On 2/18/22 3:14 AM, Philip Leishman wrote:
On 2/18/22 10:00, mark_at_yahoo via Rosegarden-devel wrote:
The old triad version respected key
changes and also major-vs-minor, re-aligning the tonic triad's root to
the new key and switching the third between natural and flat.
The black key mode really relates to the black keys on the piano
keyboard which is, of course, independent of the key of the composition.
I think you are talking about a new feature - "highlight scale".
I'm confused because it looked to me that black key mode completely
replaced the old key-dependent root/third/fifth hilighting, so I felt I
was proposing restoring an old feature rather than adding a new one.
But I understand it being key-independent if instead if it's intended
solely as a visual aid, expanding the piano keyboard graphic on the left
of the ME across the whole grid. Piano players practice everything
(scales, chords, compositions) in all 12 keys so they're used to
implicitly conceptualizing how a given key/scale/mode falls across the
white and black keys. That's why beginners like me have a hard time
playing piano and why I'd like a "highlight scale" feature to help. I
also think it might aid users composing for other and/or multiple
instruments, but any real composer is 99% certain to also be an at least
competent pianist, so maybe it's a specious use-case.
I'll explain the reason for my confusion below, in the part about
hilight mode being switchable.
This
would be identical to the black key mode if we are in C major.
Yes, absolutely.
If we were in, for example, A major a "highlight scale" mode would
highlight the notes of that scale - A, B, C#, D, E, F#, G# with a
special highlight for the A.
Yes, with the rationale for the special hilight I explained.
Is the intent to add a "triad/black-keys" control to
the GUI to allow switching it on the fly (for users who liked it the
old way)?
The highlight mode is switchable in the matrix editor under
view->highlight. A new highlight mode should be selectable there.
My confusion ...
In my builds of both 21.12 and master/HEAD from the SourceForge
repository (local tree current as of yesterday) the Matrix Editor's
"View" menu just has:
View
Grid >
--------------
Toolbars >
Rulers >
I can't find a "highlight mode" option in any sub-menus there, nor
anyplace else I've searched in RG's interface. Is there some cmake/make
build option I'm missing to enable it? Could the feature not have made
it into the master branch?
Regarding dynamically switching the hilight scheme in general, I
realized after my last post that adding a pseudo-scale of "Tonic triad"
(if I succeed with the scale/mode enhanced design) would eliminate the
need for a separate "Old triad hilight" option. (There could also be
"Tonic seventh" for completeness.) Then also an "Absolute" vs "Key
relative" switch so that users who want can have the black keys stay
locked to the piano keyboard instead of moving when in a key/tonic other
than C.
So Setting the key to, say harmonic minor would not affect the key
signature but would be visible in the new "highlight scale" mode.
Correct.
Are
there any other places where this would have an effect ?
Possibly, and I thought about that but left it out because my post was
already too long -- like this new one's becoming. ;)
I haven't searched the codebase for it, but is the key+major/minor, as
set in this "Segment -> Add Key Change..." dialog that we're talking
about, locked one-to-one with an internal code object that contains just
that data? Or is it abstracted a bit more, with the chance to add some
translation in between? There must be some further metadata somewhere
because just knowing, for instance, that there's an F# in the current
key doesn't tell you that it should be placed in the key signature on
the top line of the treble staff instead of the lowest space. Of course
this doesn't affect the Matrix Editor but does the Notation one.
Adding arbitrary scales presents a little more difficulty although I
don't think it's insurmountable. What is the key signature of a piece
that's in the Eb Minor Pentatonic? I think that one's easy (it's the
same as normal Eb Minor), but what about Eb Blues, or Eb Whole Tone?
There's no standard major or minor key signature that has the correct
sharps or flats for those, and I don't know enough music theory to give
an answer. But I think it could be worked around, either by
semi-arbitrarily assigning "major-like" vs "minor-like" to the "weird"
scales and going with the standard key signatures for them, or just
punting the whole problem and rendering them as C Major with no flats or
sharps, with accidentals in any measure that needs them. There's likely
some other solutions, but again, it might require a separation of the
scale/mode used for hilighting vs that for notation rendering.
Certainly not a stupid feature. In my opinion you can go ahead with this.
Thanks for the encouragement. Let me see what I can come up with. And of
course I welcome any further discussion/ideas/suggestions.
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