Harmony and Counterpoint Music Software

7/27/2019 Harmony and Counterpoint Music Software

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Harmony and Counterpoint music software

developed by ArpegeMusic

(http://www.arpegemusic.com/manual36/EN860.htm)


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Composition tools - Harmony andcounterpoint

Subjects covered: About this program Purpose of this composition module How to choose a set of rules ? Creating a new composition module How to use the composition module ? The composition module window Using the module Example 1 - 4 parts harmony with bass line Example 2 - 4 parts harmony with a given

melody Example 3 - Starting from an existing melody

and chord progression Example 4 - 2 parts counterpoint with a given

melody Example 5 - 3 parts counterpoint with

dissonances and rhythmic transfer Example 6 - Checking for errors in an existing

score Example 7 - Starting from a MIDI file What to do if the program finds no solution

About this program [Professional] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro]

Harmony and Counterpoint is a music software built onthe Pizzicato music notation range of products.

It is natively included in the following versions of Pizzicato:

Pizzicato Composition Light Pizzicato Composition Pro Pizzicato Professional

It can be purchased separately, in which case it includes Pizzicato Light (in fact a little more flexible version than Pizzicato Light ).


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The Harmony and Counterpoint software can also be used incombination with the following versions of Pizzicato, extending thescore limitations and other features available within the program:

Pizzicato Choir (targeted for choir music with 4 staves,unlimited measures and pages)

Pizzicato Keyboard (targeted for piano, organ and synthesizermusic, up to 4 staves)

Pizzicato Guitar (up to 4 tablatures and/or staves) Pizzicato Beginner (general purpose music notation program,

up to 16 staves) Pizzicato Notation (up to full orchestral scores)

This lesson is part of the general user's guide of Pizzicato but it is

written as a standalone manual so that if you do not know how to usePizzicato, you can however easily find your way to use the harmonyand counterpoint features. For some topics, a reference to the fullmanual is given so that you know where to learn more about a specifictool used inside the program.

Purpose of this composition module [Professional] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro]

This software module has one main purpose, which is to help you tocompose and/or arrange your music. It is not intended to compose for

you. It will help you to master the main rules of composition, so as toavoid most of the errors that make a music passage sound wrong.

A composition module contains a set of musical rules that can beassociated with a full score or only with a few measures or even a fewbeats in a score. It may include two or more instruments.

When adding a composition module into a score, an area is createdwhere you can interact to arrange and/or create music in that score.

Each composition module can be considered as a context for musiccomposition. The following composition modules are presentlyavailable:

4 parts harmony, using only fifth chords 4 parts harmony, using fifth and sixth chords 4 parts harmony, using fifth, sixth, sixth and fourth chords 4 parts harmony, using fifth, sixth, sixth and fourth, dominant

seventh chords 4 parts harmony, using fifth, sixth, sixth and fourth, dominant

seventh and the other seventh chords


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2 parts counterpoint 3 parts counterpoint 4 parts counterpoint

When we say "part" or "voice" in this manual, it is not limited to thehuman voice and it may be any instrument, whether a classicalacoustic instrument or an electronic synthesizer. It merely means "onemelodic line, a time sequence of single notes".

Harmony is traditionally the art of sequencing various chords to reachthe best possible musical effects. Counterpoint is traditionally the artof putting two or more melodies together to reach the best possiblemusical effects.

Harmony is mainly concerned with vertical analysis of the notes in thechords and counterpoint is more concerned about the horizontalstructures of each melody. However, this limit is mainly theoretical asin both cases you will find that both horizontal and vertical rules willapply. It is mainly a question of which viewpoint you favour whenyou compose.

When you combine several melodies together, they inevitably resultin a sequence of chords. Reversely, if you sequence a series of chords,the notes forming the chords inevitably result in creating various

melodies. So both aspects are intimately related and not strictlyseparable in practice.

How to choose a set of rules ? [Professional] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro]

If you follow a hamony or counterpoint course, simply select the setof rules that corresponds to the type of exercise you are working on.

For free music composition, here are some guidelines:

If you have a melody and/or bass line and need to find the othervoice (or even when designing both at the same time), use 2parts counterpoint, as you are more concerned with twomelodic lines here

If you want to harmonize a melody into a nice progression of chords, use 4 parts harmony

The choice between the 5 sets of rules for harmony depends onthe style of music you want to write.

The first four harmony sets will sound very classical, but someminimalist electronic music may also take advantage of them.


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For entertainment music, rock and electronic music, choose thefourth and fifth sets of rules.

The fifth set of harmony rules will introduce more dissonancesin the music, and will easily sound more jazzy.

Using 2, 3 and 4 parts counterpoint will give you moreflexibility if you need independent rhythmic patterns for themelodic lines.

The harmony rules will be more adequate when all parts havesimilar rhythmic patterns.

In any case, the interactive composition module area is never forcingyou on how to compose music. You are controlling the process andyou can ask the module to suggest combinations of notes that respectthe generally agreed upon rules of music composition. In all possible

combinations, you select the ones you prefer and you orient thecomposition process.

Creating a new composition module [Professional] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro]

The first step is to create a composition module. This section explainshow to do it and the following sections will explain how to use it onceit has been added to a score.

There are two ways to start working with a composition module. The

first one is to start with the Harmony and counterpoint wizard whichwill help you to create a score with the required specification. Thesecond method is to open any existing score (whether empty or withexisting music material) and simply add a composition module in aspecific area of that score. Let's take an example of each.

In the File menu, select Harmony and couterpoint wizard... Thefollowing dialog box appears:


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The left part of the dialog lists the existing sets of rules asexplained above, but with an additional option specifying howmuch staves we want to use. For instance, 4 parts harmony canbe written either on a system of four staves with one part oneach staff, or it can be written on two staves with two parts oneach staff. Similar setups are proposed for counterpoint.

The harmony rules are listed by progressively includingmore types of chords into the music. The labels on thelist specify the new chord type introduced by that line.For instance, the label " 4 parts harmony - Dominant seventh (on 4 staves) " means it will use the dominantseventh chord, but also all the other chords of theprevious lines.

The Select key signature button lets you select the scale inwhich you want to work, by specifiying the number of flats orsharps and by selecting the major or minor mode. If you select

D Major , you get the following:


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This dialog can also be used later in any score, if youneed to change the key signature. More information onthis tool can be found in the Help menu, Writing scores,Using key signature...

The Select time signature button lets you choose the timesignature by specifiying the numerator and denominator to beused:

This dialog can also be used later in any score, if youneed to change the time signature. More information onthis tool can be found in the Help menu, Writing scores,Changing the time signature...

You may give the score a name under which the document willbe automatically saved in the " My scores" default folder.


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You can also specify the number of measures of the score aswell as how much measures you want per system.

Important note : If you are using the basic version of the Harmony and Counterpoint software, the productof staves by measures is limited to 60, likein Pizzicato Light . This means that a score of 4 staves islimited to 15 measures. A score of 2 staves is limited to30 measures. In most cases, this is well enough to makeexercises or to search for a melody and bass line withchords. Combined with more advanced versions of Pizzicato, this limitation disappears.

