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TONAL VISION OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS |
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DOWNLOAD THE TONAL VISION FREE TONAL IMMERSION COMPONENT HERE. (A Permanent-Use Copy of the current version is free for individuals and music labs -- supported by donations and modest advertising revenue.) |
Screenshot 1. The Tonal Vision is built on a MIDI display that looks similar to a standard MIDI sequencer or player program in the "Piano Roll" display. However, though the program will play a midi file, or loop through a section of a midi file, it is mainly intended to be used to explore music by having the user guide his mouse-pointer "interactively" through the music (all notes in score or individual notes, as desired). To support further understanding of the music, the program's middle-panel piano roll overlays all notes independent of octave, and also highlights the bass note with a hatch pattern. This supports easy chordal/harmony examination. (In the screenshot, the chords are I-root position, I64, I root position, V7, etc.) I have also tried to add aural and visual items designed to enable the user to listen to the sound of the music with key/tonal context in mind, including making easily available the key reference tones (tonic, cadence, chords, scales, etc). Further, using the built-in interface to my (free) Spectratune software, the user can overlay the detected pitch from the user singing or humming along with the MIDI file. (In the screenshot, which is for a piece of well-known folk-pop from the 1960s, the key is F major, the melody track is shown in yellow, the pitch overlay of my humming along -- inputted to the Spectratune using my webcam mic as a second sound card, is that little bent mark on the A (one octave below the melody) in both piano rolls, attached to the left of the red current position indicator. I also show the Spectratune exactly as it was running, set to show both single-pitch and spectrum of the singer only. (Although it could easily show also the spectrum of the MIDI file in a different color.) The thing on the bottom is some key-determination guidance, for when key is unclear and/or changing. (See the 3rd screenshot for an explanation.)
Screenshot 2. A person is singing the fifth, the root of the cadence V chord, while hearing it. They are a little low of center on that note.) See "EXPLANATION/INSTRUCTIONS" below for detailed explanation.
Screenshot 3. Showing new (3/08) Key-helper plots (the reddish item in the bottom section). The music in view is the start of Bach's Well-Tempered-Klavier book 1 D major. The first half of the section of music shown is clearly in the key of D major, based on the key-helper, and looking also at the consistency of the chord-pattern with D major.
The software, along with the companion Spectratune, was written initially for me (Norm Spier
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and my own miscellaneous personal musical-perception / music-analysis needs.
It is oriented towards the Piano Roll representation of music, as opposed to the standard staff representation. By doing this, I am trying to make tonal and harmonic happenings more directly visible than in staff representation. (Undoubtedly, people with advanced musical training and/or gifts to the level of thorough music-notation fluency have developed the ability to perceive these happenings in a flash from the score, practically sub-consciously. This software is aimed primarily at those without that skill, especially those of us who love to listen to music, and want to understand the music we listen to with some depth. Thus, the software is designed mainly for people who know basic music theory, and thus know the rules of how a score represents notes, but have not attained mental immediacy in the conversion of those score notes to sounds, chords, etc. )
Besides the music-analysis applications, my hope is that for non-musically-trained/gifted folks, my pair of programs will give them a tool to improve sense of tone and tonality by immersing them in various forms of visual feedback.
Frankly, I'm hoping the pair of programs can somewhat repair, when used over time in older (post-childhood) people, lack of skilled aural musical guidance in the environment during early childhood. This guidance would be regarding sense of harmony, scales, pitch-match, tonality, position in key, etc. Based on my experience so far, my belief is that it does do this, slowly, with repeated use across the various possible configurations (sing harmony against MIDI, sing melody against MIDI, scales, listen to MIDI and analyze, hum against CD, etc.). Of course, this is much slower and less perfect learning than that in early childhood, as the critical period has indeed been missed.
EXPLANATION/INSTRUCTIONS
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TONAL VISION OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS |

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About me, Norm Spier:
I am a free-lance mathematical statistician and computer programmer, living near Binghamton, New York, U.S. |
I have, have built up my aural perception from, and recommend, EarMaster ear training software. These links, through Amazon, seem to be for the same product that I have: EarMaster 5. The prices are different: one through Amazon direct, one through a sub-vendor.
Schonbrun is elementary, geared towards all types of music. It is an introduction. It doesn't go into great depth.
Henry is geared towards both classical and popular/folk, with a middle-level of detail. It is a general theory book. I'd probably recommend it as a first book for someone who has already developed a listening ear to classical music. (Note it has a 2nd volume, with the 2nd volume covering musical forms and being needed for a complete grounding.)
Kostka/Payne is a common harmony book used in college courses these days. It has a clarity and simplicity that is nice. It is a bit pricey new, so you may want to try to find a used copy on Amazon or Abebooks or Alibris.
Schoenberg is a classic, at points articulate. At other points (e.g. definition of secondary dominant), it is quite baffling. It has considerable reference to overtones as explanations for the rules of harmony, but some of these may be speculative. It is probably not a good first book to read on harmony. Beginners note also that it is harmony only, leaving out melody and other aspects of music theory, and therefore unsuitable to them.
Piston is also a classic, geared toward classical music, with numerous examples from classical music. It is harmony only, so not suitable to beginners in music theory.
In all cases, if you lack musical experience as a child or in college, you may find the concepts hard to get. Things may not sink in on first reading, and you may ultimately need more than one book. This is partially because music theorists seem to be a little right-brained for people called "theorists". Further, there are substantially different emphases, and ways of explaining things, in different books. Not to mention a certain amount of psychoacoustic speculation.
Here is a free public-domain (due to age) harmony book on Google Books:.
Dirk Hagmaans's Harmony (1916)
Here is another one:
Chadwick's Harmony
Another one:
Foote & Spalding Harmony
Another one:
Carolyn Alchin Applied Harmony with Examples from the Literature
Yet Another one:
Shepard Harmony Simplified (Systematic)
Yet Another one:
Anger Harmony
Another :
Robinson Aural Harmony
Another :
McCoy Cumulative Harmony
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MIDI Files are here, at Kunst der Fuge. Follow the link on the page to Digital Sheet Music, where sheet music is available for free with a low-cost membership. (For MIDI files, you need a membership to get more than 5 files per day.)
APPLE USERS:
Unfortunately, my software does not run on Apple. A user reported to me the existence of this RONDO software for MAC, which seems to have at least some of the same goals as my software. It has a free demo mode. (I have not tested it. No MAC.)
Singing Along Intonation:
People trying to sing along with MIDI popular music, and have their intonation corrected may be able to use my Tonal Vision with the Spectratune feeding it. There is some other software geared toward this goal, called Singing Coach by a company called Carry a Tune. It makes its own recording of your singing automatically, which mine doesn't. It probably has a more young-person-friendly interface. If you are interested, here is the Carry-a-Tune link. Here are some links to their products at a discount:
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My U.S. Health Insurance and Pre-Existing Conditions Site: , for US citizens (to know what peril they are in), and for others from developed democracies who just want a good laugh (at our expense I am afraid). |
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OTHER RELATED SITES AND BOOKS: |
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TONAL VISION OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS |