Using Impro-Visor What Is Impro-Visor?
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3/6/12 What is Impro-Visor? • Impro-Visor is notation and playback Using Impro-Visor software designed for jazz musicians. • For more details, please see: Robert M. Keller http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~keller/jazz/improvisor/ Harvey Mudd College 2 January 2012 Copyright © 2012 by Robert M. Keller. All rights reserved. Disclaimer Example of an Impro-Visor Leadsheet • Although its educational usefulness has long been established, Impro-Visor does not claim to be completely general music notation program. • For example, one can only display a single melody line with chords (i.e. a leadsheet). This is according to the original design for making it simple to use. • New features are being added, so eventually this constraint may be relaxed, if it can be done consistently with the original goals. Opening Leadsheet File from Opening Leadsheet Files the File Menu • 3 ways to open a file: • Using the shortcut ^O (Control-O) • From the File Menu • From the Icon Bar Click Here 1 3/6/12 Opening Leadsheet File from Open _tutorial.ls the Icon Bar Click Here, then refer to the previous page Browsing Leadsheets Play the Leadsheet • The leadsheets in a single directory can • 3 ways to play the entire leadsheet: be browsed step-wise by using the • Press I key purple arrow buttons. • Press shift-return • Click the lower left triangle icon • The order is alphabetic, as used in the underlying file system. Click here Stop Playback Pause or Resume Playback • 2 ways to stop playback: • 2 ways to pause or resume playback: • Press the K key • Press the L key • Click the square icon • Click the parallel bars icon icon Click here Click here 2 3/6/12 Tracking Line Auto-Scrolling • A green vertical tracking line shows the • The leadsheet window will scroll position in the playback, unless you turn automatically when tracking gets to the off this feature. bottom. • To make it scroll a little earlier, toggle the Early Scroll button. • The tracking line can be calibrated with the delay setting Transposed Playback Transposing Settings for Bb • For transposing instruments, such as Bb or • For Bb instruments, set the playback Eb instruments, a transpose setting is transpose to -2. provided. • Transpose the chords and melody notation up two steps: • To use it, the number of half-steps (positive or negative) should be set, and the chords • Select all (control-A). transposed in the opposite direction, if chords • Press control-E twice. are being read by the transposing instrument player. Transposing Settings for Eb Entering Notes by Clicking • For Eb instruments, set the playback • Move the mouse around and notice that transpose to 3. slots (vertical bars) appear in the • Transpose the chords and melody measure. notation down three steps: • Click on a slot to get a note. • Select all (control-A). • Don’t worry about note duration yet. • Press control-D three times. 8 slots • Optionally, transpose the melody up an octave: Press T. Click here 3 3/6/12 Determining Pitch Adjusting Pitch with Keys • The vertical position of the mouse when • Once a note is clicked in, it can be clicking determines the note’s pitch. adjusted, as follows: • D key moves the note down a half-step. • If you don’t get it exactly right, don’t worry. • E key moves the note up a half-step. Just click the new position to adjust. • S key moves the note down harmonically, i.e. fitting with the chord. • You will only end up with one note, the way • W key moves the note up harmonically. Impro-Visor is designed to behave. Adjusting Pitch with Keys Parallax Adjustment E key or • If you perpetually click the wrong position, W key your screen may be tilted at an angle. E and W do the S key same in this example • The Parallax adjustment moves the virtual because gb is a click position up or down to compensate for color tone for F13. the angle. D key This won’t always be the case. • Some experimentation may be required. Adding Another Note Shortening a Note’s Duration • Clicking in the range of an existing note • Click in the range of an existing note, cuts that note off and starts a new one. then press the R key. Click here Click where note Press R for rest should stop 4 3/6/12 Removing a Note Removing a Note • To remove the selected note, press the X key. Press X • The duration of the note will be added into the previous note or rest. Selected Note Gone • Other notes will not move, by design. To Remove Notes Selection Concept and Close the Gap • There is no special operation for this. • By a selection, we mean one slot or a region between two slots • It is best accomplished by dragging or cutting and pasting following notes over the notes to be removed. • This