Select the second choice in the list ( 4 parts harmony -

Fifth chords on 2 staves) and click on Create . The next step isto select the instruments you want to use for playback. Thefollowing dialog appears:

In the lower left part of the dialog box you can filter theinstruments according to the style of music. As we have


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decided to work on 2 staves, the dialog only proposestwo lists of instruments. The left one will be used by thebass and the part just above the bass. The right one willbe used for the two other parts.

This dialog can be called again later to changeinstruments. There is also a Random select thesounds button. Using it selects one instrument sound foreach staff randomly within the selected styles. Use it totest various instrument configurations, once you startbuilding your composition further.

Click on OK . The upper part of the score will now appear asfollows:

In addition to that, the composition module window willbe opened as a floating window. It will be described indetails in the following sections.

The upper band (appearing as light green in thesoftware) shows the limits of the composition area. The defaultarea is the full score when you use the wizard.

At the beginning of the composition area, each staff shows oneor two thick green vertical lines with two handles. They showroughly the range of notes acceptable for each part. They canbe used to increase or shift the range of the notes thecomposition module will suggest.

At the beginning of the area, attached to the upper band, youwill find two icons. The upper one ( ) is used to open andclose the corresponding composition module window. Click on

it and the window disappears, as well as the upper band and the


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range indicators. Only the two icons stay visible, showing thereis a composition module associated to that measure :

By clicking again on the same icon ( ) the window isdisplayed again.

Click the second icon ( ) and the composition module isremoved from the score. This will only remove the associatedcomposition module. Any note that has been generated by themodule will stay in the score. A composition module is usefulduring the process of music composition, but once the notes areplaying as you like, you can simply delete the module.

The other method to create a composition module is to right-click on ameasure and select the contextual menu item Composition rules,

Add...

Be sure to remove the above composition module as explainedin the last step. Now right-click on the second measure of thefirst staff and select Composition rules, Add... The followingdialog box appears:


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Here you can also select the set of rules you want to use, but itwill not influence the structure of the existing score. You canspecify how much staves to use for the module (but only asmuch as there are staves in the score) as well as the number of measures that the composition module will cover.Click OK and the following appears:

By dragging horizontally the two squares at both sides of thegreen band, you can adjust the time interval covered by thecomposition module.

You can also drag it vertically to adjust its position, for instance in thecase it would collide with the above system or with chord symbols orfor any other graphic reason. To extend the area to the next system,simply drag it vertically down and set it above the target system. Thecomposition module area is extended and the green band is displayedabove all the covered measures.

You can have more than one composition module in the same score.However, be careful to avoid that two composition modules overlapeach other, as this may cause unexpected behaviour and influences.

By right-clicking inside the measures of a composition module,the Composition rules... menu also offers the Modify... item whichwill simply open the composition module window in the same way as


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clicking the ( ) icon, and the Delete... item that will simply removethe composition module from the score (but not the notes of the scorein that area).

How to use the composition module ? [Professional] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro]

There are mainly three ways you can use a composition module, onlyone of them being really creative.

The first way to use it is to enter a full melody (or import it froma MIDI file) and ask the program to do it all alone. Even if theproposed solution may not sound too bad, it will lack aestheticdirection and coherence.

Composition rules are like the syntax of a phrase in English. Thecomputer can check for the syntax but not for the meaning of thephrase. You can have a phrase like " It ate the song from the houseinside the ice shirt" with a correct syntax but without sensiblemeaning. Using the composition module in this way will give you inmost cases the impression of a lack of meaning or direction in themusic.

In a similar way, you can ask the program to compose one or moremeasures totally freely, without giving it a first melody. The result

will of course be even more lacking in direction. However, byapplying some constraints and for short rhythmic patterns, this maygive interesting results, as the program can easily generate hundredsof them and you can select one that you like by simply listening to it.One or more solutions may contain some original combinations thatyou can then refine and develop. In other words, the process itself of using the composition module may stimulate your inspiration.

The second and most creative way to use the composition module isthe step by step research of solutions. You can start from an existingmelody and/or freely design the melody at the same time as the otherparts. You work the music note by note or with small groups of notes.

In this way, the number of solutions for each step is mathematicallylimited and you can easily listen to each one of them until you feel themusic goes in the direction you want. You can then go to the next stepand do the same. You can backtrack at any moment and restart oradjust some notes. You do not need to obey the rules. Sometimes themodule will propose a solution and by listening to it you will have

another idea for a variation. You can simply fix your solution, even if


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it violates rules. The rules are only there to help you but never to forceyou against your musical feelings.

A third way to use the composition module is as a support when youfollow a harmony or counterpoint course. You can do the assignedexercises given by your teacher directly inside the software, by usingthe simple note entry tools. You can hear the results as you progressthrough the exercises, but there are two other major advantagesincluded.

One advantage is that you can ask the program at any time to detectand show you the most common errors like parallel and direct fifthsand octaves, exceeding the range of voices, using dissonant intervalsor incomplete chords,... The second advantage is that at any moment

in your exercise, if you can't find a solution, the program may suggestyou the various possible combinations of notes in the step mode, sothat you can analyse them and hear how they sound. Sometimesbeginners will feel blocked by one situation and using this featuremay help them to extend their thinking process by exploring solutionsthey did not thought about.

In using the composition module with the purpose of learningharmony and counterpoint, you should first follow the directionsgiven by your teacher and of course not ask the program to do yourassignements by itself ! For the reasons explained above, the finalsolution would most probably not be acceptable to your teacher, as itwould lack musical direction and meaning. The program is there tohelp you better feel and forecast all the valid possibilities and sort theones that will sound the best.

We will now examine the main window that helps you to interact withthe composition area.

The composition module window [Professional] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro]

There is one composition window associated to each composition areain the score. The window can be visible or hidden (in which case thecomposition module is not active).

Go in the File menu and select Harmony and counterpoint wizard... Then validate the two dialogs with the default values.A score with 4 staves is created, which contains a compositionmodule. The composition module window is automatically

displayed as follows:


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There are 4 main sections of the window that can be reached byclicking one of the 4 blue buttons on top of the window:

Solutions - This is the main part of the window, that is used toadjust various options and to apply the suggested notes orgroups of notes.

Staves - This section is used to specify the mapping of the partsto each staff in the score. You can also determine the rhythmicstructure to be used. Here is how it looks like:


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Rules - This is the list of the main rules used for composition.The list depends of the choice you made while selecting a set of rules. However, in each case you may disable one or more of the rules, simply by clicking on one of the small green squares(it then becomes red, meaning that the rule is temporarilydisabled).


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Errors - Once you have notes in the composition area, you canask the program to check for errors, against the list of rules.

We will now create a few short application examples and in the nextsection we will explain these 4 window parts in more details. The firstexample is to automatically arrange a short phrase.

In the first staff of the score, enter the following notes:

To do that, open the Notes and rests palette inthe Tools menu:


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To enter a note, select its rhythmic duration on the

palette and then click on the staff. You can move thenotes up or down. You can easily delete a note bydragging it left or right through the bar line. The same isvalid for rests. You can learn more about entering thenotes by going in the Help menu and choosing Writingscores... Introduction of notes and rests (1) to (5) .

