SongTrellis
Music and Musical Know-how For You

Author:  David Luebbert Posted:  4/2/13; 1:07:55 AM Msg#:  5932 (top msg in thread) Prev/Next:  5931/5933 Reads:  1724

New Chord Grid behavior - Chord cycle animations

The default Chord Grid on the SongTrellis page shows 45 rows that are labelled on the left with a chord type name. The columns to the right of the chord type name show the 12 possible distinct pitches that you can build a chord of that type upon. Those chord roots can be organized by 11 different chord root motion choices and any of the 12 possible pitches can be chosen as the pitch to be shown in the leftmost column of the grid. With 12 x 11 different setting root motion and leftmost pitch settings, 132 different root arrangements are possible to display in the chord grid.

Each of the 11 chord root motions produce a characteristic sensation as you move from root to root within a row of the grid. You'll also find that for a particular chord root choice, there is a similarity of sensation in traveling through a root cycle in different chord type rows, even though the different chord types produce sensations that vary from extreme consonance to extreme dissonance.

The new behavior: if you mouse click on a chord type name in the Chord Grid, one complete cycle of chords whose roots move by the selected chord root motion size will be performed. At the instant that each chord in the cycle is played, you'll see that its root name is highlighted in red. You'll see that the some of the root motion choices will form a root cycle that will visit all 12 of the possible root pitches on a chord grid row. Others choices will form cycles of 6, 4, 3, and 2 chord roots. You'll know that a root motion choice forms smaller root cycles when you see that end of cycle mark ('|') appear in the grid rows.

As soon as the cycle begins to play, to the right of the chord grid, you'll see that you have the choice to add a number of chords that you choose from the cycle to add to the Chord List that is accumulated on the right side of the grid.

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