Melodic Transformations?

[bharris22]

Hi,

I posted a question about this in the DAW forum, but think it may be better here. Does anyone know of a program that, after importing a midi file, will allow me to apply various melodic transformations to that file? I have Sibelius, and know that it will do transpose, retrograde and a few others, but I am looking for as many possible transformations as I can find. Alternatively, can someone recommend a good text that would give me numerous ideas as to how to transform a melody line to derive new motifs? If I have something like that perhaps I can come up with a Sibelius plugin myself that would do it.

Thanks!

[bharris22]

No ideas from the esteemed community ? Any recommended texts on this subject?

[jancivil]

Really the only analysis like that I delved into is Forte's The Atonal Music of Anton Webern. In the pure abstract, a program that is supposed to work on _any_ midi file doesn't seem meaningful to me, absent any context.

You may consider contracted and expanded intervallic relationships as well as retrograde, inversion, retrograde inversion... recycled fragments, reordering. But as per tonal music, I never thought mechanically in this way. Variation technique etc, this is always context-bound. As to deriving 'new motifs', in the abstract, I don't know how to address that. There may be little or nothing to derive from the original, I can't know.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permutation_(music)

[trewq]

Hi,

Alternatively, can someone recommend a good text that would give me numerous ideas as to how to transform a melody line to derive new motifs? If I have something like that perhaps I can come up with a Sibelius plugin myself that would do it.

Thanks!

hey if you're a plugin dev why not get started coding with what you already know, and let your code suggest new ways to transform imported midi.

[bharris22]

Thanks - this is great. With regard to the context, that is exactly the point - there isn't any yet. I am just trying to manipulate midi melody lines until something strikes my fancy, and then run with it.

[trewq]

I'll take another stab and it might help this time, and I'm just guessing here:

You're not getting enough results from the transform features available, so maybe try adding more harmony in with the melody for each manipulation. You might get more or better results even if the new melodies are now embedded.

Its like the old saying:

Insufficient data in gives insufficient results out.

Again I'm just guessing cause I don't know what you are using.

[fmr]

Hi,

I posted a question about this in the DAW forum, but think it may be better here. Does anyone know of a program that, after importing a midi file, will allow me to apply various melodic transformations to that file? I have Sibelius, and know that it will do transpose, retrograde and a few others, but I am looking for as many possible transformations as I can find. Alternatively, can someone recommend a good text that would give me numerous ideas as to how to transform a melody line to derive new motifs? If I have something like that perhaps I can come up with a Sibelius plugin myself that would do it.

Thanks!

Digital Performer has a lot of MIDI processing that allows transformations. Also Cubase once had what was IPS (Interactive Phraze Synthesizer). I have to check if it's still there. It was ages ago that I used that (back in the stone age). Cycling'74 has M, which is an algorithmic composition tool based on MIDI. Between those three, you will have a ton of resources to work with.

If you want study, you can pick Goldberg Variations by Bach. See how he picked a simple aria, and made an hour of music out of it. Any Bach chorale variations will suit, for that matter.

[bharris22]

Thank you very much. I think M is for Mac only, or is it available for Windows, too? If so, would it run in Max4Live?

[fmr]

Thank you very much. I think M is for Mac only, or is it available for Windows, too? If so, would it run in Max4Live?

Yes, M is Mac only, and has nothing to do with Max. But now that you mention it, Max can do a lot in this chapter too. People tendo to forget that, but Max was born as a MIDI only tool, and the algorithmic composition was one of its working fields. With the addition of MSP, more and more things áudio related started to appear, but Max didn't lost any of its MIDI capabilities.

However, you would have to build the patches, something that can be labour intensive and requires some deep study.

[Atza]

FL studio can do many of those things