In the Solution section of the window, enable the two check boxes Figured bass and Display degree . This will force theprogram to also display the degree and figured bass for the

notes that will be added. You can ask the program to propose a solution without further

direction from you. This is the method explained above, thatmay be useful for exploring many possibilities for a shortpassage. Click on the Compute button. The program willcompute and display one of the possible solutions that fits withthe given melody, for instance:


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Each time when you press that button, you may get adifferent solution. You will notice that the added notesare displayed in green, which means that they aresuggested notes. The original melody is never modifiedby the program.

At any moment, you can play the music by clicking onthe icon displayed on the upper left part of thecomposition window. Using it a second time stops theplayback. This playback control will start playing at thebeginning of the composition area.

If you click on a green note (or if you move it), the notebecomes black, which means that the note will no morebe changed by further suggestions. If you want to free anote again, right-click on it and select Free the note . Itwill then become green again and the next suggestionmay change that note.

Click on the Clean button. This button will remove any greennote from the active composition area and leave the originalmelody untouched.

Let's see now how you can work step by step, which is in fact themost interesting way to use the composition module to compose yourown music, because you give direction to the music at any momentaccording to your inspiration and feeling of musical aesthetics.


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Above the main green band, you will observe that the programdisplays empty squares that correspond to each note found inthe original melody:

They correspond to the various time slots where theprogram will analyse the music and suggest the missingnotes according to the set of rules present. They can be

used to specify a local selection of one or more timeslots where the suggested notes will be added, so that theanalysis is only applied to that local area inside thewhole composition area. This is the step by step mode.Here is how to do it.

Click inside the first empty square above the C note in the firstmeasure. The square is now filled with green and various iconsappear around it:

Each icon is in fact a shortcut to an important buttoninside the Solutions section of the main window. As theywill be used intensively in the step by step mode, theyare assembled above the chord so that you can easilyaccess them without the need to move the mouse back and forth between the main window and the selection of the time slots you want to work on.

Click on the small ( ) icon that is just below the green square,

inside the green band. This is the shortcut for


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the Compute button of the main section of the window. Thescore displays for instance:

Note that the solution you will see on your screen maynot be the same as shown above. The program uses arandom number to suggest one of the possible solutions,so that each time you can have another one. However, if there are for instance only 5 possible solutions, the fivesolutions will always be the same, but they may presentthemselves in a different order.

As you can see, only the first chord has been suggested.No other notes outside the limited area has been

changed. The green square limits the area of thesuggested notes. Here is an explanation of the iconsfound near the green square:

The ( ) icon on top of the green square is ashortcut to the Clean button of the main window,which simply removes all suggested notes fromthe limited area.

The ( ) will fix the notes of the limited area.

The notes are displayed in black and they will nomore be changed by further suggestions.


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100 % - This is displayed to the left of the greensquare. It is an evaluation of the current solutiondisplayed. 100 % means that all rules andconstraints has been totally satisfied. You willoften see less than 100 %, as evaluations are alsodone according to the quality of the melodic lines(too much disjunct motions deteriorates theevaluation of the solution, even if the solutionmay still be valid according to the other rules).You can consider this number as a comparativevalue of the quality of a solution.

1 / 10 - This is displayed to the right of the greensquare. It means that the displayed solution is the

first on a set of 10 solutions found. Click on the ( ) icon. This will display the next

solution that was found during the last computingof solutions. The number of the solution will nowdisplay 2 / 10 . Click a few time on this icon andexamine the other proposed solutions.

You can listen to the current solution by clickingon the ( ) that is just next to it. This will startplaying 2 time slots before the current chord, sothat you can hear the transition and decide if youlike it or not. Clicking on the same icon againstops the playback.

Clicking on the ( ) displays the previoussolution (the icon is not shown when the firstsolution is displayed).

So after deciding which solution we prefer (by listeningto them), we can now click on the second square (abovethe second note of the melody and then click its ( )icon to propose solutions to harmonize the second note.The proposed solution will also take into account thetransition from the chords of the previous notes.

According to the context, there may be one or moresolutions, but sometimes there can be no possiblesolution. In such a case, you can go back and use another

solution for the previous note. Further in this manual,you will find a section that explains what you can do


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when the program does not find any solution to a givenmusical situation.

In any case you can always click on the ( ) whileholding down the CTRL key, to force the program toignore the chords that are before or after the selectedpassage. For instance, if you have only one selected timeslot and click on the ( ) while holding down the CTRLkey, the program will suggest all the possible chordpositions for that time slot, regardless of any rulesinteracting with the previous chord or melody. In such acase, there may be of course errors in the listing, but youcan decide what to use according to your feelings. Rulesare there to help you and not to force you in any way.

In this way you can proceed further and continue through thearrangement of the melody.

When you get into a situation where there is no possible solution andwhere you must go backwards to change the previous solution, thereis an easier way to explore the possible combinations around a smallgroup of notes. Here is how to do it.

Click on the first square to select it. Then click on the third

square while holding down the SHIFT key of the keyboard.This extends the limited area to include the first three notes of the melody:

If you now click on the ( ) icon, the program willcompute possible combinations of notes that respect therules in this extended area. You may get something likethis:


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In this case the program found 9 different solutions. Youcan simply browse through them and play them asexplained above, so that you can select the one that gives

the best result according to your own musical directionand feelings.

Click on the Errors button of the main window. Click onthe Check button. As the program has generated the solution byusing the rules, there are no errors detected in the compositionarea. Let's move for instance the first bass note of the secondmeasure from C to E just above it. Click now on Check againand then on the first line of errors in the list. The window willdisplay for instance (it may be different, as the above solutionmay be different) :


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When you click on the error line, the score will alsoshow the notes that are related to the error, in this caseparallel octaves, with red circles:

The set of rules used here was the simplest one : only fifth chords intheir fundamental position, but it nevertheless gave you an overviewof the most important actions involved in the process of interactivelycompose and arrange your music using this module. We will nowexplain the various options of the main window.

Using the module [Professional] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] This section explains each option of the composition window. Let usstart with the Solutions panel of the composition window.


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The Compute button will start an analysis to find the missingnotes of a given passage (as selected by the green squares) or of the whole composition area (if no green square is selected).Previous green notes are not taken into account. If one or moresolutions are found, then the first solution is displayed in thescore. Suggested notes are displayed in green and originalblack notes are not modified.

You can specify fixed notes anywhere in the parts. For

instance, you could write the melody of the first measureand the bass of the second measure and let the programfill the missing notes.

The Clean button is used to delete all suggested (green) notesthat are present in the area (or limited area if green squares areselected).

The Set button will fix the existing green notes. The notesbecome normal notes written in black and the compositionmodule will no more change them.


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The Evaluation frame contains two sliders with global and localevaluation minimal values. Most of the time, you should keepthe default values. When the program builds the solutions, itcomputes an evaluation for each chord, each transition as wellas other qualities of the chords and the melodic lines. Theresulting evaluation is the global evaluation of a solution. If this global evaluation is less than the value of the first slider,the solution is considered too bad to be counted and it isignored. Even when the global evaluation of the solution isfine, there could be some specific item of the solution (chord,melodic interval,...) that can have a lower evaluation. If anyelement has a local evaluation lower than the second slider, theprogram abandons that solution.

By increasing the Global evaluation value, you increasethe global quality of the solutions that will be presented.By increasing the Local evaluation value, you preventthe various elements of the solutions to have a lowerlocal quality. You can play with these values for instancewhen there are too many solutions proposed and youwant to filter them. By decreasing the values, theprogram can find solutions where it could not find anywith the default values of these evaluation values.

