Anyone use Cognitone Harmony Navigator to help with Chords?

[Lagrange]

Saw and ad here today and decided for once to click..



It's called Harmony Navigator and I'm wondering if anyone has tryed it to bang out chord progressions. It's suppose to help with inspiration and live harmony etc..
Let me know what you think about this. Is there even a point to trying this?

L

[Toxikator]

your link is dead, but it looks cool enough.

I'd almost be tempted to say it's worth buying just so you can see the chord progressions they use. even if you don't ever apply it in your practical workflow I'm sure it's extremely useful as a harmonic vocabulary builder. Or that is to say it would be, depending on how wide a range it covers.

EDIT: Deciphered the link, it looks cool. I'd say in it's favor is the fact that a) it ranges from a wide level of understanding from absolute beginner to extremely complicated harmonic structure, and b) it seems to cover both classical and jazz well. That is to say, I was surprised and delighted to find both "Bm7b5" and "Bdim" appear on the chart.. or that the bii/#I is displayed as both a Tritone substitution AND a Neapolitan, so people who would be reaching for either don't get tripped up by the display.

TBH it still seems a bit jazz-leaning for me (just by virtue of some of it's naming conventions and the fact that it still provides "scale" options) but it still provides an indepth look at classical approaches, up to and including chromatic mediants and other traditionally non-jazz approaches... not to mention making triadic harmony accessible and easy to grab, without defaulting to a tetrachordal approach. Simultaneously (near as I can tell, anyway) it seems to have a large repertoire of jazz scale/chord relationships and changes worked in so that's good for people on the other end of the spectrum.

I'm intrigued, to say the least. Even if I didn't use it functionally, I'd still love to see what sort of tricks it would teach.

[chardin]

Here's the link: http://www.cognitone.com/home.stml
This does look cool. Off to read more...

[Lagrange]

Hey thanks Toxikator for that info. Really informative! Based on what you've said here I'm going to give it a try.. hopefully I will retain enough information to be able to play my own parts better!!

So I guess your one of those that can sit at the baby grand and crank out tunes whilst carrying on a heavy conversation with someone!

L

[Jono-60]

Its looks cool but it is way overpriced.

Although I probably don't know the full extent of its power.

[benjamind]

Way overpriced? I doubt it. Underpriced maybe, but certainly not overpriced.

True musical education is not something that money can buy, sure you can pay tutors and even go to university, but this tool is just phenomenal as it shows you an entire palette of chords and also shows the relationships between the nearest harmonically aligned chords. It even shows a keyboard and guitar fretboard with the ability to display the chord or the entire derivative scale, across one octave or all octaves.

I think a MIDI controller with LEDs in the keys that can be programmed to light up in different colours would be perfect for this - the chord keys would be lit up in red and the scale keys would be lit up in blue or green or purple, etc. The rest would be unlit. I think there would be a viable market for such a MIDI keyboard. The key lighting features could be easily implemented and programmed via SYSEX messages.

That would really make this program useful for total beginners. But it isn't hard for me to learn scales, I've already got major, minor, blues covered. But having keys light up so you instantly know which keys are relevant to the given chord/scale would be great for beginners.

Ben

[wrench45us]

anyone know of an interactive web site that presents that same sort of chordal relationships?

that would seem to be the core of the information

the rest makes it come alive, but I can take my time and do that

[benjamind]

Not sure about websites but there are dozens of books that would present this information in a comprehensive manner. Probably something like Harmony Navigator but with explanations.

[AD80]

I think a MIDI controller with LEDs in the keys that can be programmed to light up in different colours would be perfect for this - the chord keys would be lit up in red and the scale keys would be lit up in blue or green or purple, etc. The rest would be unlit. I think there would be a viable market for such a MIDI keyboard. The key lighting features could be easily implemented and programmed via SYSEX messages.

Completely agree. I never understood why those light up keyboards that Yamaha/Casio makes can only have 5 keys lit at a time, and dont let you program which ones to light up.

[Funkstar De Luxe]

f**k, €99

[chardin]

Not sure about websites but there are dozens of books that would present this information in a comprehensive manner. Probably something like Harmony Navigator but with explanations.

Any suggestions that aren't overly complicated? Thanks.

[Lagrange]

Yea $99.. This is why I'm wondering if it's worth it..

L

[R'yleh]

i have it and i don't regret having spent the 99 euros.
Me likes the ability to "play" chord progressions, as i'm
not good in music theory.

However it takes time to get used to it, and i think the
patterns or styles they use in this program are not good...

In fact i only use this program to make some raw draft and do
the rest in another sequencer.

YMMV

[benjamind]

99 euro isn't a lot for this phenomenal program. When I finish saving up for my new PC I'll grab it along with everything else come upgrade time.

I know Harmony Navigator is 99 euros. Not sure what the Music Prototype (MPS) thing costs, but I'd take a wild guess that it would be something at least 5 times more than what Harmony Navigator is. I could be entirely wrong or I could be right, but we'll see when MPS is released.

Ben

[Sam@Megablastic]

Really really interesting, If it was 50 eros I'd snap it up instantly.