Harmony Space helper programs

Various helper programs come as standard with Harmony Space

Sequenced rhythm helpers

Monophonic

Polyphonic

MultiTrack

Live External Controllers

MIDI guitar helpers

Dance mat navigation helpers

X-box controller helpers

Ultrasound position tracking helper

Utilities

Harmony Space MIDI player

MIDI to OSC translator

These programs work on both PCs and Macs. Several of these helpers can work together in interesting combinations. Some of them require external hardware.

Rhythm helpers

Any time you are playing harmony space live with a mouse, or playing back a recorded chord sequence, you can use a rhythm helper program (or external MIDI hardware) to add rhythm to, arpeggiate, strum, or effect guitar finger picking patterns on the chords. Examples here.

How the rhythm helpers work

Imagine using a midi guitar to add rhythm to harmony space (using this helper). The six guitar strings each have their own dedicated midi channel (channels 1 – 6). When using the guitar helper, harmony space responds to noteOns and noteOffs on channel 1 by ignoring the midi pitch and sounding the root of the chord currently in force on the harmony space side. Signals from channel 2 are used to sound the second element of the chord, whatever it may be (typically a third), and channel 3 to pick out the third element (typically a fifth). This pattern is continued for chords with 4 or 5 elements – with suitable adjustments for if a chord is inverted.

However, if a chord has only three elements, for example, channels 4, 5 , and 6 are used to play the same three chord elements, but an octave higher.

Although the midi pitch data from the guitar is generally ignored, when a midi pitch is an octave or more higher than the pitch of the open string, the relevant chord element will sound an octave higher. Although midi pitch is ignored, midi velocity is respected.

The MIDI guitar helper is designer to work with the Fishman TriplePlay Pickup, which can be fitted non-destructively to a wide range of guitars.

If one player plays the guitar and another player plays chords in harmony space, those are the chords that will be rhythmically articulated.

Alternatively, if a chord sequence is played back in harmony space, that chord sequence will be rhythmically articulated (and automatically looped). This works both with curated songs and songs from the web.

Sounding of Chords onsets produced by clicking on the mouse (as opposed by chord onsets articulated by the rhythm helper) can be muted using the menu item hardware> Mute unmute mouse onset.

Sequenced Rhythm Helpers

The various sequenced rhythm helpers (monophonic, polyphonic, and multiTrack) all use the same mapping of channel to chord element as outlined above, but can be used straightaway without any external hardware.

The difference is that they use sequenced rhythmic patterns in place of guitar strings.

All versions have programmable preset patterns, and the presets can be traversed in programmable order and saved to disk.

In order to make the Sequenced Rhythm Helpers play nicely with recorded chord sequences, any rhythmic sequence can optionally be set to trigger the next chord in a recording at the end of each bar or iteration of the pattern.

Monophonic

Even the simplest version (monophonic) can produce startlingly interesting ideas with Harmony Space, for example using metric modulation, where successive presets have different tempi or different numbers of steps.

Using the Sequenced Rhythm Helpers with an interesting recorded chord sequence in Harmony Space can act as a very fertile idea generator and sketcher.

Polyphonic

The polyphonic rhythm helper is the same as the monophonic one but is polyphonic.

Multitrack

Curated songs in harmony space can be multitracked – though often only track one is used. However, where track two is used, it is typically used for a bass line, as the interaction of bass lines with chords can be pivotal to harmony. The multitracked Sequenced Rhythm Helper allows the chord track and the bass line track of a recording to be rhythmically articulated independently.

Live external controllers

Xbox controllers allow one to step away from the computer and use game controllers to play harmony space live (see example here and diagram here). Two Xbox controllers allow one player to direct a live chord sequence and another player to direct a bass line. Dance mats can be used in various combinations with one or two Xbox controllers to allow a group of people to play harmony space (see example here).

Live controllers in combination with rhythm helpers

Live controllers such as Xbox controllers and dance mats can be used with rhythm helpers. In this case the Xbox controller steers and controls harmonic aspects, while the rhythm helper articulates rhythmic aspects (see example here).

This can work well with the multitrack rhythm helper and two Xbox controllers, allowing a chord sequence and bass line to work independently.