The frame entitled Number of solutions to find is set by defaultto 10. You can increase it up to 100 if you need a large choiceof proposed solutions. This is the maximum number of solutions the program will try to find in an integral research(see further for integral or progressive research).

The next frame is used to browse through the solutions foundby the program after the research was completed. It displays thetotal number of solutions found as well as the number of thesolution that is actually displayed on the screen. Two buttonslet you display the next or previous solution. The globalevaluation of the current solution is also shown.

The next choice is set by default to Automatic research . Theprogram can in fact use two different methods to search forvalid solutions. The first is an integral research , where theprogram will examine all possible combinations.

With a few chords only, it is quite easy and fast to

examine all possible combinations and evaluate theresulting solutions to find the best ones. When the


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number of notes of a melody increases, the number of possible combinations increases very fast to millions of millions of possible solutions.

In this case, even a fast computer will take more andmore time to complete the research and another method,the progressive research method may be used. Thismethod is more similar to the way a human being wouldprocess when trying to solve the same problem:

1. It starts with the first time slot, list all thepossibilities for that time slot and find which isbest (highest evaluation)

2. It goes to the next time slot and list all the

possibilities for that time slot . It then removes thesolutions that violates the rules because of thenotes present in the previous time slots (forinstance if it finds a combination that presentsparallel fifths). It keeps the solution that has thebest evaluation value.

3. If at some point the program finds no possiblesolution, it goes back to the previous time slot,marks that solution as impossible and take thenext best one. It then continues the process untilthe end of the area.

You will often see this process in action when you ask the program to harmonize more than a few measures at atime. The dialog showing the progress bar will increaseand sometimes go back, until it finally reaches 100 %. If there is really a problem in the original melody that isimpossible to resolve without disabling a rule, theprogram may take hours to try all the possible paths. Inthis case you can click the Cancel button of the progressdialog and the longest valid solution that was found untilthen will be displayed.

The default value is Automatic research , which meansthat the program will first evaluate the number of possibilities that must be examined. If there are morethan one billion, it will automatically use the progressivemethod . Otherwise it will use the integralmethod .Note that in progressive mode, it will only find

one solution, even if the " Number of solutions to find" slider is set to more than one. If you want to


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examine other solutions, you can simply click the Compute button again, as the program uses randomgenerators to order the solutions.

The Estimate scales button is used to force the program toanalyse which scales will fit the key signature and the melody.It will detect most of the modulations that can occur within amelody and display the scales accordingly in the green upperband.

You can also decide yourself which scale must be usedat which point of the score. To do this, simply right-click inside an empty green square marking a time slot. Acontextual menu lets you change or remove the scale

specification at the point in time. However, if you click again the Estimate scales button, all scales will comeback to their default values according to the keysignature and the notes of the melody.

The Apply this solution button is simply a way to force theprogram to display the current solution again. For instance if you have modified the proposed solution and you want to comeback to it. It does not analyse the score again but simply displaythe current solution from the memory.

The next check box is entitled Use dissonances . This is mainlyfor use in the counterpoint modules, while using differentrhythmic values for different parts. In that case, the programmay or may not generate the dissonances shown in the frame:

Transition notes up or down : in a C Maj chord,this would be [ C, D, E ] where D is the transitionnote up, a note that is not part of the chord andthat is played between two notes of the chord.

Ornament up or down : in a C Maj chord, thiswould be [ C, D, C ] where D is the ornament up.The note of the chord escapes to a note that is notin the chord and then comes back to it (up ordown).

Suspension : the note of a chord of the previousmeasure is hold within a new chord that does notcontain that note.

If the program suggests dissonances, they will bedisplayed in orange.


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The second column of controls have the following options.

Take existing chords into account - If you add chord symbols tothe score, the composition module may take them to structurethe harmony of the composition area. This would be the casefor instance if you have a melody together with a chordprogression (for instance C, F, Dmin, G7, C) and you want toput this into a nice harmonization. You can use the chordsymbol tool of Pizzicato and add the chords symbols on themeasures. By checking this box and asking for suggestions, theprogram take them into account to arrange the different voices.

You can learn how to add chord symbols above themeasures in the Help menu, at Writing scores, The chord

tool... Take existing scales into account - This is only valid

with PizzicatoProfessional , Pizzicato Composition Pro and Composition

Light .These versions have a specific handling of custom scalesand may be used to influence the choice of the scales used inthe composition area.

Take existing notes into account - Most of the time you will

keep this option active, as it prevents the program frommodifying the notes you have entered. If you disable it, allexisting notes (in black) will be ignored and the module willsuggest notes for all parts.

Take existing vectors into account - This is only validwith Pizzicato Professional and Pizzicato CompositionPro . Music vectors let you draw a curve within the staff, thatroughly represents the shape of the melodic line you want toachieve. By enabling this box, the composition module will tryto fit the melodic line to the given graphic shape. Theassociated slider specifies the maximal distance (in half tones)to which the melodic line must follow the graphic shape. Byincreasing it, you give more freedom to the program. Here is asmall example of it:


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Graphic musical vectors are further explained inthe Help menu, in Intuitive music composition...Composition tools - The graphic vector...

Create chords symbols - If this check box is enabled, theprogram will generate the standard chord symbols above thestaff, for the area of research (symbols like CMaj, Dm, G7,...).

Tie identical notes - If checked, the program will tie notes of the same pitches. It may also group rhythmic values like twoquarter notes into a half note.

Disable beginning rules - In any set of rules, there is one ormore rules that specify conditions about the first chord to use.For instance, in most cases the first chord must be on the firstdegree, on its fundamental position. When you use thecomposition module for a whole exercise that must respectsuch rules, this is fine. But when you use it to adjust or editsome limited passage of a full composition, these rules may notapply. By checking this box, they will be ignored.

Disable end rules - The same principle applies for rulesconcerning the last chord of a composition. If you are using thecomposition module to edit a passage of a whole composition,check it to disable these end rules.

Beginning and end rules only apply to the start and end

of the composition area. When you select a few greensquares to suggest notes in a limited area, these rules do


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not apply to the beginning and end of the limited area(except if the limited area starts at the beginning of thearea or stops at the end of it).

Figured bass - By checking this box, the program will generatethe classic figured bass. The resulting text is in fact placed intothe lyrics associated to each note. The following popup menusare used to specify on which staff and on which lyrics line thefigured bass is added.

Assign - This button forces the program to assign the figuredbass to the selected composition area, for instance in case youdid not check the option before or if you entered all notesyourself. Clicking this button will place the figured bass on the

notes. Display degrees - This option will display the degree of the

bass note in the context of the current scale. In C, degree I willbe C, degree II will be D,...

Degree of the chord - If checked, this option will display thedegree of the chord used in its fundamental position. Forinstance, a chord inversion like E, G, C has the E note at thebass, but the real degree on which the chord is based is C, so

with this option enabled, it would be numbered degree I.

The next two options ( Enable augmented VII degree inminor and Enable augmented VI degree in minor ) are used forharmony in the case of a minor scale. The original melody aswell as the suggested notes may or may not use theseaugmented degrees, according to these options.

