I love the performance/phrase stuff and I’d like to see it expanded to be more “song aware”.
If, for example, I place the same chord for 4 bars in a row I’d like the option to tag the last bar as a “turnaround” or a “transition” and have Scaler alter that last phrase accordingly. In practice this usually means changing the last part of that bar to change a descending run into an ascending one or vice versa, or sometimes just swapping the last two notes over. This is particularly effective with piano arps and basslines but works with anything.
You hear this stuff all the time in pop songs where you get 4 bars of the same chord and at the end there are a couple of different notes that lead you into the chord change. There is probably a proper music theory name for it but what do I know?
Thanks Ed. I am aware of that way of doing it but tbh I find it all a bit too fiddly so I was suggesting something a bit more lazy, erm, I mean efficient. It’s not for me to say how the UI would best be implemented but I envisage something like dragging the chords down to the bottom section then tagging one or more of them as “transition” or “embellish” or “turnaround” or something, which will automatically tweak the last part of the performance on that chord to be a bit different. The point is that I wouldn’t have to manually choose a different performance - it would just magically come up with a (probably a bit cliched) few notes, the melodic equivalent of a short drum fill - just something to add a bit of interest at the end of the verse or whatever.
At present I do it manually by dragging each chord/phrase into the DAW and manually editing the ending of a few bars in the piano roll. It’s not a massive problem to do this but there is always room for Scaler 2 to help us out even more! I’ve no idea how easy it would be to program or whether it fits in with the grand vision for Scaler’s future but I just thought I’d throw it into the pot.
One way they could handle it is to come up with a section of turnaround/transition expressions. It wouldn’t handle it automatically but at least give us a section of these to utilize. This would be quite useful to me.
Not sure how much AI Scaler is looking to build towards since it’s always been about teaching and not one button song creation.
Isn’t that the point: to develop the user’s creativity and understanding through trying different solutions to the composition? On @davide’s videos he is constantly trying chords when composing.
Welcome to the @boingy
Well I am happy to say that we have a new feature in the next major iteration of scaler which focusses on this. I can’t give too much away yet as nothing is set in stone but I have been working with a fantastic pianist to demonstrate various methods of as you call turnarounds’ to the DEV team to workout what and how they can be implemented. It will be a while as we are talking a new scaler but please stay tuned…
Thanks David, that’s excellent news. I’m not sure “turnaround” is quite the right name for it but I don’t know what is. I’m a patient man so I’m happy to wait, especially as the imminent release of Scaler for iPad is going to keep me occupied for a while. That may well be a game changer for my song writing process.