Chromatic Parameter

Sounds like an interesting approach. Any concerns or suggestions from others?

Another example where this would be useful would be a jazz pianist wanting to voice a chord in 4ths - ie play a chord with two 4ths below the melody note.

A similar problem is encountered by that same pianist wanting to guarantee that the 3rd and 7th are played in the left hand. I still haven't found a way of doing that easily in Synfire.

I guess we're talking about chord voicings. I think it's a very important area. The scaleboard and the whole display gives the impression that synfire is going to stick with the same scale steps when you duplicate a figure into a different harmony but it doesn't. I realise that normally you might want the current behaviour but anyone concentrating on an arrangement might well want to keep the same scale steps ....

So yes please - a way of "freezing" or specifying the intervals in chords would be wonderful!

Hi Tokyorose,

Yes - I was actually making two requests.

First a way to tell synfire that a note should always be a set number of semitones apart from another. If you then copy and pasted those notes you'd end up with what I know as "constant structures" which occur a lot in band arranging as well as, as you say, orchestral works. I think that similar to your request but maybe not quite the same?

My second request is to be able to tell synfire that a particular note should always be a particular scale step of the current chord. That's definitely different to your request!

This topic is definitely an important one that deserves a discussion. We much appreciate your ideas and suggestions, thank you so far.

There are multiple possible ways to implement some form of chromaticism or static intervals or "out of scale" melody or chord alterations (and: chromatic passages, like walking bass or successive chords wandering up chromatically).

One that has not been mentioned yet, and which is probably the most obvious, is using the figure symbols directly. They already have a chromatic pitch component that could be used to express chromatic intervals measured from a scale step. We only need to tell the renderer to take these literally instead of rounding them up/down to valid scale steps of the moment. Perhaps a simple segment property or interpretation switch would be sufficient.

This way a chord can be expressed as a root (zero line) with only chromatic intervals. That is, all symbols have the same zero diatonic component but different chromatic shifts.

The chord (<0,0> <2,0> <4,0>) might become (<0,0> <0,+3> <0,+6>) depending on context. Some command may support easy conversion in the current context, hmm, "Chromaticize Chord Intervals" or something.

I am somewhat reluctant to introducing a new parameter for this, if it can be done with the figure alone.

The top priority rule of music prototyping is: Any set of figures that work together in one context should also work in any other context. Breaking this rule means losing reusability.

My biggest concern is if and how manual chromaticisms will violate the overall harmonic integrity. How much static intervals can a figure bear without conflicting too much with the other instruments when a different harmonic context is applied (IOW: How awful will it sound with another progression)?

This can only be estimated by experimentation. I should probably add a couple hidden experimental features and we can do some experiments together and share our findings.

[quote="Tim UK"]First a way to tell synfire that a note should always be a set number of semitones apart from another. If you then copy and pasted those notes you'd end up with what I know as "constant structures" which occur a lot in band arranging as well as, as you say, orchestral works.

An interesting question is whether these constant structures take over the role of altering harmony as a whole (temporarily, valid for all instruments), or if that is really only melodic variety of a single instrument or group that adds to the current harmony.

This by no means a philosophical question. It's crucial for the implementation in Synfire. :?

[quote="Tim UK"]My second request is to be able to tell synfire that a particular note should always be a particular scale step of the current chord.
The green symbols do exactly this, provided by "scale steps of the chord" you think of the vertical scale. Or you could use the purple arpeggio symbols if you want only the notes of the chord alone, the advantage being that these notes are always available, regardless of voice leading constraints.

As one of the experimental features, I could add a switch to the segment properties that disables voice leading for that segment, so the entire scale will be reliably available.

[quote]This is a way to quickly and structurally deal with intervalic doubling. Absolutely, but it is only that. It does not help with the other chromaticisms:

A) Chromatic chord movements

B) Chromatic melody alterations (blue notes, walking bass)

C) Precise definition of intervals between independent segments, possibly even across different instruments (which is what I understood Tim was asking for)

For me (A) clearly indicates a change in harmony, i.e. the desired chords have to be worked into the progression. There is no limit as to how wild or quick these can be. This also has the advantage that all instruments nicely respect the changes and, as long as the global key is retained, find their way across that "bridge" in a natural fashion, melody-wise.