Sound selection... - This button calls the sound selection dialogbox explained in the beginning of this lesson. It is a quick wayto modify the sounds assigned to the parts of the compositionmodule. You may find more advanced options and moresounds by using the Instruments item of the Windows menu.Learn more about this in the Help menu, in Writing scores, Theinstruments view...

Let us now examine the Staves section of the main window.


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The left tree of this section is a list of the parts used by thecomposition module. In harmony, you will find 4 yellowfolders and in counterpoint from 2 to 4. The parts (or voices)are numbered from the bass up. The bass always has number 1.In harmony, the soprano voice has number 4, alto has number 3and tenor has number 2.

Inside each folder, there is by default one assigned staff in the score. If you click for instance on the first square

(in the first folder), you will see the following additionaloptions:

Here are the details:


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The first popup menu contains the list of thestaves available in the score. If there is noinstrument name assigned in front of a staff, thestaff is listed with its ordering number (1 hereabove means it is the first staff of the score).

The second choice is the rhythmic voice inside thestaff. In Pizzicato, there can be up to 8 differentrhythmic voices in a staff.

By using 4 parts harmony on 4 staves, onlythe first rhythmic voice is used in eachstaff. By using 4 parts harmony on 2 staves,here is how the parts are assigned to the

staves and rhythmic voices :

When you need to enter notes in the scorewith the note tools, you can specify whichvoice you edit by the small popup menufound in the upper left part of the main toolbar above the score. By default it displays"1-8" which means that the voices will beautomatically assigned. You can learn moreabout rhythmic voices in the Help menu,in Writing scores... Introduction of notesand rests (4) .

The check box Never modify is used to totallysecure one of the voices, so that the compositionmodule will never modify any note in that part. Itwill only take them in consideration whileanalysing the combinations, but never change it. If

the notes are written with the standard notes andrests tools, and if the Take existing notes into


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account option is checked, there is no need to usethis option.

The Range button is used to specify the exactrange of notes in that part. It displays thefollowing dialog box:

You can specify the limits by using the leftand right mouse click on the displayedkeyboard.

You can also specify the range of notes bymoving up or down the handles above andbelow the thick green bars that appear infront of each part in the score :

These bars roughly show the range of thenotes that can be used in the current clef of the part.

The next 3 items are used with more advancedversions of Pizzicato. The purpose is to be able toedit the 4 parts in a simple form that clearly showsthe harmony used, as we have seen here above.


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Once this structure is stable (or even during itsdevelopment), you can assign new staves to eachpart, that will in fact use that part to generaterhythmic patterns. This can be used to assign thefour parts to a woodwind section as well as to astring quartet and hear the resulting ensemble asan orchestra. In electronic music, the bass part canbe assigned to a dynamic rhythmic bass that willthen follow the bass line. Combinations arenumerous and they can be used to stimulate thecomposition process because when you hear theresult resembling more to the final effect youwant to achieve, it becomes itself more inspiring.

To assign a new staff to one of the parts,simply right-click on the folder of that part(in the above left tree of parts) and selectthe Add a staff item. You can then specifywhich staff you want to use in the existingscore (the staff must already exist in thescore). Right-clicking a staff in the tree willremove it from that part (but not from thescore).

By default, the Original choice is selected,meaning that the suggested notes will beapplied directly to the related staff.The Rhythmic choice will in fact keep anyrhythmic value present in the destinationstaff but will replace the note pitches by theone from the composition part. In that case,it can also use a transposition value that isadded to the original note (so that you can

assign one part to multiple instruments inthe orchestra).

There are two other modes that will in factarrange the melody already present in thescore, based on the scale or the chordsproposed by the suggested notes.

The Version number is by default 1.Pizzicato handles several versions of the

music in one measure. You can find more


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information about this in the Help menu,in Advanced features... Measure versions...

The right part of that window shows the following options:

You can specify the beginning and end measures of thecomposition area. It is the same as manually moving thesquares at the beginning and end of the upper green band. Youcan also specify here the exact point inside the measure, withunits (480 units is one quarter note).

The rhythmic structure is quite important to understand. Bydefault it is set to Based on all staves . The rhythmic structuredetermines the time slots where the program will do the

analysis to suggest missing notes.Each time slot is shown by a green square above it. Theprogram only takes into consideration the notes thatbegin on a time slot for the analysis. For instance, if youhave a melody with the following time slotsarrangements, only the notes marked in red will be takeninto account and the others will be considered astransition notes:

Here are the various possible ways to structure time in

the composition area: Per measure - One time slot is defined per

measure. It covers the whole measure and onlyone note will be generated for each part.

Every ... Rhythmic value - A time slot will becreated for each multiple of the given rhythmicvalue. A check box may be enabled for a dottedrhythmic value (for instance, in 6/8, you can set it

to 1 dotted quarter note to have two notes permeasure).


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Based on staff ... - Each note present in that staff will determine the beginning of a new time slot.

Based on all staves - A time slot will be createdfor each note found in any staff of the score.

Based on chord progression - If you start thecomposition by entering a chord progression (withthe chord tool mentioned above), one time slotwill be associated to each new chord.

Rhythmic structure - This option lets you definethe rhythmic structure used by eachvoice. Click on that button and the following

dialog appears:

This is mainly used for the exercises incouterpoint. You can determine the speciesof the counterpoint (whole notes againstwhole notes, half notes against whole

notes,...). For each voice, you can selectone or more of the above rhythmic patterns,simply by clicking on them. If there arefixed notes in the score, they will not bemodified by the rhythmic patterns.

You can select the basic duration (thewhole note by default).

Custom rhythmic structure - When you select thischoice, the existing time slots keep their present


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values and you can then modify the time structureas you want by the following actions :

To remove one of the time slots,right-click in its green square abovethe staff and select Remove this timemarker .

To add a new time slot, right-click inthe green band, at the time positionyou want and select Add a timemarker .

Warning : whenever you select anotherchoice in the rhythmic structure frame, all

custom editing of the time structure will belost and the time structure will be set back to the new one you have selected.

The Rules section of the main window contains the list of rules thatare present in the composition module:


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Some of the rules are expressed as limitations (like directand parallel fifths and octaves) and some contain itemsthat can be used, like chords. You can disable onespecific rule by simply clicking on it. The squarebecomes red, showing that the rule will be ignored foranalysis.

The set of rules used is determined when you create thecomposition template or add it to an existing score, butyou can at any time select another set by clicking inthe Change the rules... button.

Notice : In the more advanced versions of Pizzicato(Pizzicato Professional and Pizzicato Composition Pro ),

you can examine the details of the rules and even modifyor add new sets of rules. Doing so is however a morecomplex process and requires a good knowledge of music and computer logic. The document that containsall the rules is located in the third configuration of thedocument manager, under Libraries / Music libraries /

Basic libraries / Composition . This manual does notdetail the structure of the rules but any person with goodknowledge of music and computer logic can examine theexisting rules and their definitions so as to modify themor create new sets of rules.

The Errors section of the window lets you click on the Check error.The program analyses the composition area against the active rulesand make a list of the errors found. By clicking on one error in the list,the corresponding notes are shown in red in the score itself:


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When you have finished a composition, you can export it to an audioWAV file, to a MusicXML file (so that you can read it and arrange itin your favorite music software), to a MIDI file or to a PDF file.These options are available in the File , Export ... menu.

