Help Ardour by naming & adding chords

#61

You need to find someone who explains it to you without making it more complicated than it is :slight_smile:
To me the most easy way to think about it is:
chords are stacked 3ths/terz

Long rant:
To me all is said with that simple statement, as long you know what a minor 3th/terz (3 halfsteps) and what a major 3th/terz (4 halfsteps) is.
(stacked from the scale the chord belongs to, usually a major scale. 1, 3, 5 and 7 from the scale notes)
With that easy statement, "chords are just stacked 3th/terz, all i need to know i can explain easy and straight forward.

There is three most basic ones: minor chord (minor 3 and minor 7) , major chord (major 3 and major 7) and dominant chord (major 3 and minor 7), and to me all other chords, as fancy the names might be, are just variations of those 3 basic ones (obviously the 7 already is “slightly” advanced).

To show it is a way to look at it: the formerly fancy sounding “diminished chord” to me is just a variation of a dominant chord ( rootless dominant with a 9). Or a minor 9 chord to me is just a minor chord with another 3th/terz stacked on top of the 7/septime, so basically still a minor chord.

That is probably why in jazz they often call the fancy stuff “extensions” (of the basic chord) or “alterations” (of the extensions of the basic chords).
Which goes back to my original statement, find someone who doesn’t overcomplicate it. Funny enough that are often Jazzers. For example Aime Noltee, youtube, does a very good job at explaining such things, and so they can be applied, not for the sake of making it sound fancy.

It is well possible that was already clear to you, and my comment was superfluous. Really sorry in that case.
Also, seriously: As long it sounds good and it works in real life: who cares (or should i say: “So what?” with Miles Davis? ).

#62

To show it is a way to look at it: the formerly fancy sounding “diminished chord” to me is just a variation of a dominant chord ( rootless dominant with a 9).

Small nitpick. a dim7 chord can be considered a rootless dominant chord with a b9. For example, a Ebdim contains the notes Eb, F#, A, C, which are all the notes except “D” of a D7b9. Also, and this is the magic of dim chords, these are also all notes except “F” of a F7b9 etc.

#63

I’m growing increasingly terrified that someone’s going to bring up Harry Partch.

1 Like
#64

That’d be close to a sheer heart attack

#65

:slight_smile: didn’t know about him…hahahahh
Listening to it right now…
Well…it’s sick :slight_smile: .
I find it very useful, for cartoons here and there.

#66

I think you should add the option for the widely used Guitar’s 3-srting power chord.
It’s just the regular 5th chord (or “power chord”) with the tonic’s octave added.
This would be something like
{P0, P5, P8}, (“Guitar 3-string Power chord”), (“pow12”).
I’m not sure about those namigs, though the definition is right.

Also, some other guitar-only chord shapes would be:
{P0, M3, P5, P8}, (“Guitar 4-string major chord”), (“gui-maj-4”)
{P0, m3, P5, P8}, (“Guitar 4-string minor chord”), (“gui-min-4”)
{P0, M3, P5, P8, 19}, (“Guitar 5-string major chord”), (“gui-maj-5”)
{P0, m3, P5, P8, 19}, (“Guitar 5-string major chord”), (“gui-min-5”)
{P0, M3, P5, P8, 19, 24}, (“Guitar 6-string major chord”), (“gui-maj-6”)
{P0, m3, P5, P8, 19, 24}, (“Guitar 6-string minor chord”), (“gui-min-6”)
Though, those are not as essential as the 3-string power chord.

3 Likes
#67

Hahhah 3 string power chords in a chord “assistant” :slight_smile: .
We (my bandmates & i , childhood friends) play so many 3 string power chords that my brain is getting confused why my left hand is suddenly being oddly shaped when it comes to occaisonal lead or solo.
Imagine firing up chord assistant to determine 3 string power chord :slight_smile: :slight_smile: :slight_smile: .

There’s also that thing that i call “Korn Chord”.
Basicaly, 3 string power chord with chromaticaly diminished 5th.
Useful thing to make something instantly sound grungy.

Or, how do you call that thing when you play a standard 2 string power chord (let’s say D) and then you drop the root halfstep down, practicaly making it an major 3rd and a root 1 octave up of another chord (A, in this example)?

Or my favourite - how do you actualy call a 4 string power chord where you, for example, play an G power chord(in E standard) like this:

  • first finger - 5th string fifth fret(D) and 4th string fifth fret(G)
  • third finger - 3rd string seventh fret (D)
  • fourth finger -2nd string eight fret (G)
#68

When we’re already talking about chords n stuff…
Imagine a visualizer like this one, built into Ardour for visualisation of midi lines you’ve done in Ardour:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaGAnGlmEwk
Of course, it would be awesome if it could “read” polyphonic information and convert it directly to midi from master channel(or any other), and then visualise it (if it’s all done with recorded audio, not midi), but i understand that’s a far fetch (i suspect it’s not very easy to convert audio which is "dirty"by nature, to something precise like midi). It would be awesome to have something like this to comunicate your ideas to bandmates of colaborators faster. And if they complain and say: “Gimme me the tabs” i would gladly reply with “Just learn the f…n notes, man!” :slight_smile:

#69

Ardour has supported polyphonic Audio to MIDI since version 6.0. The 9+ year old algorithm is perhaps a bit dated by today’s standard but still holds up rather well.

3 Likes
#70

Wow, look at that, it worked.
How come i missed this?
Great, thanks Robin.

#71

The last weeks i think a lot about that i can’t find any good overview or list or how-to’s about the included lua-scripts. Or where to look for non-included ones.