Case (B) might be more easily expressed through the figure as explained above. A walking bass segment might have the anchor at a certain chord interval and move to/from that in chromatic steps.

The most difficult case is (C) when used across different instruments, because there are so many other parameters that influence the final result: Playing ranges, interpretation settings, etc.

The simple "Chromatic" parameter is no problem, technically (basically it's just midi postprocessing like Shift). I would however prefer to know whether there are at least a few more applications beyond intervallic doubling. Any ideas?

BTW: A clean way to ensure that narrow voices to not cross and maintain certain intervals is to group them in to a segment (see attached picture). This does not work across instruments, though.

This is a single segment (two_voices2.png)

just a remark

A) Chromatic chord movements

B) Chromatic melody alterations (blue notes, walking bass)

C) Precise definition of intervals between independent segments, possibly even across different instruments (which is what I understood Tim was asking for)

For me (A) clearly indicates a change in harmony, i.e. the desired chords have to be worked into the progression. There is no limit as to how wild or quick these can be. This also has the advantage that all instruments nicely respect the changes and, as long as the global key is retained, find their way across that "bridge" in a natural fashion, melody-wise.

In regard of Point A, this seems to me to be a very "harmonic" view. There are in jazz lots of chromatic chord movement without changing the general harmonie, just like chromatic in melodies.
So maybee bass and piano left hand stay unchanged, the right hand is playing outside or passing chords.
Or simply the playing of a chord half step above or below ending in the "real" chord.

Case (B) might be more easily expressed through the figure as explained above. A walking bass segment might have the anchor at a certain chord interval and move to/from that in chromatic steps.

Yes. (I guess that You mean by "chord intervall" a certain skalestep, part of the harmonie tones 1,3,5,7.) But, it must consider the surounding notes also.

Whenever the import recognizes more than one halfstep directly following, it can keep this, locking for a good endtone. And this could be an option, which can be used or not.
The following of the quarter notes of a walk bass over
Progression F7 / BB7:
F, A, C, Cb / Bb ...

Now lets say, the F7 chord stays for more than one bar.
Then the first 3 quarternotes F, A, C, are the same as before, but the best ending tone in the beginning of bar two seems to be an A, half tone above is Bb.

so the line with two bars of F7 chord would be
F, A, C, Bb / A.
The chromatic dissappeared, but the logic of the line is followed.
Playing F, A, Cb, Bb / A would give a terrible sound.

Possible would be F, A, D, Db / C.

So chromatic passing tones need to consider the surounding Notes.

---
Probably what I wrote is obvious to You.
Anyway, Chromatic is so common in that music, that the lacking of it feels strange.

[quote]
The most difficult case is (C) when used across different instruments, because there are so many other parameters that influence the final result: Playing ranges, interpretation settings, etc.

The simple "Chromatic" parameter is no problem, technically (basically it's just midi postprocessing like Shift). I would however prefer to know whether there are at least a few more applications beyond intervallic doubling. Any ideas?

When a composition is ready, the line in question could be rendered to static pitch, and can be duplicated. But of course this is not very comfortable for checking out ideas.

. . .
I think it is essential to be able to work around these shifts while composing, especially in an orchestral context where the sheer number of layers that could potentially clash in a distasteful way is so much greater.

A walking bass is chromatic in passing moments. The dissonances Im concerned with often extend for long durations of time.

More so than in Jazz, where chromaticism is just the language, this chromatic shift parameter is set to conjure an obvious deviation from the language for effect.

The harmony and the deviation are easily separated which is why a simple parameter would serve it so well.

Would it be helpful, to just add a chromatic option on parameter transpose? So segments, phrases up to longer parts of the compositzion could be transformed into any interval and add tension as wanted.
Or passing chords or tones in melodies could be manually done.
Users could be warned that this option can add very much tension, and should be used only by experiecnd musicans.:-D

(To be open, I´didnt read the whole thraed too carefully, so maybe I just repeated arguments.)