Now that we have explained every option of the composition module,we will demonstrate their use with a few practical examples.

Example 1 - 4 parts harmony with bass line [Professional] [CompositionLight] [Composition Pro]

Open the example number 100. To open an example, click onthe second blue button present in the upper left part of the mainscore window. Expand the Examples folder and go down withthe scroll bar to find the example. Click on the small "+" infront of it and then double-click on the name of the score foundin it :

Example 100 displays 4 measures with a bass line:

Here is how to find a harmony based on it.

Right-click on the first measure of the upper staff andselect Composition rules, Add...

In the list of composition rules, select the 4 parts harmony - Dominant seventh. Set the number of measures to 4, so that itcomprises the whole score. Click OK . The composition areaappears as well as the composition window.


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Enable the Figured bass and Display degrees check boxes inthe composition window, so that the program will display themwhen suggesting notes.

We will first try several chord configurations for the first note.Click on the first empty green square, above the first note :

Click on the small ( ) icon under the green square to displaythe first solution. Then browse through the solutions with thearrow icon that appears just to the right. Each time, listen to thesolution by using the ( ) icon (it starts and stops theplayback).

You will notice that 10 solutions were found. There can be infact more solutions, but as the default limit is set to 10, you canfor instance increase the limit to 100 by setting the sliderentitled Number of solutions to find in the compositionwindow. Click again on the ( ) icon under the green square

and you will see that this time the program has found 37solutions :

As it is the first chord of the score and as we are in thekey of C Major , the chord is always built on the firstdegree and the program only changes the way the 3 partscan be arranged on that chord. Check some of thesuggested possibilities and select one that sounds goodto you for a first entry. Here is one example, but you canchoose the one you prefer:


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From here on, you can either continue step by step orwith a small group of notes.

For instance, click on the second time slot and then on thefourth time slot while holding down the SHIFT key. The next 3notes are then covered and by clicking the ( ) icon, theprogram displays the first solution amongst 100 found. Bybrowsing them and listening to them, select the one that givesthe best sounding melody in the upper voice (you can use anyother criteria, but the upper melody is quite important). Here isan example:


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You can of course also directly decide and test notes of the melody. Let's say that by hearing the above solution,you suddenly feel that the next note should be the G noteabove the staff. Let's try it.

With the notes and rests palette, select the quarter note and addthe note, then select the next 3 green squares and ask theprogram to find solutions for that section, taking your addednote into account. Then browse the solutions and find whichone you prefer. Here would be an example:


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There may be cases when you select a note that willprevent any solution to be found. In that case, you canalso change the bass line if needed (for free composition)and/or reduce the number of rules. See the sectionentitled What to do if the program finds no solution.

To finish this example, you can select the last 3 steps andchoose your preferred solution. Here is what you could get:

You can also ask the program to display the standard chordsymbols above the system. Click the Create chord


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symbols check box and then click the Assign button in thecomposition window. Once you have decided that this solutionis the final one, then you can click the Set button and all notesbecome fixed (displayed in black). You can close thecomposition window and even delete it with the ( ) icon. Thescore now displays:

Example 2 - 4 parts harmony with a given melody [Professional] [CompositionLight] [Composition Pro]

Open the example number 101:

Right-click on the first measure of the upper staff andselect Composition rules, Add...

In the list of composition rules, select the 4 parts harmony - Dominant seventh. Set the number of measures to 4, so that itcomprise the whole score. The program has automaticallyselected that it will happen on 2 staves. Click OK and listen tothe example.


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This musical phrase is written in the key of D (with twosharps) and an A# appears in measure 3, which can beseen as the augmented 7th degree of the relative minorscale of B. As you can see it in the green band, theprogram has detected the scale change (the key signaturewas forced into D Major and not B minor) :

As the phrase starts with a rest, we want the first chord on thesecond beat. Drag the beginning of the composition areaslightly to the right until it starts with the first note, like this:

If you do not shift it, the program would suggest nothingfor the first rest, but the point is that the beginning ruleswould then no more be applied to the first chord of thecomposition and could then start on any degree. You cando it, but you have to know this.

Enable the Figured bass and Display degrees check boxes andset the Number of solutions to find to the maximum.

As you can feel when you listen to this phrase, it is justthe beginning of a phrase. The last note does not finalizethe musical idea. For this reason, we will disable the endrules by checking the corresponding box Disable end rules . You can do that whenever you analyse only a partof a phrase. If the phrase is not the beginning of an idea,you can also disable the beginning rules.

The program proposes several time slots to do an

analysis. In this phrase, we only want a new chord on the


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main notes and not on transition notes. We will use thecustom time structure.

In the Staves section of the composition window, selectthe Custom rhythmic structure . You can now remove the timeslots you do not want, by right-clicking the correspondingempty green squares and selecting Remove this time marker , toget the following:

Let's change the sound used for this piece to stringensembles. Click the Sound selection... button inthe Solution section of the window, selectthe Strings (ensemble) for both staves and click OK .

We can now start harmonizing the beginning of the phrase. Byselecting the first three time slots you will see that the programsuggests 100 solutions, which means there are probably more(as 100 is the maximum). In this case, to keep a close control of the direction of the music, it better to go step by step, startingwith only the first time slot. The program suggests 5 solutions.Select the one you like and continue up to the second mesure.This could result for instance in:

If you go further, you will notice that the program willfind no solution that satisfies the next measure. There areseveral ways to handle this situation and they are


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explained in the section entitled What to do if the program finds no solution.

As there is a change of scale right in the middle of the measurebecause of the A#, we can try to force the new scale to startearlier than on the second beat. To do that, right-click in thetime slot of the first beat and select Change thescale... Minor scale ... B min.

You can then easily continue the arrangement and find asolution you like. One example would be:

As this example shows, you can use the compositionmodule to find a harmony for a part of any phrase. Thismay be useful if you have composed a melody withsome chords, but you want to explore other possibilities.The above melody would obviously require a secondpart as it leaves the listener in suspension.

There is one very practical tool of Pizzicato that you can usewhile composing and searching for chords sequences.

The Music -Touch tool is located in the main palette(Tools menu) :

When this tool is selected on the palette, you can click anywhere on the score and the program will play all theinstruments at this location. By holding the mouse buttondown and moving horizontally, you can hear carefullythe chord transitions, go backward and forward and evensequence chords that are not consecutive, simply to testthem. By holding the CTRL key, you can click on achord and it will be hold until you click elsewhere on


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another chord. It is like a magnifying glass but formusic.

There is also a shortcut to use this tool without selectingit : click in the score while holding downboth SHIFT and CTRL keys of the computer keyboard.

Example 3 - Starting from an existing melody and chordprogression [Professional] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro]

In this example, we will examine a different situation. Here you havean existing melody as well as the chords progression. This is forinstance the case when you want to custom arrange an existing song.

Open the example number 102. This is a small excerptof Michelle (The Beatles) :

In such chord progressions, you will often find moremodulations and chord variations than in scolarharmony. If you keep the standard parameters, the

program may find no solution that satisfies the rules. Wewill see how to handle this situation.

As the melody and the chords are fixed, we do not wantthe program to modify them. We will use the two emptystaves to create a string arrangement that will play thechords.

