--- In impro-visor@yahoogroups.com, "john_doevi" <john_doevi@...> wrote:
>
> Thanks very much, I think all the features you mentioned are incredibly
useful, and your answer helped me understand better.
>
> For the melody/rhythm combinations I listed, I understand that the steps for
the second option should be completed with 'rectification'. (Maybe inverting the
melody could also be listed in this category?)

There is a checkbox under Generation Parameters that will apply rectification to
each generation, if you want that.


> For the last option (changing rhythm, preserving contour) could there be a
semi-manual way (I mean, if we want to try hard) like:
> (for each generation)
> >edit durations in extracted abstract melody in the Lick Generator window
> >Fill Abstract Melody
> >rectify if needed

Assuming you mean editing the textual representation, yes that works. If I were
to investigate automation of the feature you desire: preserve contour but vary
durations, it would probably be based on editing the textual representation.


> Also reverting the melody, then shifting notes up/down to restore original
order of pitches might work, but we would get just one different rhythm.
>
> Of course, getting a series of durations computed by a utility would be easier
(with parameters: number of notes, selectable min and max durations, total
duration not to exceed that of selected region).
>
> I would like to ask your opinions... Thanks again.

The rhythm variation feature could be explored in the future. I'm not sure where
it should be placed priority-wise.


Thanks for your comments.

Bob

Thanks very much, I think all the features you mentioned are incredibly useful,
and your answer helped me understand better.

For the melody/rhythm combinations I listed, I understand that the steps for the
second option should be completed with 'rectification'. (Maybe inverting the
melody could also be listed in this category?)

For the last option (changing rhythm, preserving contour) could there be a
semi-manual way (I mean, if we want to try hard) like:
(for each generation)
>edit durations in extracted abstract melody in the Lick Generator window
>Fill Abstract Melody
>rectify if needed
?

Also reverting the melody, then shifting notes up/down to restore original order
of pitches might work, but we would get just one different rhythm.

Of course, getting a series of durations computed by a utility would be easier
(with parameters: number of notes, selectable min and max durations, total
duration not to exceed that of selected region).

I would like to ask your opinions... Thanks again.

Regards

--- In impro-visor@yahoogroups.com, "john_doevi" <john_doevi@...> wrote:
>
> Could you correct me with (and help completing) the possibilities of
generating a new melody (using the lick generator) while:
>
> -Preserving both melodic contour and rhythm:
> >Extract Abstract Melody
> >Fill Abstract Melody
>
> -Preserving rhythm, changing melodic contour:
> >Extract Rhythm
> >Fill Abstract Melody
>
> -Preserving melodic contour, changing rhythm:
> >?
> (Can this be done?)
>

John,

I'll give it a try. You probably know some of this, but here goes ...

Last thing first: There is currently no way to preserve contour but change
rhythm, except for the edit buttons Expand/Contract Melody by 2 or 3. These just
change the durations uniformly.

To get an Abstract Melody in the Lick Generator window, you can select some
slots with chords, then either:

a. press Generate Melody, which will first generate an abstract melody, then
also fill it with a real melody, or

b. press Generate Abstract Melody only, or

c. Extract the abstract melody from the leadsheet, by selecting the slots from
which to extract, then pressing Extract Abstract Melody.

If you then press Fill Abstract Melody, it will always preserve the rhythm.

Fill Abstract Melody will preserve the contour only if the abstract melody is
composed of "slopes" rather than individual notes. For example, if you Extract
Melody, you will get slopes.

The current default grammar ("My" Grammar) does not generate melodies with
slopes, but the learned grammars, such as Charlie Parker, etc. do.

You can also get other melodies with the same contour by using harmonic
transposition: (in version 4.07) s transposes the melody down a step and w
transposes it up a step, approximately preserving contour while snapping the
notes to chord and color tones. Furthermore, these will snap the result even if
the original was not compatible with the harmony.

If you use Extract Rhythm instead of Extract Abstract Melody, the abstract
melody will have the rhtythm, but note categories will all be X, meaning
arbitrary.

If you fill a rhythm-only abstract melody, it will preserve the rhythm, but the
note choices will be pretty arbitrary. (They will obey min and max interval
values set in the Generation Parameters window.) You can use harmonic
transposition or rectification to snap the notes back into the harmony.

I hope this clarifies. Please ask again if there are more specifics.

Thank you for trying out some of the less-used features of the tool.

