Tutorials&Theory that could be applied in RC

[Cereb]

Sweet

I think Slominsky was putting an emphasis on exploring further than the diatonic theory
(hence the word "modern" in the book title)... I guess musicians at the time were moving away from that.
I believe the fact that Coltrane used this guys approach so much is why the book became so seminal
and the author now a legend. Imagine that... being such a legend that ppl you drew from become legend by proxy

Maybe applying this to diatonic would stretch the scale too far
(at least 2 octaves needed to get enough sections to make the run worth mapping at all)

Slominsky didn't explain very well in his introduction what his outline was...
but the other free ebook I linked too does explain it quite well, so props to that guy for clearing it up for the rest of us.

It blows me away how thorough you have been with RC, Attila!

You've really mapped out everything in the most succinct way I have ever seen.
I'm guessing you have just chipped away at it over the years and steadily coded it all in, trimming away the superfluous and rendering everything into a comprehensive entity.

Congrats and thanks so much for the effort.

I'll keep throwing things on here as I come across them

[robberg]

Understanding the difference between chord-based musical ideas, and scale-based ideas is critical when you interpreting and creating melodic/harmonic phrases. This musical theory concept is laid out very simply at: www.freejazzlessons.com/piano-improvisation/
Mark Galang demonstrates how a simple jazz lick consisting of only two notes C and G can be played over ANY chord in the key of C major. Mark analyzes how these two notes can be interpreted harmonically on all scale steps (C,D,E,F,G,A,B). For instance, the note E can be interpreted as a 9th of the chord Dm7.
Back to Rapid Composer, if we create a phrase using E and G and make sure to designate the notes as scale steps (i.e. III and V and NOT 3rd and 5th), then this phrase can be inserted anywhere in the composition and will be unaffected by the chords harmony in the Master Track. If we change key, RC will correctly transpose the phrase so that it works in the new key. For example, in the key of G major, our two-note phrase will be automatically transposed to the notes B and D, which are the third and fifth scale steps in G major.
Jazz pianists use a heavy dose of chromatic neighbor notes, and we incorporate these into our phrase by designating them as scale note offsets. So for example, the chromatic neighbor tone of E flat to our E note would be designated as -1 semitone offset of the III scale step.
All this to say that Rapid Composer will enable musicians to database musical ideas (phrases) that can be incorporated into different harmonic structures, which RC calls the Master Track.

[robberg]

Correction " . . . of only two notes E and G . . . " not C and G

[BluGenes]

Edit:

You just explained an important concept to RC.. Thanks!

[musicdevelopments]

Thank you, robberg!

[robberg]

A key to understanding phrases in RC lies in the difference between a chord-based phrase and a scale based phrase. Any given phrase can be interpreted either way. It's up to us to decide if we want the phrase to "Adjust" with the chords (harmony) in the Master Track, or to stay constant over different chords.
This website really elucidates what I mean: https://www.freejazzlessons.com/piano-improvisation/
They demonstrate a simple jazz lick (which we call a "phrase" in RC) in C major using the chord tones E and G.
Steve shows how he can play this lick over ANY chord in the key of C major. In RC, this means that the phrase will sound more of less appropriate over any C major progression in the Master Track.
They then outline how the 2 notes E and G function in the 7 diatonic chords of the C major scale.
In other words, they give you the "theory" for this "scale-based" phrase. Great Stuff!!!!

This helped me to understand something pretty simple - jazz musicians develop a database of licks (phrases) and they learn what chords these licks can be played over. Some licks can only be played over one chord (chord-based phrase) and some can be played over more than one chord.
As far as my understanding goes, there is no clear dividing line and it's up to us to tell RC how we want it to interpret the phrase. Sometimes we can go either way. I also discovered that scale phrases can be very flexible and sound great over different chords because you can transpose them up and down the scale. Over certain chords they will work great, over other they wont. Again, this is what a jazz musician learns from the ground up.

[robberg]

Sorry guys for repeating this post - I looked all over for it and couldn't find it so I thought I failed to submit it. My Bad !!!!!

