We agree on some parts here.
I suspect, and I’m guessing, that list was based more on some niche cultural influence rather than musical legacy.
The genre has examples of brilliance, but is also riddled with some complexities in places, as you flag.
Thanks for a gracious reply,
(edit) thanks for the urls nor sure if the links really fit in with the positive tone here on the forum but thanks again for reaching out.
I know it perfectly @skank
don’t be offended by my words that were a jest
if you’ll attend this forum and dig in our posts, you’ll find that some of us jokes very often, even being sarcastic sometimes
but we all consider any kind of music very seriously, nevertheless the musician is serious or not, or that we like this music or not
I have a good friend that is a fan of rap, hip-hop and rap, the genres I dislike more together with the liscio romagnolo 
, but we are still good friends, and we are also because this guy is a fan of Motown and Afrobeat that I also like
It means that we have both our preferences, but even point of contacts
Clearly, if you love rap only, it’s quite difficult we’ll find a point of contact, but I’ll respect you anyway bro
So, James, take care and have fun with the music and this forum
Again, acknowledged. Serious points were intended in the blog (namely re-writing history and lyrics which I view as not positive to young consumers, as I noted), but I have deleted them as straying too far from the musical soul of the board.
@Bernd posted a note which in essence posited that there should be a balance of purely “Scaler has an bug when …” posts and wider comments which add ‘character’ and make it less of a simple whinge list, and I think that is a sensible target,
I also guess we have a responsibility to @davide and moderators who permit a wide range of contributions not to abuse that latitude.
Peace, and may the music - of every genre, shade and hue - continue.
Hey thanks for the reply. Please bear with my rushed replies, I’ve left my desktop and replies on the mobile are a chore)
It’s clearly humour in your point on rap chords, but I feel the banter sometimes reveals more than just humorous intent.
Anyway I did say that rap is not my thing but my point was that we as creatives are above broad genre generalizations.
Noted it is was in jest but I thought my deleted reply to you countered in that tone.
I’ll stop now my fingers hurt.
I genuinely appreciate you hearing me and again really agree on some stuff there.
Peace and all that good stuff right back at ya.
Happy to oblige 
there’s way too much to list all here quickly, but a few are funk, jazz (hard bop/bebop), baroque, electronic music, funk and the best of mainstream song-based pop.
There is a sea of points of contact here
Funk music is very asked for in the forum, and I dropped some posts/tutorials on how to (try to) produce funky vibes with Scaler and other plugins
cheers
P.S. I tried a couple of times to do a proof-of-concept for rap and hip-hop in my series Scaler is good at, but I was unable to succeed: maybe you are
As the original poster of this thread, let me conclude the discussion, and reiterate my original intent with the original post starting this thread…
I am amazed by the automatic association of rap with hiphop, and the N word being mistaken for “non permissable language” (if you don’t understand rap origins and subcultures, can you really have an informed opinion on it?). There’s rap without hiphop, there’s hiphop without rap, and there’s plenty of non-gangsta rap, and not all N word occurrence is automatically gangsta rap, and that which is most notorious is not necessarily representative for the breadth of work out there.
As for the thread hijacking, I for one have been guilty of this myself, so I accept my karma. I also love watching the muppet show, so I have no issue with spirited arguments, as long as Gonzo gets his chicken in order 
But, to reiterate my original feature request…
I would love to see Scaler 3.x some time be able to recognize incoming MIDI patterns that match some of the internal presets (songs, artists, performance expressions etc). Whether you have a personal opinion on this as a feature can be debated, but if Scaler does provide organized MIDI patterns and expression performance variety, as a learning musician, it would be invaluable if it could associate incoming MIDI with the patterns it already knows from its internal library, and display these matches in a similar way Scaler today shows a list of potential scales a given chord progression could be part of.
For the future of keeping the forum balanced between effectively communicating support needs and feature requests, perhaps the more conversationally creative among us, can spawn a separate thread to expand on our social impulses while keeping the original intent of the inspiring discussion thread focused. Whatdoyasay?
Cheers from a fellow Muppet!
I can’t even figure out what this thread is about anymore. I tried to read it today and my eyes kind of glazed over.