Regards,

Bob Keller

Could you correct me with (and help completing) the possibilities of generating
a new melody (using the lick generator) while:

-Preserving both melodic contour and rhythm:
>Extract Abstract Melody
>Fill Abstract Melody

-Preserving rhythm, changing melodic contour:
>Extract Rhythm
>Fill Abstract Melody

-Preserving melodic contour, changing rhythm:
>?
(Can this be done?)

--- In impro-visor@yahoogroups.com, "pierre_duvallet@..." <pierre_duvallet@...>
wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> Is there a way to enter polyphonic solo into a chorus ?
> Thanks for your help
>

Pierre,

I'm sorry, there currently is no way to have more than one melody line at a
time. This feature might be added in the distant future.

Regards,

Bob

Hello,

Is there a way to enter polyphonic solo into a chorus ?
Thanks for your help

--- In impro-visor@yahoogroups.com, "givinitall" <givinitall@...> wrote:

> I am beginning to write my own licks. I'm recording them into the Licks
section and I can see that they are mixed with the original ones. How can I save
my own licks in a file?
>
> Thanks. Santiago.
>

Santiago,

Currently there is no means of saving portions of the vocabulary in a separate
file from within Impro-Visor itself. Here are some ways you can work around the
issue. (Note that the vocabulary file is a text file, so you can edit it. Just
be careful to keep the parentheses matched.)

(1) The licks you've added will always appear at the bottom of the file. So just
note the last of the original licks, and that can serve as the marker for where
yours begin, or

(2) There is a required name field when you save a lick, so just put your name
or initials in that field (you can include other info as well). Unfortunately,
we don't yet have a way of calling up licks only by name, but you will see the
names in the menu, or

(3) If you don't need any of the licks that come with the distribution, you can
edit them all out, then every lick will be yours.

I hope this helps.

Bob Keller

Hello, friends, first of all, congratulations for the program! I am learning to
use it, and for now it is going awesome.

I am beginning to write my own licks. I'm recording them into the Licks section
and I can see that they are mixed with the original ones. How can I save my own
licks in a file?

Thanks. Santiago.

I'm still figuring the software out (much to learn). However, it seems to run
GREAT under Windows 7 64-bit.

I was somewhat forced to be an early adopter of Win 7. FYI: Most applications
seem to work. Many driver do NOT, as I figured. MOTU MIDI interfaces are
supported, I'm using a M-Audio Fast Track Pro for 2x2 audio I/O. I have better
hardware - which does not work yet!

Thanks for some nice code!

joel Sampson / Dallas
http://www.joelsampson.com - art
http://www.fivepinpress.com - music

Thank you. As a newbie I can see that I'm trying to do too much with
the mouse.

Gerry Sharpe
gerrybev@...

--- In impro-visor@yahoogroups.com, "gerryjazzpiano" <gerrybev@...> wrote:
>
> I'm sure it's in the tutorial somewhere but I can't find it. Would somebody be
able to tell me how to add dotted notes to a lead sheet via mouse or keystrokes?
>

I just add a dot after the note and the value. Eg., "ab8." means ab dotted
eighth note,  "c+16." is c up an octave with the value of dotted sixteenth,
etc..

--- In impro-visor@yahoogroups.com, "gerryjazzpiano" <gerrybev@...> wrote:
>
> I'm sure it's in the tutorial somewhere but I can't find it. Would somebody be
able to tell me how to add dotted notes to a lead sheet via mouse or keystrokes?

Dotted notes are introduced "automatically" as needed. For example, say you
wanted a dotted-eighth and sixteenth-note combination.

With the slot or slots selected where you want introduce those combinations,
press the "4" key to get four sub-divisions per beat instead of the default 2
sub-divisions.

Then click a note on the first sub-division, then another note on the fourth
sub-division. Repeat for as many combinations as you'd like.

If you copy this line into the textual entry window and press return you will
see dotted eights and dotted sixteenths.

d+8+16 c+16 b8+16 a16 g+16+32 f+32 e+16+32 d+32 c+4

The current philosophy in Impro-Visor is to use ties rather than dots for the
equivalent of quarter notes, but dots are available for lesser values.

Dotted notes are not currently beamed. That is something that may be added in
the future.

There is no way to force one or the other in the leadsheet notation, which tries
to create an acceptable representation without requiring the user to specify
exact layout information for each note.

I hope this helps.

