Full User Manual (PDF)
This VST plugin is intended to compose music based on the rules of
classical harmonic theory. The program lets you explore, by clicking the
mouse, the infinite world of harmonic theory without having to consider
rules of part-writing or keys and scales.
Embedding Harmony Improvisator has to
be inserted into your host software as a VSTi plugin. Per default it
routes the chords you trigger to a built-in synthesizer. You can
optionally load a separate sampler or synthesizer in your ho st
application and route the MIDI output of Harmony Improvisator to it
instead of using the built-in synthesizer. For that, choose „Midi out“
in Improvsator‘s „output“ option menu and connect both Harmony
Improvisator and your sound generator via a MIDI track which has Harmony
Improvisator as the input and the sampler / synthesizer as the output.
After setup you should hear harmonies when clicking and holding the
mouse on any of Harmony Improvisator‘s chord buttons.
First steps

The main key is chosen in the Circle of Fifths on the top right. The
two rows of buttons top left are the most important buttons. These are
the scale degrees of the chosen key. The upper row corresponds to the
current major key and the lower one to the corresponding minor key.
Below that you find more complex derivatives of these functions:
- Various inversions, i.e. the same chord with different bass note,
- one gender inversion,
- Suspensions, which are chords that tend to be solved to a simple harmony,
- various characteristic derivatives of subdominants,
- various characteristic derivatives of dominants.

If you prefer the harmonic functions to be named as chords (like A7)
or as scale degrees (like I-IV-V-I) you can change the display style in
the "Show harmonic function" dropdown.
Suggestions
On the middle of the plugin you find suggestions of harmonies that
could well follow the one you actually triggered. These are computed
anew after each choice of harmony. The first suggestion usually i s
a rather common sound, for example the standard resolution of a
suspension or of a dominant. To try more than one suggestion without
loosing the others, you can right click them to avoid that new
suggestions are generated after each click.
Recently triggered
Above the ten suggestion buttons Harmony Improvisator registers the
four most recent harmonic functions that have been triggered.
The harmonic timeline
Any harmonies that you play you can drag with the mouse into the
harmonic progression area. Individual harmonies can be deleted, replaced
or moved via drag and drop. With that timeline you can not only
visualize the actual sheet music of the chords you are interested in but
also you can compose up to seven different chord patterns for
assembling a piece of music. (See chapter "Patterns") To switch between
the patterns you can use the dropdown menu "Active Pattern". Individual
patterns can be played back in a loop with the play button beneath the
harmonic timeline. The Zoom slider on the right below the timeline
allows to zoom in and out to the desired time resolution to create your
style of music. Some other means of manipulation of the timeline are
available via right-click into the timeline whereby a drop-down menu is
opened. Use this to reset the whole pattern or to insert pauses.