This feature request…
I would love to see Scaler 3.x some time be able to recognize incoming MIDI patterns that match some of the internal presets (songs, artists, performance expressions etc). Whether you have a personal opinion on this as a feature can be debated, but if Scaler does provide organized MIDI patterns and expression performance variety, as a learning musician, it would be invaluable if it could associate incoming MIDI with the patterns it already knows from its internal library, and display these matches in a similar way Scaler today shows a list of potential scales a given chord progression could be part of.
Hmmm. Could have fooled me. I answered that part but it seems now to be about doing rap music with juke box Scaler on a Nirvana Stage.
You mean this?
I didn’t feel it was so much of an answer than a personal opinion. I hadn’t really asked a question, I made a feature suggestion. The premise is, if Scaler currently offers a selection of melodies & chord progressions as part of its feature set, it would be logical to have them be recognized by incoming MIDI. To take it into philosophical territory doesn’t diminish my desire to see this feature
If there are generally no “typical” chord progressions or expressions, then what is the purpose of Scaler’s chord and performance library in the first place?
I think it’s there because people love labels.
Anyone of these could be used for anything. What makes I-IV-ii-V Happy? Why is i-V-i-iv Dramatic? I can see no reason and could probably switch them around and no one would be the wiser. Just my opinion of course.
Well, there must be some statistical distribution, where a significant share of a certain music style has patterns in common (melodies, chords, rhythms, sounds). And yes, labels, genres, are humans way to communicate, short of spending an hour to re-explain every concepts. But as a fellow rebel against the system I can appreciate your aversion to mainstreamed categories/lables
We are looking at ways to improve the content browsing, sorted by similarity with existing patterns would be cool, a quick way to find a “B-part” to a melody.
In terms of matching to a style or genre, there are a few things we can label, but it is already highly subjective for plain chord progressions, it is even harder to guess the emotion when you add the timing of the melody into the mix.
Exactly this. Instrumentation also has a big influence on the feeling.
I guess I don’t understand on what grounds Scaler then offers generous categorization of genres, styles, moods out of the box? If any resemblance of characterizing a tune is a moot point? I understand if there’s a technical challenge in reversing this process, but to argue that nothing is really definable?
As someone who is attempting to learn making socially acceptable music, and often gets the feedback “but that’s not how it sounds” (or it sounds like something else than I intended), there is clearly some criteria in listening that makes people judge what genre/style a tune is in. It may be hard to articulate for musicians who run on intuition, but the moment you are off in your melody, harmony, rhythm … (short of it being jazz) people will notice that you’re out of genre, or to the least in fusion.
The bass is one of the most important markers for the genre. On top of being harmonically relevant, it contains rhythmic information.
It is easy to identify a Funk bass from a Jazz or Rock one etc…
The expressions’ names are relevant but more evocative of a concept. This was doable because Davide knew the intent behind the melodic idea. He was able to capture the emotion with a single word really nicely.
But once adapted to another scale or playing at half or double speed it can give something different.
Chord progressions are pretty much the same. There is some universal feeling you can derive from hearing it played simply on a piano, but as soon as you throw some instrumentation and rhythms it is pretty subjective.
The same progression played with some Cuban instrumentation might go from sentimental to sexy (or not sexy at all if you don’t like this kind of music) etc…
However, and I think this is your point, in Cuban music, there are sad and joyful songs.
At the moment in Scaler, we would categorize them both under Cuban, if we like the sad progression we might make a “sad” progression in the relevant category but this is a human-based process.
Making sure that the MIDI you send is really sad is a bit more complex. But an interesting challenge 
I am definitely not the best person to help you there, but the lower side of the spectrum plays a big role. You can usually tell the style of music your neighbor listens to through the walls.
I have sometimes heard the bass is the most important, sometimes the drums, and more specifically the snare sound. It is something @davide might be able to help with.
I think my original comment had more to do with your first post - deriving feeling, mood, whatever from a detected chord progression. I stand by my opinion that there is nothing in a chord PROGRESSION that would necessarily give you that information. So many factors are involved from instrumentation right down to your memories that might be associated with any number of things in the song. Songs always affect moods, feelings, make you happy or sad. But playing 4 chords on a piano might not do it. Play those same 4 chords with a choir and its something different.
I never said there aren’t genres. There are many genres. There are many scales that are associated with different types of music because of the people of certain areas and how they went about creating the music they are known for - French, Spanish, Middle Eastern, et al. So it’s all very complex when the human brain is involved.
And of course it’s just my opinion and I could be completely wrong.