Right-click the first measure of the second staff andselect Composition rules, Add... Select 4 parts harmony - Allsevenths and specify 6 measures for the composition area, witha layout of 2 staves.


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You need to use a set of rules that contains all the chordspresent, otherwise the program will not find solutions forall chords. The above set of rules contains all major andminor chords, as well as the 5 types of seventh chords. If your melody uses other chords like 9th, you shouldsimplify them for this type of harmonization, as thisprogram presently only handles the sevenths chords.

This time, the green band appears below the first staff.You can adjust its vertical position by dragging one of the squares present at both sides of the band, so that itdoes not hide a part of the melody.

The melody is not part of the composition area and we will only

take the chord symbols into account. Check the boxentitled Take existing chords into account and disable the boxentitled Take existing notes into account .

As it is only the beginning of a song written in F major, check the box entitled Disable end rules . As you can see, the lastchord is not on the first degree (which would be F) and bykeeping this end rule, the program could never assign an F Majchord at the end.

If you need to see the details of the chords suggested, check the Figured bass and Display degrees boxes.

In the Staves section of the composition window, select therhythmic structure to be Based on chord progression. We needone chord position suggestion for each original chord. You willsee that there is now one time slot for each original chord.

The chords progression has several modulations. Click onthe Estimate scales button, in the Solutions section of thewindow. The score displays the proposed scales in the greenband:


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The scales are proposed so that all the notes of theoriginal chords will correspond. There may be otherpossible configurations and you can modify them byright-clicking on the time slots and modify or delete ascale.

This would also be the case if we were using amodulating melody inside the composition area. Theprogram would try to find the best scales that contain thenotes of the melody.

This is an important step to remember, as if you do notadjust the scales, the program may never find solutionsfor the time slots where the scale is not adjusted to the

notes or chords. You may try to click on Compute or to work step by step, but

you will notice that the program will not find any solutionexcept for the first time slot.

This is because this type of chords progression goesoutside the standard range of classical harmony and forthis type of music, some rules are too restrictive. In thiscase, there are many abrupt and non prepared (in the

classical harmony meaning) modulations that willgenerate several kind of errors and chromatic passagesthat are not allowed in classical harmony. We need todisable some of the classical rules that are likely to causeproblem.

In the Rules section of the window, disable the rules number 6,27, 28, 30 and 31:


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If you now ask the program to suggest solutions, it will work.You can do it step by step or in one time. As the chords are

already precisely defined, there is less interest to work thearrangement step by step than when you compose a new song.However, you may do it for instance to control the way thevoices are lead (the general aspect of the chords : open or tied,the range of pitches used,...).

When you ask for one complete solution at once, the programwill most probably work in progressive mode and it willpropose you only one solution. You can force it to propose 100solutions by setting the slider Number of solutions to find to100 and by setting the research method to Integral research inthe menu that displays by default Automatic research . It maytake more time, but the program will then propose 100 differentsolutions and you can browse through them in the frameentitled Selection of displayed solution .

There can be hundreds of variations and one of them isfor instance:


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You can also influence the range of the arrangement,simply by adjusting the vertical thick green bars found tothe left of the composition area. There is one bar foreach voice of the arrangement.

Example 4 - 2 parts counterpoint with a given melody [Professional] [CompositionLight] [Composition Pro]

Open the example number 103. It shows a simple melody with

a 6/8 time signature:

In this example, we will first add a bass line playing witheighth notes.

Right-click the first measure of the first staff andselect Composition rules, Add... Choose the 2 partscounterpoint with 4 measures, on two staves and click OK .

Enable the Figured bass and Display degree check boxes. If you click on Compute you will notice that the program will findno solution, showing only rests in the second staff. One of the


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first thing to do in such a case is to check if the original melodyhas itself some errors according to the rules we are using.

In the Errors panel, click the Check button. Click on the firsterror line and the program tells you that there is one note that isnot in the range of the voice. Original ranges come from therange of the 4 voices in a choir. These are not absolute rulesand they depend on the instruments being used. Here we areusing the flute and the bassoon, so we can modify the range tofit the melody. Extend the upper limit of the range by draggingthe top handle of the thick green bar visible in front of the firstmeasure, so that it reaches over the faulty note. Click the Check button again and the error will disappear.

Trying again to Compute still gives no solution. If you look atthe range of both instruments, they are quite far away fromeach other, which means that most combination of two noteswill easily goes beyond one octave. There is a rule in thecounterpoint that prevents more than one octave betweenconsecutive voices. In this kind of arrangement, it does notmatter, as we are building a bass line against a melodic line andthe distance between them may be arbitrary. Inthe Rules section, disable the Distance between thevoices check box. Now try again the Compute button and therewill be solutions, for instance like this:

You can also work it step by step, which would be morecreative, as you can influence the way the bass is playingall over the melody.

By default, the rhythmic structure is exactly the same as

the original melody, but the music would be moreinteresting if the second voice has a different time


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structure. Let's say we would like only eighth notes atthe bass, so that the bass line would give the feeling of aregular flow against a changing melody.

In the Staves section, Rhythmic structure , select the Every1 Eighth note choice. This divides all measures into 6 timeslots. Then click on the Custom rhythmic structure and deletethe last two time slots (we want the bass line to finish at thesame time as the main melody). You can do this simply byright-clicking a time slot and selecting Remove this timemarker . The time slots are now displayed as follows:

If you ask the program to suggest new solutions, youwill get a continuous bass line using eighth notes exceptfor the second part of the last measure.

If you listen to it, you may notice that the bass line forthat instrument may be too low in pitch. You can adjustthe range of the bass so that it occupies a higher rangeand you can get a solution like this:

As an additional step, let's place staccato marks over thebassoon staff. Click on the selection tool in the main paletteand click in front of the second staff. The staff is selected. Go

in Edit , Apply symbols... , select the first symbol (staccato) andclick OK:


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Once the composition is finished, remember that you canclick on the Set button to fix all green notes. You canalso remove the composition module and only the resultof your work is left in the score.

Please note that this type of exercise can be done whileinteractively composing the melody, so that both melodyand bass line progress according to what you feel.

Example 5 - 3 parts counterpoint with dissonances and rhythmictransfer [Professional] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro]

Open the example number 104, that contains a short and simplebass line:

We will first add two voices with different timestructures. This is one example on how to use the variousspecies of counterpoint.

Add a composition area starting on the first measure of the

second staff and choose the 3 parts counterpoint on 3 staves for5 measures.

Adjust the vertical position of the green band so that it does notcollide with the existing staff. Check the Figured bass andthe Display degree check boxes.

In the Staves section, select the Rhythmic structure choice andclick the Define... button. For the upper voice, select two half notes and for the middle voice select half notes in syncopation(to select or unselect one rhythmic pattern, simply click on it):


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Click on OK . As this type of counterpoint can acceptdissonances, you can enable dissonances by checking the Usedissonances box in the Solutions section of the window. Thefirst two types are selected by default, but you can here alsocheck the last one, Suspension which means that the program isable to use a syncopation (for the middle voice, as show above)that becomes dissonant in the next measure.

You can now click the Compute button to see an example of arrangement. In practise, it is better to use the step by stepmethod, to have a better control on the direction of the music.Here is an example:

Notice that the use of dissonances is shown by drawingthe notes in orange.

You can influence the general solution by adjusting ormoving the ranges of the two voices.

