ChordEase 1.0.11 adds tagging, tap tempo, adaptive arpeggios, and more

ChordEase 1.0.11 adds some major new features, including:

• Tagging: Spontaneous repetition of one or more measures.
• Tap tempo: Enter tempos via tapping instead of numerically.
• Adaptive arpeggios: Arpeggios that span a chord change adapt to the new chord, by combining notes from both chords to create hybrids.
• Chord dictionary dialog: A full-featured editor for editing the chord dictionary.

Various bugs were also fixed in this version; for a complete list, and links to documentation of the new features, see the release notes.

Download

Release notes

Pitch class sets and other amusing distractions

I'm almost done with the ChordEase documentation, but I keep getting distracted, not only by the internet, but by something much harder to resist: other programming projects! Programming problems are like catnip to me. The catnip that tempts me the most lately is the foundation of atonal music, AKA Pitch Class Sets: "Pitch Class Sets are a method for describing harmonies in 20th century music. These notations and methods can describe and manipulate any type of chord that can be created within a 12-tone (equally tempered) scale."

Paul Nelson, the guy who made that site, is one of my heroes. Pitch class sets allow us to reduce any set of notes to its fundamental pattern, called the "Prime Form". There are surprisingly few of them. For example, for 7 notes, there are only 35 unique patterns (or 38, depending on your standard). All of the thousands of other combinations are merely transpositions and/or inversions of the prime forms. Here's the Table of Prime Forms (from Paul again).

All told there are only 208 prime forms, an astonishingly low number. The major (diatonic) scale is one of them of course. They have codes, called Forte codes (after the guy who invented all this, Allen Forte, recently deceased). The major scale's code is "7-35". Pitch class sets seem opaque at first, but they have deep implications, especially for atonal music. The work of Schoenberg, Stravinsky, etc. would have been unimaginable without them.

Almost all the music you'll ever hear will use perhaps two or three of the 208 pitch class sets (unless you listen to a lot of atonal music!) I would be very surprised if Paul McCartney knows more than a handful of them. This is interestingly similar to the fact that almost all music is restricted to a single meter at a time.

I'm an innovator in terms of rhythm (due to extensive use of polymeter), but in terms of pitch, not so much, and I would like to change that. My first step is basically repeating Paul Nelson's work. I've already made a program that can reduce any set of pitches to its prime form. Soon I'll be able to generate his table too. It might seem like a waste of time to reinvent this particular wheel, but the process allows me to familiarize myself with the underlying concepts. For the moment it's a purely academic exercise, but one possible application would be add the prime forms (of heptatonic scales only) to ChordEase. This would allow ChordEase to be used for atonal music!

I don't always work in a straight line. A lot of what I do is pure research. Sometimes the results are useful, sometimes not. My primary motivation is to satisfy my curiosity, and I'm a very curious cat.

ChordEase adds synchronization via MIDI clocks, cycle of thirds

The latest version of ChordEase (1.0.09) can be synchronized with an external device. Timing synchronization is implemented via MIDI clock messages, combined with the Start, Stop, Continue, and Song Position MIDI messages. ChordEase can be a slave or a master. For details, see Patch Bar/Sync in the documentation.

This version also adds a "Thirds" non-diatonic notes rule, which causes successive white keys to form the cycle of thirds. This makes it much easier (and more fun) to play arpeggios. Interval distances are greatly reduced: each input octave spans two output octaves. This facilitates the playing of melodic lines that are unusually wide in terms of range. It also could be of interest to people with physical limitations that might otherwise prevent them from playing wide intervals.

For a complete list of changes, see the release notes. And, here's the download link.

ChordEase and cybernetics

Collaboration between computers and people is the essence of the ChordEase project. The idea is to create a cybernetic organism, in which a performer cooperates with a machine in order to acquire new degrees of freedom that would otherwise be inaccessible. In this narrow sense, a person driving a car also constitutes a cybernetic organism. The car and the person cooperate to achieve a new degree of freedom, i.e. the person can now move around at 60 MPH. All tools have an element of cybernetics, but especially tools that embed information, control systems, sensors, feedback etc. By enabling a person to extend his or her power, tools create a new more powerful organism, a kind of meta-human or cyborg. So in the same way that a person using a portable vacuum becomes a vacuuming cyborg, a person using ChordEase becomes an improvising cyborg.

ChordEase is actually a very specific cybernetic experiment, organized around a simple hypothesis, which is that computers excel at rapid calculations, whereas people excel at rhythm, feel, and aesthetics. Rapid music theory calculations are a crucial component of improvising, and they're exactly the type of rule-based deterministic work that computers are optimized for. So the work of improvising should ideally be divided up between the person and the machine in such a way as to maximize the capabilities of each. The computer handles the brute-force music theory calculations, and the person handles everything else. In particular the person should avoid delegating anything related to rhythm and feel, because these qualities are fundamentally cultural and biological, and therefore very difficult to reduce to simple rules that a computer can follow. Rhythm originates in aspects of our nervous system that we share in common with most other animals, and is therefore inextricably entwined with our most basic drives, such as predation and procreation.

