Queue for playing.
Variety of the intonation content.
Variety of the rhythm character.
How to change the structure of a created melody.
The methods of the development for phrase.

Queue for playing.

In the program, a principle 'queue for playing' is implemented for all 'play' buttons (see picture below).

It means, if some piece of the composition is playing (also, it may be the motive in the panel of some method of motive development), and you press some 'play' button then the program does not play immediately a piece of the composition or motive in the panel of motive development that corresponds to this button, but program puts the part of the melody to the 'queue for playing'.

As soon as the program finishes to play the current part of the melody, the program takes the part of the melody, which is located in the first position of the queue and starts to play this piece of the melody without stopping. That means that program merges all parts of the melody, which are located in the queue and plays them without stopping.

It is necessary for example when you need to check the sound of the motives in the panel of some motive development. Here is some example: We applied the method of motive development 'sequence' to some motive. On the picture, the panel of the method development is marked by digit 7. In the composition new motive should follow to the motive, which is marked by digit 2. I need to listen how the all three motives sound together, these motives are marked by digits 1, 2 and 3 on the picture. For that, i press without stop the buttons, which are marked by digits 4, 5 and 6, that is, i do not wait when the program finishes to play first motive but i press right now the buttons 5 and 6, which correspond to the motive 2 and 3. As result, the program plays all three motives as single whole without stopping.

Also it useful when you want to listen only a few motives of the composition. Or, when you want to listen how motives sound in the reverse or random order. Also, with help of this technique, it is possible to listen how the composition sounds if to change the order of the phrases, possibly, it will give some new musical ideas.

Variety of the intonation content.

In the manual, chapter 'Theory', section 1.5, i describe, what non-chord tones exist. Each non-chord tone and chord tones, which surround this non-chord tone, is the 'brick'. Such 'bricks' determine the intonation content of the motive, better to say, these 'bricks' determine the pitch of the notes.

Neighboring non-chord tone:

Passing:

Appoggiatura:

Escape:

Neighbor Group Tones:

Retardation:

More over, I give name 'Arpeggio' (conditionally) to the two chord tones, which appear one after another.

And one more 'brick' is repetition of the same chord tone:

When i compose the motive, i choose the combination of the two such 'bricks'. There are many such combinations.

Here are two examples:

It is important, from my point of view, to see the big variety of the intonation content, when you compose the motive.

Variety of the rhythm character.

There are many different characters of the rhythm. It is very useful to see this variety when you compose motive. Here is some examples:

Regular rhythm:

Contrast rhythm:

'Dividing' rhythm. To get the group of the next durations we split the previous duration into parts:

Rhythm 'gathering'. This character of the rhythm is direct opposite of the previous type of the rhythm ('Dividing' rhythm):

Rhythm consists of big durations:

Rhythm consists of small durations:

Pauses are presented in the rhythm:

Rhythm consists of the combination of the two durations:

Eighth and Sixteenth:

Quarter and Eighth:

Sixteenth and Quarter:

and so on.

How to change the structure of a created melody.

Sometime, it is necessary to change the structure of the melody. For example, to change the number of the motives in the phrase, or to change the number of the phrases in the sentence. Unfortunately, the program does not allow to edit the structure of a created melody. But a decision of the problem exists. The program saves the melody to the disk in the *.ptt format. The format is based on the XML. This format is readable text format that allows manual editing.

The format is something like HTML. There are different tags:

<SENTENCE>
<PHRASE>
<MOTIVE>

and so on. The tags describes the hierarchical structure of the melody.

For example, it is necessary to add one more motive to the phrase. Tag <PHRASE> describes the phrase. The tag <MOTIVE> inside the tag <PHRASE> describes the motive of this phrase.

<PHRASE>
    <MOTIVE>...</MOTIVE>
    <MOTIVE>...</MOTIVE>
</PHRASE>

To add one more motive to the phrase, put the <MOTIVE> tag inside the appropriate <PHRASE> tag.

As result:

<PHRASE>
    <MOTIVE>...</MOTIVE>
    <MOTIVE>...</MOTIVE>
    <MOTIVE>...</MOTIVE>
</PHRASE>

Thus, you may do any other changes in the melody.

- To add the motives to the phrase.
- To delete the motives from the phrase.
- To add the phrases to the sentence.
- To delete the phrases from the sentence.
- To add the sentences to the period.
- To delete the sentences from the period.
- To copy the motives, phrases, sentences.

And so on.

Use the Notepad or any other text editor to edit the *.ptt file.

Please ask me, if you have some questions about the format.

The methods of the development for phrase.

As was described in the manual (section 1.4. Sentence. Cadence. Period) and in the Demo Lessons (lesson 11-14), the melody, as a rule, is built on the base of a scheme. It means, that some phrases are based on other phrases. Let me give you some simple methods, which are applicable to the full phrase, the methods allow to create new phrases quickly.

1. Move full phrase down, the Sequence Down method, use the same chords.
2. Move full phrase down, the Sequence Down method, create new chords.
3. Move full phrase up, the Sequence Up method, use the same chords.
4. Move full phrase up, the Sequence Up method, compose new chords.
5. Pick up new chords to the phrase.
7. Delete all notes in some motive of the phrase.
8. Repeat the phrase, Repeat method, compose new chords.
9. Change the order of the motives in the phrase.
10. Repeat some motive of the phrase twice.
11. Invert full phrase, method Inversion, use the same chords or create new chords.
In some cases, move full phrase up or down to place the phrase in the appropriate pitch diapason.
12. Vary the motives of the phrases, method Variation, Slightly Vary Rhythm, Slyghtly Vary Pitch, use the same chords or compose new chords.
13. Create phrases with different forms (Ascending Wave, Descending Wave, Ascending Line, Descending Line) with help of the following methods: Continue, Inversion, Repeat, Seq. And Inversion.
14. Compose new phrase with the rhythm of the initial phrase.