Regards,

Bob

--- In impro-visor@yahoogroups.com, "rich2k41" <rich2k4@...> wrote:
>
> i posted about a month back,  trying to use this application on snow leopard,
but i ran into a problem of the program randomly stopping the progression even
when i had it set to infinite repeats.  it got really annoying, so i uninstalled
it.
>
> i believe this has to do with the fact that i was using snow leopard.  any
plans to get it optimized for this, now that 1.6.1 is out and 1.6.2 is supposed
to be out within the next few weeks?

Rich,

I've been looking at the issue and I think it's a general problem and not a snow
leopard problem. It happens when you change the tempo during infinite looping,
right? I think this is fixable, but I need a little more time with it.

> also, is there any plans to create a traditional mac installation process?  by
that i mean just having an icon that you can drag to the applications folder,
instead of going through an installer.

There is no plan for that at this moment. The HMC CS dept. paid money on our
behalf to provide a traditional installer that works the same way for all
platforms. A drag-n-drop installer for Mac specifically would create another
variation to support. I don't see why it would make such a difference as to
become a pressing issue.

Thanks.

Bob Keller

I'm sure it's in the tutorial somewhere but I can't find it. Would somebody be
able to tell me how to add dotted notes to a lead sheet via mouse or keystrokes?

i posted about a month back,  trying to use this application on snow leopard,
but i ran into a problem of the program randomly stopping the progression even
when i had it set to infinite repeats.  it got really annoying, so i uninstalled
it.

i believe this has to do with the fact that i was using snow leopard.  any plans
to get it optimized for this, now that 1.6.1 is out and 1.6.2 is supposed to be
out within the next few weeks?

also, is there any plans to create a traditional mac installation process?  by
that i mean just having an icon that you can drag to the applications folder,
instead of going through an installer.

Welcome !!


Carlos Melendez
http://www.myspace.com/carloskikomelendez

I am very pleased to have joined your group.

Gerry Sharpe
gerrybev@...

--- In impro-visor@yahoogroups.com, "expat6719" <expat6719@...> wrote:
> What is the difference? Are the "contributed solos" improvisations created by
Impro-visor, solos written out by contributors, or transcriptions. If they are
the latter, why have two categories for the same thing? Where should I post my
transcriptions? Also, how do I eventually generate a grammar for, say, Joe Pass,
from some transcriptions? Can this be included in Impro-visor?

Hello Franco,

The intent of "contributed solos" is for original solos written out by group
members, whereas "contributed transcriptions" are solos transcribed from
recordings of others, e.g. from notable artists.

As the main purpose of Impro-Visor is to help players understand
solo-construction, the "contributed solos" provides an outlet where members can
share their thoughts.

On the other hand, transcribing solos is part of a conventional way to learn
jazz playing. The separate directory "transcribed solos" for these is to
emphasize that they have been attained by transcribing an existing solo of some
other artist, for those who wish to also engage in this form of learning and
share their work with others.

A feature for learning a grammar from a corpus of transcriptions is included in
Impro-Visor since version 4.0. Please see message #480 for some instructions.
I'm still trying to get to revising the tutorial to include all of the version 4
features.

> PS.  I'm glad to help out with transcriptions. I should like to see many more
contributions from others as well.

That would be great! Thanks for your participation.

Bob Keller

What is the difference? Are the "contributed solos" improvisations created by
Impro-visor, solos written out by contributors, or transcriptions. If they are
the latter, why have two categories for the same thing? Where should I post my
transcriptions? Also, how do I eventually generate a grammar for, say, Joe Pass,
from some transcriptions? Can this be included in Impro-viser?

PS.  I'm glad to help out with transcriptions. I should like to see many more
contributions from others as well.

franco

--- In impro-visor@yahoogroups.com, "dadoben" <jerickent@...> wrote:
>
> A brief non-technical post:
>
> I too just became aware of George Russell and the LCCTO in the last
> few months.  He was a longtime faculty member at the New England
> Conservatory of Music where I have worked for the past year.  He died
> within the last two months and last week NEC had a memorial concert
> of his music.  Check NECMusic.edu for more information.

I went to the web site and read everything. One of the pages said that the
second volume of LCCTO had been published. Is this true? I haven't seen anything
elsewhere on the web indicating that it had.

