GuitarChorder 1.0 (II)

As I promised a few days ago, I have improved the performance of GuitarChorder. The new features of this version are:

• The octave of every note in a chord can be changed to be reversed, raised or lowered.
• The chords configuration is recorded at the end of the program and read at startup. Obviously if we change the base chord, or its type, the program will recommend others and the user changes will be lost.
• Now you can see other modes and scales (Lydian, Phrygian, Blues, Pentatonic, etc). This scale is the tonic scale, whether you're in a major or minor mode.
• MIDI sequence of the selected chord progression will not end until you press the Stop button.

This new version can be downloaded at the GuitarChorder entrance of this blog.

Hope you like it. If you have any questions or recommendations I will be happy to develop, improve or clarify it for you.

Modes and Scales

This time we speak of the modes. In this blog we have seen the major and minor modes, which arise following the pattern of the scale of C and A respectively. However, there are others that when using them the sound is a little strange or at least different from what we are acostumed.

The scale of C follows the pattern of TTSTTTS (T = tone, S = semitone). This mode is called Ionian and if we start from the different notes and apply these patterns have the following modes.

Thus if we want to play the C scale in Lydian mode, this mode must be applied beginning with C, that is C-D-E-F#-G-A-B-C.

Obviously there are others, many come from Eastern music and on this blog we saw the blues scale, following the pattern of 3,2,1,1,3,2. Another example is the Lydian b7 which is very appropriate for dominant 7 chords as an alternative to Mixolidian, in this case the pattern is 2,2,2,1,2,1,2.

Soon I will include in GuitarChorder the ability to select other modes and scales. As soon as it's ready I'll let you know.