Sheet music editing
The timeline not only shows the harmonic functions but also the
corresponding notes of the functions in a sheet music view. With the
mouse you can manipulate these notes: Once you have set up a little
harmonic progression it is possible to change any note or to remove some
notes as well. You can also freely put melody notes into the sheet
music view between the actual harmonies by clicking into an empty time
frame. By pressing c/n/b you can force a #/nothing/b to the active note.
To make writing of melodies and manipualtion of chord notes in the
sheet music view easier, you can make a certain scale or the notes of
the underlaying chords magnetic with the dropdown menu "Magnetic". This
means that when moving a note vertically it will always flip to the next
magnetic step of the chosen scale / chord. Per default, only notes that
are contained in the underlying harmonic function are magnetic unless
you choose a different "Magnetic" option.
Patterns and harmonic sequencing
When it comes to assembling a whole piece of music based on the
harmonic functions you have picked, Harmony Impovisator makes it very
easy for you. Just fill some patterns with harmonic functions for the
different parts of the piece and make sure the "Input" dropdown is set
on "trigger patterns". Now use your MIDI keyboard to trigger the
individual patterns which are looped and synchronized to the host
project automatically. Any C on the keyboard triggers pattern #1, any D
triggers pattern #2 and so forth. The triggering notes (C, D etc.) you
can record and tweak around in your host sequencer to generate long and
more complex arrangements.
You can alternatively export the actual notes of the active pattern
by clicking "Save" and then choosing "Save Midi". The MIDI file being
generated you should be able to load in any sequencer software.
Voicing adjustment
For
each pattern, you can adjust the representation of the four chord
voices: "Soprano", "Alto", "Tenor" and "Bass". To mute one of the
voices, click the glowing square for that voice below the "Save" and
"Load" buttons so that it does not glow anymore. Alternatively, you can
activate more than one square for each voice which means doubling that
voice shifted one or two octaves up or down. With the matix of voicing
adjustment you can thereby vary between "thin" and "full" voicing or
between bass-rich or treble-rich voicing of the chords.
Parallel instances of Improvisator With
the new version of Harmony Improvisator it is easy to set up combos of
different Instruments with independent voicings but with the same
underlaying chord backbone: Simply launch Harmony Improvisator
several times within one host project and route the different MIDI
outputs to different sampler or synthesizer plugins. When you manipulate
the harmonic progression or the main key in one of those Harmony
Improvisator instances, all the other instances are updated
automatically. You can write different voicings for different
instruments now and all of them are being played back synchronously
triggered by your host sequencer.
Special: Right click on scale degrees
In the circle of fifth you choose the main key of your music that is
the reference for all your harmonic functions. But often a piece of
music does side steps to other keys for a short duration.
For
example so called "intermediate Dominants" target other scale degrees
that the Tonic. To choose a scale degree to be the target key for a
period of time, right click it. All scale degrees now reference to that
target scale degree which is visualized by square brackets. For example,
if you want to create an applied dominant of the Subdominant click
right on "S" to mark the target and then click "D" in the scale degrees.
Such a construct is written "D [S]", it is a Dominant that tends to be
solved to S.
About the meaning of the harmony symbols Unless you change the „Show Function“ / „Show Chord“ selector this plugin by default deals with function symbols (like Dv)
instead of chord symbols (like E7). This may be confusing at a first
glance as these symbols are seldomly used in the context of producing
music with the computer, but they represent the essential concept of the
Harmony Improvisator: The chord symbol E7 for example only tells you
how to play the chord, which does not contain any information about the
meaning of the chord. Harmony Improvisator does not aim at presenting
interesting chords out of a black box that you can only play but not
understand. Instead, Harmony Improvisator is meant to present the value
of a chord in a certain context to the user and to let the user choose
as soon as he or she has spent a little time getting into the system. The
symbols are quite easy to understand: A small character stands for
minor, a large one for major. T stands for “Tonic“, the key itself. S
stands for “Subdominant”, the chord which is based on the 4th of the
key, and D stands for “Dominant”, the mostly major chord based on the
5th of the key. The progression T-S-D-T is called “Cadence”; it is the
most common harmonic motif in european music. The small upper numbers
(superscript) represent an added note or suspension in the corresponding
interval to the base note of the function symbol. s56 for
example means a minor Subdominant with added 6th, a so called “Sixte
ajoute”. Numbers below the symbols denote which tone is set as the
lowest note, the bass of the chord. The 3 for example means that the 3rd
is the bass, which corresponds to the first inversion of a chord.
- p / P means the parallel of a chord. The parallel of a major chord
is a minor chord 3 semitones below. The parallel of a minor chord is a
major chord 3 semitones up. ( So aminor is the parallel of C major and
vice versa)
- An upper “v” means diminished which has a dissonant, dominantic character
- A crossed symbol means that the first of the chord is missing
- DD means „Double-Dominant“, which is the Dominant targeting the Dominant
- sn means “Neapolitan Chord”, which has a characteristic small 6th and no 5th.
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