perspective of altering the mode for a single chord rather than a full modulation.

I would think that once a harmony is established, small chunks of it, out of context, could allude to a variety of different scales, especially more exotic scales -- octatonic etc. These might not be readily apparent, but I imagine a computer would be very adept at recognizing those possibilities.

Like wise, vertically, harmonic layers could imply different modal possibilities.

Beyond that, I just meant this suggestion to be a kernel for discussion. I'd love to see what it would mean you fancy folks at cognitone.