Re: [Denemo-devel] chords

[Richard Shann]

On Sat, 2016-09-03 at 15:04 +0100, Richard Shann wrote:
> On Sat, 2016-09-03 at 08:23 -0400, Nathan Stewart wrote:
> > I think you can do ties as well if you use note offs.
> 
> Yes. In this case however I'm just piggy-backing on the current note
> entry system. So, for example if you have several bars of rhythm
> entered
> and you play a chord, the cursor goes back to the start of the rhythm
> and enters the chord there.
> 
> This problem with entering chords on a tied rhythm is not exactly new
> to
> this filter, it also applies if you are using the sustain pedal or the
> ALT key to enter chords. In that case it is a little more gracious as
> it
> fills in the first of the tied chords (and the root note of the
> others)
> so repeating the chord for the tied occurrences is quite pleasant.
> I've not looked deeply into what is going on with the new filter entry
> method, but my guess is that the continuation onto the other tied
> notes
> happens before the filter gets control back, so you end up filling in
> the last of a tied rhythm and would have to work backwards to fill in
> the other notes :(

I've fixed this problem now: there is now a preference which can be set
to not fill in tied notes when playing in MIDI. With this set the cursor
does not move on after starting a chord on a tied note, which allows
chords to be entered sequentially on tied notes (either identical chords
or chords sharing at least one note).
However, you don't need to set this preference as the Chords Without
Pedal filter sets it for you.

I *think* this all makes good sense now - it would not be useful for
Denemo to fill in all tied notes with the chord that you play on the
first one, as the subsequent chords, although tied may not share all the
same notes. So the rule is, play in the pitches as if there were no tied
notes, then all will be entered correctly. The downside is, if you are
entering just a single-note chord you have to repeat it for each tied
note; that's why the preference is turned off again if you turn of the
Chords Without Pedal entry.

But, as I remarked earlier I never have occasion to do chord entry, so
it's up to those that do to give feedback here.

I realize you probably won't appreciate the underlying constraints
involved in not coding from scratch, which may make some ideas not
relevant to this approach - as I said earlier, you could write an
entirely scheme-based input routine to do whatever you wished, but it
could be quite an involved script and may simply not respond fast enough
to feel pleasant. As it is, you cannot play in rapidly with this filter
unless you have a formidable staccato technique as your note-offs will
inevitably sometimes arrive after the next note-on.

Richard