I discovered Russell by accident. I was charging up my Zune (yes, there *are*
people who have them!) I believe this was late Saturday, August 8th. Normally I
listen to the classical station KQAC 89.9, but I accidentally hit the control
button and moved one station to the left, which is the jazz station KMHD 89.1.
There was this strange piece of music playing - jazz plus electronic sounds. So
I went to the playlist web site and discovered that it was Russell's "Electronic
Sonata for Souls Loved by Nature." A little more web searching led me to Russell
and the fact that he had recently passed away.

The strange thing is that I've been into algorithmic composition and synthesis,
electronic music and jazz for decades and had never heard of Russell,
"Electronic Sonata" or the LCCTO. I've been moving back to jazz over the past
few months, but this event literally snapped me back. I suspect the KMHD playing
"Electronic Sonata" was inspired by Russell's passing. But the random flip of
the controller to the left?  ;-)

A brief non-technical post:

I too just became aware of George Russell and the LCCTO in the last few months. 
He was a longtime faculty member at the New England Conservatory of Music where
I have worked for the past year.  He died within the last two months and last
week NEC had a memorial concert of his music.  Check NECMusic.edu for more
information.

It's funny how some things seem to suddenly burst upon us in bunches.  In the
past months, I've seen many references to George since stumbling on that first
one.  How apt that a musical figure should give such a neat example of the
concept of synchronicity.

PS: I've touted Impro-Visor to one of our technologically hip theory
instructors.  With this reference to GR, I'll do it again.

--- In impro-visor@yahoogroups.com, "Robert" <keller@...> wrote:
> Assuming one believes this theory is plausible, here is what I think
> would be an interesting project: Right now, the categorization of
> "color" tones vs. other in Impro-Visor is done by a human inserting
> the designations into the vocabulary file. If the theory expressed in
> the book is correct, then it should be possible instead to compute
> the categorizations, by determining how a given note changes the
> repeat interval when played over a chord. Then, for example, note
> coloration information could be computed based on the principle,
> rather than being derived by human analysis.

Well, I'll have to check our your reference. But I'll throw the one I am
planning to use out here, because it's where most of the digital signal
processing stuff (in Matlab in the book but probably in R in my project) is
coming from:

Sethares, William (2004), _Tuning, Timbre, Spectrum, Scale_
http://www.amazon.com/Tuning-Timbre-Spectrum-William-Sethares/dp/1852337974/

Sethares' theory extends to microtonal, xentonal, non-12-TET instruments and
numerous other "musical" situations. In fact, I'm coming to jazz as an "escapee"
from microtonalilty. :-) I'm torn between attempting to implement all of his DSP
in CSound, which will take me weeks at my current level of CSound chops but has
a chance of giving me a real-time instrument, or doing it offline in R or an
open source Matlab clone, which is more like days. I'm more or less certain
offline is going to win because if I was really interested in live performance,
I'd be using ChucK. ;-)

--- In impro-visor@yahoogroups.com, "budgeschachte" <budge@...> wrote:

> Russell used the overtone series to justify his theorizing (while it doesn't
contain a perfect 11th it does contain a #11). This is fine for individual
partials but we don't hear that way, our ears have a "non-linear response" and
add in overtones automatically.


All: I would recommend taking a look at "How We Hear Music", by James Beament,
The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 2005. In chapter 7 the author asserts that the
basis of harmony is not the overtone series directly, but rather the waveform
repetition ratio in chords. Beament observes that we don't interpret the sound
of chords by the individual pitches, but rather as a single composite waveform,
the way the sound arrives at the ear.

The waveform of a more dissonant chord repeats less often in a given time span
than does the waveform of a more consonant chord. For example, a major triad, in
which the ratios of the notes to the tonic are 4:5:6 (i.e. 6:4 = 3:2 from the
perfect fifth and 5:4 from the major third, with 4 as the least common
denominator), whereas a minor triad expressed in a similar way has a ratio
pattern of 10:12:15 (i.e. 15:10 = 3:2 from the perfect fifth and 12:10 = 6:5
from the minor third) (cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interval_%28music%29 ).
So the minor triad waveform takes 2.5 (10:4) times longer to repeat as a major
triad waveform on the same tonic.

There are other interesting observations and assertions in this book, which is
written in an informal style. I don't know if it is all correct, but I'd say it
is worth reading.

Assuming one believes this theory is plausible, here is what I think would be an
interesting project: Right now, the categorization of "color" tones vs. other in
Impro-Visor is done by a human inserting the designations into the vocabulary
file. If the theory expressed in the book is correct, then it should be possible
instead to compute the categorizations, by determining how a given note changes
the repeat interval when played over a chord. Then, for example, not coloration
information could be computed based on the principle, rather than being derived
by human analysis.

