Posted
Hi,
I have Harmony Navigator advanced version, and I've barely scratched the surface in learning to do anything useful with the application, as the terminology and methodology is all new to me. The new videos are very helpful, but it is still slow going for the learning curve.
My main interest is to compose original songs and music of a standard genre (not techno, retro, or any synth-sounding beat stuff), then render the midi file to another application to create the main melody and harmony staffs as the basis for a musical score. I have found the HN Chord Palette to be very useful in the search for interesting outlier chords and progressions to spice up a melody.
I'm wondering if HN can be used to create variations on melody snippits (phrases), ideally, with some control over how the melody might "morph". The goal would be to create a large number of phrase variations from which to select phrases of interest that I might expand into another musical sentence or idea. Methods of variation might include variations of sequence, repetition, inversion, transformation, rhythm, etc. Can you advise me how the HN parameters, especially "variation" described in the manual (Page 27) might be used to accomplish some kind of melody "morphing". Lets say I start out by inputting a few bars of melody with a midi keyboard, then I use the Palette to choose accompaniment chords. At that point, I want to experiment with some variations of the next motive that comes to mind. Any suggestions (other than purchasing synfire) would be much appreciated. I'm sure Synfire is a great tool, but way over my meager budget, as a hobbyist.
Sun, 2011-04-17 - 18:15 Permalink
The Variation parameter can give you some surprising ideas, provided the Figure has a minimum complexity.
You can also cut/copy/paste partial or complete figures to and from other songs.
We have some advanced melody development ideas on the list for Synfire. Whether these will make it into HN2 in one or another way in the future, we don't yet know.
Mon, 2011-04-18 - 08:12 Permalink
Melody development is very important, however it is not something that could be implemented in one or two software features, unless you want a noodle-doodle random solo generator or something. It's easy to come up with a tool that is interesting for an hour and then never touched again.
Synfire already has many tools and parameters that can be used for this, we only need to make this more obvious and demonstrate the workflows. This will happen as soon as possible, after we completed the audio layer and simplified the user interface a bit.
Mon, 2011-04-18 - 14:43 Permalink
I would love a random solo generator. For years I would use the melody generator in Band In a Box. Record several passes and piece together and then edit to make cohesive. It definetly inspires ideas.
Mon, 2011-04-18 - 18:50 Permalink
Hello again,
When I expressed my interest in using HN for melody development ideas, I was looking for guidance on "pushing the right buttons", in HN towards that end. As I indicated, I'm not yet up to speed using the product, so I was uncertain whether HN could even be utilized to modify phrases in the manner described. It appears that capability is somewhat limited at this time.
If melody development could be considered as a worthwhile project, I envision it being designed around an interactive workflow, and designed to enforce the rules of tonal harmony, etc. I came across a really interesting tool, which is now available as freeware, that has some of these qualities. Although it is not very pretty, and is somewhat clumsy to use, I expect to spend a fair amount of time playing around with this, as it is much more than an "organ grinder" melody generator. Here's the link.
Thanks for the replies.
Regards,
Terry Vaught
Tue, 2011-05-10 - 15:20 Permalink
Does ths refer to new tools that have yet to be implemented?
We already have a rich fundus of tools in the drawer that need to be reviewed and streamlined, but I'm afraid the amount of rework that is required is quite high. Nothing we could get released anytime soon.