Quick guide on how to use mCircle

mCircle is a free online javascript that find all the occurrences of a substructure candidate contained in a main Structure.

What is a sturcutre?
Any group of two or more notes is a structure.
Example of commonly used structures: the Ionian scale is a structure. the Pentatonic scale, an augmented triad, etc.

mCricle graphs the structures over the Circle of Fifths, using notes as nodes and lines joining the nodes in order.

Here’s a example of the Ionian scale. Each scale is the associated with a vector, in this case V(1,1,1,1,1,1,6)n2

n2 is the node that gives the name to the structure. (C in the example)

In this guide will find all minor triads contained in the Dorian scale.
Main structure: Dorian Scale.
Substructure candidate: Minor Triad.

Here’s a clip showing how to input these two structure and find all minor triads contained in the Dorian scale.

The result is I, V and II.
In the Dorian scale the only minor triads are in degrees I, V and II
For example in D Dorian the minor triads are Dm, Am and Em.
Any other minor triads is not contained in D Dorian (another way of interpreting this result is: all other triads have notes outside the D Dorian scale)

Applying these results in your playing or writing.
1)One common application of these results is the construction of voicings (either for playing or writing) using upper structure triads. In this example:
Use the Em or Am triad as an upper structure triad of the Dm7 in a chord (when Dm is functioning as a IIm7)

2)If you are improvising over Dm7 you can think of the Em or Am triad as source for notes to choose from.

You can access mCircle at http://mdecks.com/graphs/mcircle.php

source: mDecks.com