[iXaarii]

A big thank you to everybody for all your great posts of tutorials, theory and great discussion. My contribution for this time would be a very theoretical just for the sake of curiosity:

https://youtu.be/CFbG-8eYKJU

this nice discussion of Bebob

https://youtu.be/oZ16m7MyXJ8

and for those who've made it this far some laughs with technique and skill way beyond what I can ever hope for but one that I would enjoy playing around in RC in if I ever figure out even a bit of how that would be done:

https://youtu.be/MRqaLipoHYY

[sj1]

Hi. I'm new and just getting into Phrases and how they relate/playback wrt. the Master Track Chords (MTCs).

I've found that some phrases track with the MTCs and some do not, and I've become at least a little bit hip to Note Kind: Chord, Scale, Bass, Absolute and how those settings make a difference.

My question is this -

I have a very strong initial impulse to think of Chord, Scale, Bass, and Absolute as properties of a Phrase. However, it seems that in fact these are properties of individual Notes, and that in order to change the behavior of the entire Phrase I must edit to change the properties of every individual not in it. Is that correct?

If so, is there a specific reason why such editing is not made available operationally at the Phrase level? (where the application of it seems obviously desirable)

Further, FWIW, if there is not already a way to do such, it would seem desirable to be able to apply a user's choice of Chord, Scale, Bass, or Absolute as a bulk operation to entire folders of Phrases in the library so that if they are not already of the type desired they can be made so quickly and easily. Does this make sense to anyone?

[musicdevelopments]

However, it seems that in fact these are properties of individual Notes,

Yes, correct.

and that in order to change the behavior of the entire Phrase I must edit to change the properties of every individual not in it. Is that correct?

Yes, that is right. You have tools to convert an entire phrase to any of these representations in the phrase inspector. You will find either "Convert To Relative Form" or "Convert To Absolute Notes" depending on the phrase. For example to convert from chord-relative to scale-relative involves making the phrase to absolute, then convert it to scale-relative.

There are keyboard shortcuts for these tasks, that you will find under Settings / Keyboard Shortcuts.

Further, FWIW, if there is not already a way to do such, it would seem desirable to be able to apply a user's choice of Chord, Scale, Bass, or Absolute as a bulk operation to entire folders of Phrases in the library so that if they are not already of the type desired they can be made so quickly and easily. Does this make sense to anyone?

I don't think this makes sense. Working with scale or chord-relative phrases requires a 'context', a scale or chord which gives the phrase the final form; it is not possible to do the conversion without knowing the specific scale and chord.
It makes sense to convert absolute phrases to relative, by analysing them. This is what happens when you drop MIDI files on the phrase browser.

Thanks,
Attila

[sj1]

You have tools to convert an entire phrase to any of these representations in the phrase inspector. You will find either "Convert To Relative Form" or "Convert To Absolute Notes" depending on the phrase. For example to convert from chord-relative to scale-relative involves making the phrase to absolute, then convert it to scale-relative.

OK, that's great, thanks!

Just to check in with what I'm observing here, I see two cases (for different types of Phrases) in the Phrase "gear" menu:

1. 'Restore to Absolute Notes'

2. 'Convert to Absolute Notes'

Can you confirm (or not) that these are what you are referring to?

[sj1]

OK, I think I'm getting the picture now re: single-phrase conversion. The Phrase -> Gear pop-up dialog is pre-hipped to context and so will look different depending on what type of Phrase it is invoked on.

For example, invoking on an absolute Phrase give the attached pic, which covers the options previously mentioned.

RC Convert to Relative Form 01.jpg

If the Phrase is already relative, you don't see all those options. (Just learning out loud here ... )

For sure thanks for mentioning the Relative -> Absolute -> Relative pathway. It's good to know!

[sj1]

I don't think this makes sense. Working with scale or chord-relative phrases requires a 'context', a scale or chord which gives the phrase the final form; it is not possible to do the conversion without knowing the specific scale and chord.
It makes sense to convert absolute phrases to relative, by analysing them. This is what happens when you drop MIDI files on the phrase browser.

So, if there is a directory full of absolute phrases (as with some of the collections available in the Forum) that means that each phrase in the directory was specifically made absolute one-at-a-time? (because had they all been dropped on the phrase browser in the first place they would have been analyzed and made relative)?

[yellukhan]

Hi,
i hope image explains better

[sj1]

That's very clear, thank you!

BTW, are you on the 3.9 Beta there? My 3.82 conversion dialog looks different ...

(The .mid files in this case were drum tracks on Ch 10, if that matters.)