Hello and a suggestion- chord mode

[John the Savage]

Love what you are doing here. I will have to think about it more as my theory is shady at best. I'd also need to think about from a performance position if its intuitive to play this way.

What I will quickly say is that you are not using many of the lights which leaves a lot of space for an animation section. That could be the strum section or maybe It could be animation types. Hold a button down then click the chord in your chart to do that type of animation on that chord. Since one note plays the whole chord some element of animation would be a helping interesting factor.

THEN use the sequencer in Chord mode and then your in real business

Thanks, Dommer!

To address your observations about the use of space — there are two ways that I could interpret your concerns, and so just to be thorough, I'll answer to both.

My initial impression is that you're referring to the fact that my design only uses 64 of the pads: this is because the idea is (presumably) for people to be able to play one-finger chords in one split, while playing a melodic part in the other split at the same time. As such, I wanted to provide as much room as possible to play melodically. An 8x8 grid was the minimum amount of space that I could squeeze this functionality into, and it just happens to be exactly half of the playing surface on the LinnStrument 128 (and any implementation would have to work on both designs). It is also important to recognize that a wider grid of pads would make it difficult to gauge what scale degree and mode you're on. 7x7 is narrow enough that you don't lose sight of the margins, making it easy to discern where you are on the grid!

The other way I could interpret what you've said is that you think there are a lot of white (unlit) pads that could perhaps be used to display other information. But when you consider that the "save" function relies on those pads changing color to indicate that they contain saved voicings, it would prove disorienting to have other animations sharing the same space.

Lastly, with regards to the prospect of using the Chord Mode in conjunction with the sequencer: to the best of my knowledge there is no correlation between the two splits. In other words, the left split is simply not able to talk to the right split. As such, it would not be possible to use one to control the other. Besides which, as I said in an earlier post, the sequencer already constitutes a (DIY) Chord Mode of sorts.

You would be able to use the Chord Mode with the arp though... Lot's of fun to be had there!

Cheers!

[John the Savage]

Well that looks very interesting to me- I'm only half awake right now so will go back to this later, but first impressions are that looks like a great way of accessing and forming a rather large amount of chords quickly, with the ability to save too.

I will have to think about it more as my theory is shady at best.

I understand that thinking in terms of "modes" might seem a bit abstract for some musicians, especially considering that most of us learn music using the "Circle of Fifths" and studying the relationships between "key signatures"; but to put your minds at ease, I assure you that all the same musical rules apply here, and there's nothing that can't be achieved with this system that could otherwise only be achieved using more conventional methods. Indeed some of the greatest players in the world subscribe to modal theory and number systems!

At any rate, I'm not just relying on my own knowledge here. After I mapped all this out, I sat down with a colleague of mine, who happens to be a composition major with a classical music background, just to see if he could punch any holes in this system. We ran as many chordal scenarios as we could think of, looking for paradoxes, and didn't find any (at least none of concern). That's not to say that there aren't some (abstract) concepts that might prove less-than-efficient with this system, but I feel it's acceptable to leave some of the more exotic, esoteric scale systems out of the equation. Harmony is, after all, a bottomless pit.

The bottom line is, the "Circle of Fifths" simply cannot be effectively implemented on a symmetrical grid — especially with so many voicing options — so "modal interchange" it is (grin).

Other deciding factors were playability and visualization: i.e. because "parallel" modes all share the same tonic, chords sharing the same root note all line up vertically on the grid; so your options for viable chord substitutions are always directly above or below whatever chord you're looking to replace, and chord progressions retain their chronological order no matter what mode you're using or borrowing from (the 1 chord is always on pad 1, the 2 chord is always on pad 2, etc.).

Sorry, I'm just using these opportunities to further explain the method. And pardon the edits, I'm just trying to word things as clearly as possible (sheepish grin).

Cheers!

[John the Savage]

The idea is intriguing - if I can find some free time I might try to code it into an app at least as a proof of context.

That would be amazing, Peter! If only I could code myself... (sigh).

Anyway, if you decide to do this, let me know. The only aspect that I haven't fully formed in my head is the color scheme for the lights; particularly with regards to what happens when you land on a pad containing a saved chord. I mean, if the saved chord is indicated in dark blue, should it turn green like the other pads do, or light blue perhaps? Should the saved voicing options remain green in the margin, or should they change color to differentiate them from any "global" settings? Etc.

For the record, I chose dark blue to indicate saved chords in the eventuality that someone saves a custom chord on every pad (and you know someone will - smirk). I mean, if you've ever lit up ALL the pads on your LinnStrument just for fun, you know how blinding it can be, especially in the dark. The darker blue would be easier to look at in that scenario (grin).

Cheers!

[t-IB]

It's a fascinating approach and I think I have my head around it - I'll keep an eye out for any developments and would test out anything I were able to that came out of this. Intrigued to see if I could work in this way - I suspect I could!

[Lukesleepwalker]

I had reservations about the approach that John has documented but after looking it over a couple of times and sitting in front of my LS so I could visualize playing chords on one of the splits, I've come around to the idea that it might be the best way forward. It would be fantastic to try it with a software solution first however.