B is correct, in that it should probably be lowered, but the rest should probably be raised a half step so they still function in their positions. One of the main factors in a whole tone scale sounding alien is the removal of the leading tone, which is also a factor in most unaltered modes -- only the Major/Ionian and Lydian modes have this half step to the tonic of the scale relationship, and doubling the tonic is probably not optimum as it'll alter the shape of the melody and also make some fundamental changes in the harmonic structure of the piece too. D#, or Eb is the third scale degree, as a flatted note is far more common than an augmented supertonic note, and the lowered third is common in the minor/Aeolian, Dorian, Phrygian, and Locrian modes. Moreover, lowering it instead of raising it results in a missing tone in the scale, and since the third is one of the key color tones in any chord (in fact, the single most common) it should be present. Lowering this removes some of the character of the whole tone scale and changes the fundamental melodic shape of the line. C#/Db is most often encountered in tonal music as either the Neopolitan chord root or as a altered chord extension, and it's never a sharped tonic and always a lowered supertonic. F, G, and A are all raised to turn a normal scale into a whole tone scale, so raising them makes clear theoretical sense. So, to recap, only the B should be lowered, while the rest should be raised. And by the way, QWS is an interesting tool for doing score work. Since it functions to some extent as a beat based instead of measure based MIDI player you can do interesting things with it for scoring, especially if you know how to calculate the number of beats you need for a particular sound cue. (Excel is wonderful for this) There are a couple of things that would make it easier, like SMPTE support and a way to create a marker list set at particular points in a sequence, but it does the job right now fairly well. The one thing that I found myself wishing for was that pressing the home key on a track always takes you to the first note of a track, and there were times when it'd have been nice that subsequent pressings of that key would take me to where music starts up again after a period of no musical data on the track.
> -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of > James Bowden > Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2014 3:22 PM > To: QWS list > Subject: Re: QWS List Whole Tone Scale Transform > > Hello Nicole, > > I've just checked the whole tone transform and the data looks correct. > Basically, it transforms the following notes unchanged: > C, D, E, F#, G#, A#. > The other six notes: C#, D#, F, G, A, B, are lowered one semitone to > give only wholetones remaining. > > How would you like to alter this? > > Hope this helps. > > With best regards, > > James. > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Nicole Massey" <[email protected]> > To: "QWS list" <[email protected]> > Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2014 3:08 AM > Subject: QWS List Whole Tone Scale Transform > > > > Hello, folks. > > While scoring a short film this week I needed the transforms to > convert > > one > > of my melodies into other scales, and I found what may be a bit of an > > error > > with the whole tone scale transform. > > A flatted third is converted to a second instead of the third when > this > > transform is run. I worked around the problem by doing a note replace > to > > fix > > the note before running the transform again, but this probably needs > > fixing. > > This becomes a problem when converting minor or other minor mode > melodies > > into a whole tone scale, which should be a fairly common problem. > > Also, does anyone have a good transform for the harmonic and melodic > minor > > scales? Being able to convert something into a Hajaz scale, (also > called > > the > > Egyptian minor or Hungarian minor) which is the 4th mode of the > harmonic > > minor scale, with a single transform, would be handy. > > > > To unsubscribe or change list options, see > http://lists.andrelouis.com > > > > for archived list posts, see > > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] > > To unsubscribe or change list options, see http://lists.andrelouis.com > > for archived list posts, see http://www.mail- > archive.com/[email protected] To unsubscribe or change list options, see http://lists.andrelouis.com for archived list posts, see http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