will be covered presently. Single-slot selection Multiple-slot selection (blue outline) (blue outline) IMPORTANT Selection Moves Extending a Selection • The next three pages show you non-standard moves • If there already is a selection, for making selections that you will need to know to edit efficiently. shift-clicking a new slot outside the selection will extend that selection. • They are used a lot, so spend a little time learning them. • They are designed to make editing fast. • This is the most complicated bit in Impro-Visor, so Shift-click bear with me. All the rest will be easier. outside Previous selection extends 5 3/6/12 Selecting a New Slot, Changing Selection by Dragging inside current selection • You can also change the selection by • If there already is a selection, “grabbing” an edge and dragging to the shift-clicking a new slot inside the desired position. selection will select just that slot. Drag Right Here Previous selection Shift-click inside Original selection Modified selection to select slot Selecting a New Slot, Selecting an Entire Chorus outside current selection • If there already is a selection, to select a • One page of a leadsheet is called a new slot outside, chorus (jazz terminology). shift click that slot twice. • The first click will extend the selection. • Use ^A (Control-A) to select everything in the chorus. • The second click will select just that slot. • All we are doing is combining the previous Click Here two moves. Two Ways to Unselect Everything Playing the Selection • Press the Escape (esc) key • To play the current selection, press • Click in one of the blank margins of the Enter. leadsheet • To play the current selection and continue on to the end of the chorus, Click Here press Shift-Enter. Click Here OR (left margin) (right margin) 6 3/6/12 Looping Playback Count-In for Playback • Press the Loop button to cause any playing to • A 2-bar count-in, consisting of drum rim be repeated. Off: :On shots, is available. • The default is 2 times through. • Click the box as shown. • Setting the number to 0 loops indefinitely. • Press the K key to stop playback. Setting Tempo Setting Volume • The tempo can be set approximately by • There is a master volume setting and a slider, or exactly by typing the beats mixer settings for each instrument. per minute (BPM). • All sound, as well as individual instruments, can be muted. • The range is from 30 to 300 BPM. Click to open mixer Entering Triplets Enter Sixteenth Notes • The default setting for slots is • This is similar to triplets, but press the 2 notes per beat. 4 key, for four subdivisions of the beat. • To set for eighth-note triplets, select a slot on the beat and press the 3 key. Press the 3 key Click in triplets 7 3/6/12 Enter 5-tuplets, etc. Enter 5-tuplets, etc. • The following subdivisions of the beat are supported for key press: • 1 No subdivision • 2 Eighth-notes • 3 Eighth-note triplets Brackets above notes are part of the notation. • 4 Sixteenth-notes • 5 Eighth-note 5-tuplets Brackets below show beat sub-divisions. They • 6 Sixteenth-note triplets will go away when the mouse is moved away. • 8 Thirty-second-notes • In addition, one can enter up to thirty-second note triplets textually. Changing from triplets back, etc. Details on Slots (not needed by typical user) • If you have triplets, but want sixteenth • There are 120 slots per beat, but at any one notes, say, you have to first get rid of time, only some of them show, depending on the beat subdivision. enough notes to make the beat divisible by 4, because 3 and 4 are incompatible. • A quarter note is 120 slots, eighth note 60 slots, sixteenth note 15 slots, thirty-second- note triplet 12 slots, etc. • Smaller durations are possible, but we don’t show flags for all of them. Reference: Slots for Various Notes (not needed by typical user) Contract and Expand • A convenient way to deal with small durations, and to correct other mistakes, is to Duration Slots Notes Per Beat Minimum Slots Per Beat use contract and expand. Needed Half Note 240 1/2 1 Half Note Triplet 160 2/3 3 • There are four operations on the current Quarter Note 120 1 1 Quarter Note Triplet 80 4/3 3 selection: Eighth Note 60 2 2 • Contract by 2 Eighth Note Triplet 40 8/3 3 Sixteenth Note 30 4 4 • Contract by 3 Sixteenth Note Triplet 20 16/3 6 • Expand by 2 Thirty-Second Note 15 8 8 Thirty-Second Note Triplet 10 32/3 12 • Expand by 3 Sixty-Fourth Note Triplet 5 64/3 24 8 3/6/12 Contract Operation Illustrated Moving left contracts by 2, moving right contracts by 3 Note Entry by MIDI Keyboard /3 /2 • There are two ways to enter notes by MIDI keyboard: • Step entry /2 /2 /3 • Real-time entry • The MIDI input should be selected /2 /3 /2 (The tuplet bracket through the MIDI Preferences frame.