Posted
Western harmony is all about the bass note of the chord. I have just read the manual and I cannot find any reference to the concept of 'Inversion' which is what Progressions are built on!
Without the ability to address Inversion I can't see how HN avoids bad voice leading- Parallel Fifths etc.
For example I look at the midi keyboard when I click on the tonic and then click on the dominant and you would never move between these chords like this!
Sorry I don't mean to sound like a ..... but I'm confused by this amazing software- it does not seem to do voice leading. :-? :D
Fri, 2009-10-02 - 02:11 Permalink
Mmm I've seen someone else has mentioned this further down. So it is possible to add the inversions to the catalogue?
If so that is great but really strange that out of the box you have access to C#maj7(13) but not the first inversion of C major!!
Also is it really possible to create all the inversions in the catalogue and save them? This feature is disabled in the demo so I don't want to buy only to find that it is not truly possible.
Why not add them to the catalogue in the first place- first inversions are a lot more useful than uber extended chords (IMO)
Fri, 2009-10-02 - 13:01 Permalink
Hi osha,
thank you for the good question. This is being asked rather frequently and I'll try to explain. Generally there are two abstraction levels of harmony:
1) The set of pitch classes (pitches not regarding octave) sounding at the same time when considering all instruments as a whole. This does not regard concrete pitch or voice leading. We call it the harmonic context. It also includes a bass note as a guide for voice leading. This is what you see in a progression.
2) Picking the concrete pitches out of that set (inversion, wide/narrow/open/close voicing, etc) is the responsibility of the individual phrase assigned to an instrument. These phrases make up an accompaniment pattern. As they are pre-composed, the user has little influence on inversions and individual voices (in contrast to Synfire Pro where all details of a phrase are editable).
This means the voice leading is manifest in the pattern, not the progression. When playing chords from a palette, you don't have control over inversions. They are chosen automatically by the pattern.
:idea: If you want voice leading for a plain chord sequence, you have the option to play in chords-only mode with Auto-Inversion switched on (don't remember exactly, but in earlier versions this was called auto-alignment). This attempts to smooth out the chord sequence such that there are minimum leaps and interruptions in the individual voices.
In general however, voice leading benefits from knowing an entire progression including its ending. On an incremental chord-by-chord basis in a live situation, proper voice leading is hard to achieve. The renderer would at least need three or four chords to look ahead (sort of route planner for voices).
:-? As we are at it, I recognize that at this time the bass setting of the harmonic context does not influence the chord inversion in chords-only mode. That said, I think it probably should. This would be a very intuitive and logical way to specify chord inversions in a progression. We will discuss this here and -- hopefully -- add it to version 2.0 which is currently being revised for the upcoming release.
Fri, 2009-10-02 - 18:25 Permalink
Andre,
Firstly, thanks for a quick and thorough reply.
I understand now that the accompaniments have proper voice leading but simply clicking on chords on the palette does not- in fact could not, as you rightly point out- voice leading involves looking ahead 3 or 4 chords.
So this is clear.
What I'm not sure about, and you might have explained this in your reply, is why in the Progression Edit window I cannot force a basic chord to have a particular bass note derived from it's triad thereby creating a progression in the bass using inversion. I can do this with non triadic tones but not for triad members. It misses out the option to put E or G in the bass for a C chord for example, though I can put a D or F in the bass.
This is puzzling as for me it is more useful to put E in the bass than D!
Finally- why not have inversions in the catalogue as they could be referred to by a specific name such as b, c, d which is how I would label them- would that not work? Then I could create my own palette with these chords available- or is there a restriction on the naming process that would not allow the use of letters to indicate inversion?
Many thanks
Andy/Osha
Fri, 2009-10-02 - 19:13 Permalink
I cannot force a basic chord to have a particular bass note derived from it's triad thereby creating a progression in the bass using inversion. I can do this with non triadic tones but not for triad members. It misses out the option to put E or G in the bass for a C chord for example, though I can put a D or F in the bass.
You can put E in the bass, of course (see attached picture). It however does not change the chord's name as long as the bass is part of the chord. The slash cord notation only appears when the bass is outside the chord.
You are right in that HN does not yet use the bass setting to determine the inversion of automatically generated chords (as opposed to rendered phrases). I think it's worth experimenting a bit with this and I have already put it on our agenda.
HN was originally designed to play accompaniment patterns. The chords-only mode was added later on. That's why a couple things can not be controlled as we would like.
[quote]Finally- why not have inversions in the catalogue as they could be referred to by a specific name such as b, c, d which is how I would label them- would that not work?
You can add to the catalog whatever interval structure you like and give it a unique name. Adding an inversion means enumerating the intervals bottom upwards. For example Cm(#5) is an inversion of G# major. Note that the catalog is pitch agnostic. ie. structures have no root pitch. Therefore each structure only needs to be added once and is valid for all roots.
Andre
(Bild 4.png)
Fri, 2009-10-02 - 20:37 Permalink
Thanks Andre
The slash cord notation only appears when the bass is outside the chord.
Understood. Great. So I can do a classic bass motion in the progression editor!
Now that you say the 'chord only' mode was added later it makes sense to me now!
I look forward to you developing this area because it does need some attention. People arriving at HN from a classical background may react in a similar way to me I think....(maybe not though)
You can add to the catalog whatever interval structure you like and give it a unique name. Adding an inversion means enumerating the intervals bottom upwards. For example Cm(#5) is an inversion of G# major. Note that the catalog is pitch agnostic. ie. structures have no root pitch. Therefore each structure only needs to be added once and is valid for all roots.
Great again- this means it is extensible like you say.
Thanks Andre
Sat, 2009-10-03 - 12:25 Permalink
Andre
Further...sorry but I need to clear this up!
I am definitely not getting the bass chosen in the Progression Editor in 'Chords Only' mode--I get the root in the bass every time whatever slash note I choose eg C/D does not give me D in the bass in chords only mode.
Sun, 2009-10-04 - 02:20 Permalink
Sorry again but I'm excited...if only:
If only in 'chords only' mode I could control the octave as well as the pitch of the bass note of a chord in the Progression Editor, then it would be truly amazing.
Firstly it would eliminate awkward jumps of a 7th for instance and also it would allow more weight to a progression. Even further, if we could take the bass up an octave the immediately the inversion problem is solved.
I'm looking at the readout of the progression editor and it's sooo close to being exciting!
You see I think 'chords only ' mode is fantastic because I'm not too interested in the 'accompaniments'. So being able to get the bass right in this mode is important for me. Ideally it would have the same intelligence as the other modes, but if not, then control over the octave of the bass note is important.
Cheers
Sun, 2009-10-04 - 17:12 Permalink
Andy, your thoughts and suggestions are much appreciated!
The bass setting in the progression editor is not yet considered for the chord inversion. It controls the bass instrument's voice, which is a separate instrument (a bass guitar by default). That's probably why you hear or don't hear the correct bass note depending on the overall sound spectrum.
I understand the chord-only mode is an important feature and that we underestimated it from the beginning. We were surprised by the large number of users working in this mode. More development will have to go into that direction.
The challenge is to decide where to attach voice leading directions, because the progression is not the appropriate place. It is global meta-information shared by all instruments, so it must not be "hijacked" for the purposes of a single instrument.
You should probably wait for the version 2 demo, which is due out soon. We are running test builds and do some polishing at the moment. If you want to contribute feedback and ideas during this internal test, please contact our support.
Andre