For a beginner in music theory ( which scaler address to ) its somehow difficult to find chords by notes ( because I don’t know much about them ). Finding chords by style ( or by the emotion it gives ) should be the main search category in Scaler. I am surprised its not implemented yet. Maybe in the next update ?
Thank you !
Or maybe just the ability to sort the chords by style.
I fee that there are indications of mood in many places. For example, ‘common progressions’ are labelled with mood information e.g. happy / reflective / sentimental / joyful and so on.
Many of the phrases are so labelled affabile / con amore / lacrimosso / pattico (now there’s a mood for you) and so on.
However, more importantly, when you select chords by picking a scale Scaler indicates the style / mood (eg major - happy, bright / Lydian - hopeful, dreamy / Lydian augmented #2 - Eerie, Mysterious / and so on.
Is this not what you mean by ‘emotion’ ? It seems to me that mood / emotion is defined by the scale, and not by the chords.
So is Bb maj happy or sad ? As the root of a Bb maj scale it will sound happy within that scale; and yet it sits as the 7th in a Cmin scale and resolves to the Cmin chord without feeling out of place, or changing the ‘minor’ feel.
Perhaps you can expand on the sort of mood categories you would like.
I think ‘style’ is rather different to emotion IMHO. The ‘songs’ are listed by style as I would see it (jazz, hiphop, blues and so on).
There are indications for each chord but they can’t be sorted out.
If i want to see all the happy or sad chords I can’t.
That’s what i meant for the search style.
I have to agree with @panda when he says
I don’t think there is such a thing as a “happy” or “sad” chord. To illustrate this you should consider the modes.
The C major Scale (Ionian mode) is described as “happy, light, bright, positive”, whilst the Aeolian mode (A natural minor) is described as “serious, sad, emotional, sentimental”. And yet they both use the same chords! So IMHO it is the order in which the chords are played, ie the scale or phrase, that defines the feeling and emotion. And even this is only a guide: tempo can also play a part in defining the emotion.
This sounds complex, and I don’t want to discourage you, but Scaler can really help here as you can be guided by the descriptions of the styles for each scale, which give a general indication of the feeling expressed when the scale is used.
Again on the songs there is often an indication of the feeling for the song, but IMHO it is an indication and should not be treated as definitive.
And I agree it could be a nice feature to be able to filter the styles and scales by key words, although IMHO there is a risk that it could constrain your creativity as you develop your composing skills.