Bob

Hi there, I'm a jazz guitarist and theorist and have spent time with Russell's
book.
I found that it was really just a reformulation of jazz theory from the
perspective of the lydian scale. Which to me doesn't really say anything new. It
seems like it does but upon closer examination he is just saying that the
vertical sonority of the tonic major chord is more consonant being represented
by the #4/#11 as opposed to the 4/11 as it occurs in the Major Scale (Ionian
Mode). He has cleverly reoriented all the modes to represent this perspective
shift from the major to the lydian orientation. While it is true that the tonic
major chord sounds great with a #4/11 as a melodic color tone it doesn't usurp
the value of playing the Ionian mode on a major chord, just don't dwell on the
4th and even this can be acceptable, for example listen to jazz guitarist John
Stowel... Also the #4 is less consonant then the perfect 4th is in relation to
the root note as it is the inversion of a P5th.

Russell used the overtone series to justify his theorizing (while it doesn't
contain a perfect 11th it does contain a #11). This is fine for individual
partials but we don't hear that way, our ears have a "non-linear response" and
add in overtones automatically.
Also when we play a single note on a musical instrument it has all the overtones
(albeit in different volume intensities) relating to the root note of the single
"musical" pitch, therefore when we play a simple major chord each one of the 3
notes, {c, e, g } have their own overtones,
C= c, c, g, c, e, g, bflat', c, d, e, f#', g, a, bflat', b, c, etc....
E = e, e, b, e, g#, b, d', e, f#, g#, a#', b, c#, d', d#, e, etc...
G = g, g, d, g, b, d, f', g, a, b, c#, d, e, f', f#,  g, etc...

When the 3 notes are played we are hearing a very complex phenomena where all
these "partials" are mingling together, and there are actually clashes or
"beats" occurring between the partials of the 3 note chord being played. George
Russell I believe doesn't appear to  have take this into account in his theory.

His theory is therefore based on a false assumption that the when we play notes
in a scale they are equivalent to individual partials from the overtone series,
which they are clearly not.

Therefore I feel his theory while being an interesting alternate way of thinking
is essentially redundant and unnecessary.

I think there is more to my argument but don't want to make this already more
long winded then it already is.

If you want to add in the Lydian idea to you melodic note choices just weight
the #4 higher then the P4 played on Tonic Major chords and that should do it.

All the best :) budge

--- In impro-visor@yahoogroups.com, Gary Pajer <gary.pajer@...> wrote:

> It's very easy to get started with python.

Yes, it is, but I personally haven't. Almost all of the digital signal
processing that I want to do exists in R, which I already know. It would be
easier for me to build an R MIDI library (in C) than a whole bunch of
functionality in Python, a language I don't know.

On Sun, Oct 11, 2009 at 8:24 PM, zznmeb <zznmeb@...> wrote:

>
> > MIDI is the only sound production means currently.
>
> CSound has a pretty good MIDI interface, but its synthesis language is
> essentially assembler-level and I want something more like R or Matlab. In
> fact, there's actually some Matlab code out there that does exactly what I
> want, but I don't think either R or Matlab can even read MIDI files.
>

But python <http://www.python.org> can.  And there are math analysis
packages for python that provide all the functionalilty of Matlab at none of the
cost. (All open source.)  See Numpy and Scipy <http://www.scipy.org>
.  Python is also the scripting language for
Blue <http://www.csounds.com/stevenyi/blue/>,
and there are many audio packages.


It's very easy to get started with python.

--- In impro-visor@yahoogroups.com, "Robert" <keller@...> wrote:

> It influenced some of the scale choices in the vocabulary file, but
> I would suggest starting afresh. Let me know if I can help in some
> way.

It looks pretty simple, given the existing grammar infrastructure. I just
discovered Russell and the LCCTO a few weeks ago, so I'm expecting to spend a
fair amount of time on this. But what I don't want to do is re-invent a lot of
object or function "definitions" in some general-purpose programming language. I
don't want to build a domain-specific language, I want to build music. ;-) It
looks like Impro-Visor has all that foundation work done.

> MIDI is the only sound production means currently.

CSound has a pretty good MIDI interface, but its synthesis language is
essentially assembler-level and I want something more like R or Matlab. In fact,
there's actually some Matlab code out there that does exactly what I want, but I
don't think either R or Matlab can even read MIDI files.