As the program displays the figured bass and degree by

using the lyrics tool of Pizzicato , it will always add themon the time slots where a note starts (here on the first


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beat of each measure). If you want to have them on alltime slots, select another staff for the placement of thefigured bass. In this case the first staff would show it foreach time slot.

If you compose for a group or for a whole orchestra,each part coming from the composition module may infact be automatically assigned to one or more otherinstruments. We will use a simple example with the firstempty staff of this example and we will use the rhythmictransfer mode with a transposition of one octave up.

With the note entry tool, enter the following rhythmic line (ordesign you own), with no care about the note pitches (as they

will be arranged in the next step):

In the Staves section, click on the Voice 3 folder with the rightmouse button and select Add a staff . Click on the new staff itemthat appears in it ("1/1"). In the lower part of the window,change the Original choice to Rhythmic and set thetransposition value to 12 (in semitones, so one octave up).The Rhythmic choice means that the program will use therhythmic values that exist in the given staff (the ones youentered here above) and will change the pitches of the notesaccording to the results of the composition module.

Now click on the Apply this solution button (to use the lastsolution that was computed) or simply use the Compute buttonfor a new solution. For the above example, it would be:


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The idea is that the main parts can then be assigned tovarious groups of instruments. You can even do thisbefore starting to compose or arrange, so that you candirectly hear the combination resulting from therhythymic transfer to the other instruments.

To introduce new rhythmic values and rhythmicvariations, you can also use the rhythmic variationsdialog box, as explained in the Help menu, in Intuitivemusic composition, Composition tools - Rhythmicvariations .

Example 6 - Checking for errors in an existing score [Professional] [CompositionLight] [Composition Pro]

You can use the program to correct existing exercises, from

a MIDI file or by simply entering the notes with the note tools, as youyourself work on a harmony or counterpoint exercise. Let's open anexisting score and check for any error according to the rules.

Open the example number 105, that contains a short excerptfrom a chorale from Bach:


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Add a composition module on the first measure of the firststaff, selecting 4 parts harmony - All sevenths , on 4 staves and5 measures.

As we want to avoid the transition notes (the second eighthnotes in the score), first select Every quarter note forthe rhythmic structure and then click on Custom rhythmicstructure and remove the last time slot. Enable the Figured bass and Display degree check boxes.

Click on the Assign button in the Solutions panel, so that theprogram will display the figured bass as follows:


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You can now display the Errors panel and click onthe Check button. The program will find several "faults". Asthis composition comes from one of the big masters of music,this may seem strange and requires a few comments here.

First of all, this program only implements a simplifiedset of the main rules of harmony. There are severalspecial cases and exceptions to these rules and eventhen, they vary amongst different treaties on harmony.

But most importantly, harmony comes from theobservation of the masters of the past. General rules andmore specific cases have been deduced from the musicalready composed. That does not mean that each master

piece of the past could have been written from that set of rules. They can serve as guiding rules and should neverprevent nice music to be written. If you prepare anexamination in harmony, you better learn the rules andbe able to apply them. This program will help you in thisway. But if you simply want to compose freely, then usethe rules as a guide and never as a master.

Example 7 - Starting from a MIDI file [Professional] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro]

As a last example, we will show how to import a melody froma MIDI file and to add counterpoint on it.

Go in File , Import MIDI file ... and select the fileentitled Ex106.mid in the DataEN /

Examples folder. Click the Import button in the next dialog boxand you get:

It is a melody extracted from Chopin. We will copy thecontent and use it in a 2 parts counterpoint score.


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Go to Edit , Select all , then Edit, Copy . The measures are now inthe clipboard.

In the File menu, select the Harmony and counterpoint wizard... Select the 2 parts counterpoint (on 2 staves) . For thekey signature, select 3 flats (Eb Maj) and for the time signature,3/4. Set 8 measures per system in the popup menu and click on Create . Select the piano instrument for both staves.

Go to Edit, Select all , then Edit, Paste . The measures are copiedinto the score and you get:

In the Staves section, select the choice Every quarter note inthe Rhythmic structure . This will give us three notes permeasure, as a regular beat. Check the Figured bass and Displaydegree boxes.

If you check for errors, you will see that the melody has severalnotes outside the range and measure 3 does not respect rulenumber 11. Disable the rule 11 as well as rule 4, as the distancebetween the two voices may be greater than one octave. Extendthe range of the melody in its upper part by moving the top

handle of the thick vertical green bar. You can now click on Compute to see a first solution. Try to

adjust the range of the bass so that it has less space. This willforce the bass line into a smaller range with less motion. Hereis one possible solution:


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As you may expect, the harmony is not the one thatChopin used. Using the Compute button for a one shotsuggestion is of course leaving the direction of the musicto chance. Using the step by step method or measure bymeasure would let you give more direction to theresulting music.

What to do if the program finds no solution [Professional] [CompositionLight] [Composition Pro]

As we have shown in the above examples, there will be many caseswhen the program will not find any solution to your request. Thisalways means that there are too many constraints used and here is alist of things to check and correct so that the program can findsolutions.

1. First of all, check if the notes present in the score (the originalmelody, the bass line or any note that you entered yourself) arenot in conflict with one of the active rules. Go inthe Errors panel and check. If notes are outside the range,simply extend the range of that voice to include all notes. If aspecific rule shows an error and you want to keep your melody,then simply disable that rule.

2. If the composition area does not cover a whole musical phrase,it often happens that the part of the phrase covered will not startor end on the first degree of the scale, which will result in anerror. This may even be true for a whole musical phrase. In thatcase, disable one or both of the two check boxesentitled Disable beginning rules and Disable end rules .

3. Be sure that the scales displayed in the green band correspondto the existing notes and chords. Click the Estimatescales and/or change the scales. In most cases, the program

should find valid scales, but you may sometimes find morelogical scales that will provide more possible solutions. If the


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music is written in minor, be sure to enable the augmented VIIand/or VI if such notes are present in the existing music.

4. To extend possible solutions, you can disable the ruleentitled Distance between the voices . By default, the intervalbetween two consecutive voices is no greater than the octave(except for the bass in four parts harmony). This maysometimes prevent any solution from being found, specificallyin free composition.

5. In the same order of idea, you can increase the range of thevoices. It will help the program to find more possiblecombinations that may satisfy the rules.

6. When using the program outside the frame of an harmony orcounterpoint exercise, you may disable some of the rulesregarding the melodic intervals.

7. In the Solutions panel, you can decrease the global and localminimal evaluations required.

8. When using chord progressions with much scale modulationsand seventh chords (the set of rules with all sevenths), you candisable one or more of the following rule numbers : 6 // 27-28 //

30-31 // 7-8-9

9. By using the step by step mode for a given note, you can click the Compute button while holding down the CTRL key of thecomputer. This will force the program to suggest all possiblesolutions for that time slot, not taking into account what isbefore or after that chord. This may help you to explore thearea where the program cannot find any solution, so that youcan locate the reason why no solutions were found. Bychecking for errors you can then see what is possibly the causeand find which rule to disable.

10. As a last resort, you can also disable most of the rules. Butnever disable rule number one. The use of chords is alsopresent in the rules, like for instance Fifth chords . If youdisable that rule then the program can no more use fifth

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Harmony and Counterpoint Music Software

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