More generally it could be argued that machines will never make truly convincing aesthetic choices autonomously, simply because machines don't suffer, but let's leave that for next time...

Why ChordEase is a tough sell

ChordEase is much more difficult to market than most products. Most products address an already existing need, and consequently have plenty of competition, but also an obvious built-in market. By comparison ChordEase is a new invention, and thus has no competition, but no easily accessible market either. The hardest problem in marketing is creating new needs, i.e. persuading people that they should try something that they never wanted or even imagined. This is harder still when the new thing is complex and takes effort to understand.

ChordEase is effectively a new kind of instrument, but it's not a physical instrument; instead it uses artificial intelligence to enhance ordinary MIDI instruments, so that they can be approached in a radically new way. It's also a meta-instrument, in the sense that it offers the same capabilities to every musician, regardless of what instrument they play. It's especially useful to people who approach music rhythmically, because it can translate rhythmic input into harmonic and melodic output.

The main goals of ChordEase are 1) to facilitate the performance of harmonically challenging music, and 2) to enable the performance of music that would otherwise be physically impossible. Like any new instrument, ChordEase has many subtleties and mastery of it requires practice, but it has the potential to be a game-changer and open up new aesthetic vistas. My hope is that people will eventually take interest in ChordEase, use it to create their own art, and support its further development in whatever way they can.

Awesome or evil? See for yourself

ChordEase elicits a wide range of reactions. It's fair to say that people are sometimes horribly offended by it: I narrowly avoided getting beaten up after a jazz show a few months ago, just for talking about ChordEase. In general the people most upset by ChordEase are professional musicians, and in my experience they usually make one or more of the following points:

1. ChordEase could put them out of work
2. ChordEase is cheating and/or laziness
3. ChordEase isn't an instrument because it eliminates choice

ChordEase is not likely to replace any musicians any time soon. In fact it's likely to increase the number of musicians, in the same way that electronic music has, by opening up new vistas of aesthetic freedom. Music has always co-evolved with technology. A piano is certainly a machine, as anyone who has looked inside one can recognize. Modern brass instruments require sophisticated metallurgy and couldn't have been built before the industrial revolution. Even the equal-tempered chromatic scale was revolutionary in its day and doubtless had its detractors. Yet today baroque music, and even renaissance music harmlessly coexist with jazz, rock and techno. What's really at stake here is purity, a notion that there's a "right" way to make music.

New degrees of freedom don't necessarily reduce our existing freedoms. Everyone is 100% free to not use ChordEase, or any other music technology. Cybernetics has had a huge impact on manufacturing, and doubtless made many jobs obsolete, but no one seriously equates musical performance with assembly line work. Kurt Vonnegut's "Breakfast of Champions" notwithstanding, musicians will be some of the last people to be replaced by machines. Electronic musicians routinely use drum machines, synthesizers, etc. Does this make them lazy cheaters? Speaking as a professional electronic musician, I can say that my motivation to use technology definitely isn't laziness, in fact mastering new technology is hard work. My motivation is that it allows me to realize my dreams, i.e. accomplish things that would otherwise be impossible.

ChordEase definitely does eliminate choices, in fact that's its purpose, but choice isn't black and white, it's a continuum. In music technology, choice equates with control. How much control do you want over the process of creating music? Singing is total control: no technology is required. At the other extreme is a CD player. Many musicians like it somewhere in the middle, e.g. a synthesizer might be fun, and an electric guitar at least has frets. The widespread acceptance of the equal-tempered chromatic scale also eliminated choices, but you're still free to not use it, and define your own intervals. ChordEase is a tradeoff, in which a performer willingly sacrifices some control over which pitches will be played, in exchange for the ability to improvise over harmonically challenging music with a degree of proficiency that would otherwise be unattainable. The tradeoff has many nuances, but it's still a tradeoff. If you're unwilling to cede any control, ChordEase isn't for you. Like synthesizers or electro music, artificial intelligence is an acquired taste.

I created ChordEase and use it every day, not because I'm lazy or prone to cheating, but because it solves my artistic problems. I like to improvise over jazz chords at fast tempos. ChordEase lets me do that. I'm quite happy to delegate some of the work to my computer. I retain complete control over the rhythm, timing, and dynamics, and in many cases over the sequence of pitches too. ChordEase still takes a lot of practice, because it's a new instrument with complex capabilities that present unique challenges, but it works for me. Maybe it will work for others too. We'll see.

ChordEase 1.0.08 released with complete help and Impro-Visor support

ChordEase 1.0.08 is released, and includes comprehensive context-sensitive help. The help was a major effort (21,721 words but who's counting?) which mostly explains why the release took two months. The same documentation that's in the help file is also available at the ChordEase website, and on the ChordEase Wiki. 1.0.08 also supports Impro-Visor lead sheet (.ls) files. Impro-Visor is a free (SourceForge-hosted) notation and accompaniment program that's popular with jazz musicians. The release notes are here.