And it would be a first step into the chromatic world, which is now lacking in SF completly, as long as harmonie does not change.
So why not add this option.

(A manuel possibility for chromatic is for me personally not so important in the moment, because I prefer global transformation of phrases absoutly, doing long playbacks for jazzstandarts with dozens of chorusses).

So I´m much more interested in integration of a chromatic language.
As you wrote, a walking bass is chromatic in passing moments and its part of the jazz language.

So it should be added optionally by SF, even on places, where chromatic passing is not given in the orginal midi material, but maybe in other places leaving out given chromatic, because a diatonic solution is better.

(So in a progression of F7 / BB7:
F, A, C, Cb / Bb ... turns into F, A, C, Bb / A ,
when there are two bars of F7 chord.)
The chromatic dissappeared, but the logic of the line is followed.)
This is of course a more complex task.

Alfred

I thought about a chromatic option in transpose, it would be convenient, but that parameter is considered by the harmonic server.
Lets say I copied a phrase of a flute, that had a transposition parameter attached to it, and doubled it on a clarinet; the clarinet would have to go through the same transformations as the flute, including the transpose, rendered to a midi note, based on the harmonic context and then shifted as a final step.

Andre gave some hints, that he has already ways for allowing that.

Again this might be problematic, as I don't know if Synfire is trained to make the clarinet and flute avoid each other in the same octave or not. The shift parameter is useful either way.

I also want to see chromatic options related to jazz and all kinds of music really. I think ideally the extended harmony would be able to interchange with the chromatic alterations to quickly adjust it from either perspective -- melodic or harmonic. Personally I'm much more comfortable dealing with them melodically and letting synfire pick up the correct harmonic alterations in the harmonies.

For me its mostly different. I have the harmony progression ready, ad then look for filling it up with bass, chords and soli.

How would you go about adding chromatic notes to a bassline? As it is I don't think Synire ever generates its own rhythm (am i wrong on this?).

I would define strong and weak positions in the bar, which is by the way an interesting thing in itself. A chromatic passing tone of a quarter on counting the one of the bar can be absultely weak, if followed by a long tone (3/4 f.e.) on the counting two and sounds therfore very natural and "diatonic". Strong and weak positions depend also strongly on the surrounding rhytmic positions.

But for the beginning it would be ok, just to place passing tones on positions like offbeats or the last note before a chord change. Quite often the first tone of a new chord is approched by a half step below or above.

I think down the road a "Tonal" parameter would be cool to adjust, to a varying degree, how much chromatic content and non triadic content is let through the flood gate in a targeted, region specific way.

[quote]
Of course there is no jazz chromaticism or classical chromaticism but having the attitude and approaches of varied styles and interests can give synfire a much broader range, if somewhat intangible.
Yes.

[quote]
"Many ways to skin a cat is a phrase that is often muttered in the geeky habitats of software dev... Not only can you get Function X in the menu, but right click... There you go, presto!"

Sorry, your english is very high, mine is not so far developped. I don´t understand your first sentence here.

best regards
Alfred

Andre,

Thanks for your help. Yes, chord symbols works well for specific scale steps if the step is part of the harmony. Thank you. I can certainly live with that - it works exactly as I expect. However, when the symbols are set to arpeggio the scale steps do seem to change from one harmony to another even when "strategy" is set to none. Not worth worrying about that, I think.

The "constant interval" relationship is more complicated than I thought. So obviously a medium to long term goal.

Many thanks!

[quote="Tim UK"]However, when the symbols are set to arpeggio the scale steps do seem to change from one harmony to another even when "strategy" is set to none.
Hi Tim, the arpeggio symbols map to the notes in the order of pitch as they occur in the current inversion of the chord. IMO they are of limited use at this time (except for electronic music), because one has little influence on the chord inversion. It is determined dynamically when the alignment switch is on.