Chapter 3 - Producing Harmony
Harmony Modes Background
A quick description of why the harmony modes are required is that they help Harmony4 “sing the right notes”. Each harmony mode requires different input from you and is capable of producing different harmony sounds. We will use a little allegory to explain.
When you and a fellow musician get together to play and sing, typically some musical information is passed from one to the other before commencing the song. You do this in order to make sure the music sounds pleasant and not discordant. The information can be as simple as the name of a song you both know, a musical key or even pointing out the chords on your instrument. In this respect, Harmony4 is similar. You will need to share some musical information in order for it to do its job properly. The ways in which you communicate this information to Harmony4 are through the “harmony modes”.
Like your friend in our analogy, Harmony4 has intelligence that can contribute to making good music. You can choose to use this intelligence or not depending on the chord structure of your song and the harmony lines you have in mind. You make this choice when choosing presets to produce harmony in your song.
The factory presets are organized on the basis of the four harmony modes:
²Scale
²Chords
²Notes
²Shift
The “intelligent” harmony modes, Scale and Chords, calculate a harmony map with the following inputs from you:
1.The note the lead vocal is singing at any given moment;
2.Either the key and scale you’ve set at the beginning of your song (Scale mode);
3.or the chord root and type interpreted by Harmony4 from incoming MIDI track (Chords mode).
The map has an output note associated with every input note. This creates a harmony melody that moves with your lead melody while generally sounding harmonically correct with your accompaniment.
The
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