Starting on version 7.8.8, Mapping Tonal Harmony Pro macOS now offers two incredible and unprecedented add-ons: Upper Structures & Target Notes
These are two powerful features to study and practice tonal harmony.
View Mapping Tonal Harmony’s webpage
The new add-ones are also available in Mapping Tonal Harmony Pro for iOS (iPhone & iPad)
Upper Structures
If you’ve been following the Upper Structure Friday’s series on the mDecks Music Youtube Channel, you probably know how complex and extensive this topic is, not to mention the effectiveness of using upper structures on top of chords in a harmonic progression.
Thanks to the music theory embedded inside Mapping Tonal Harmony Pro it was possible to create an algorithm that turns any simple chord progression into one with Upper Structures applied to every chord based on the chord/chord-scale pairing assigned to each harmonic function.
The Upper Structures add-on will include upper structure triads and quartals that work over the current progression.
The add-on is fully customizable. You can choose from six different types of upper structures: Major Triads, Minor Triads, Augmented Triads, Perfect Quartals 47 and the two Altered Quartals maj74 and maj7#4.
You can also tell Mapping Tonal Harmony Pro to use Upper Structures that contain a set amount of tension: Random, Low, Medium & High.
The Avoid tritones in m7 chords is selected by default for tonal progressions but it could be turned off for modal tunes where the tritone in a m7 chord works great.
Based on the different parameters, the app can create many different variations of the progression using upper structures. Use the NEW VARIATION button to create a new upper structure’s version of the progression.
The UI on the iOS version is a bit different but offers the same features:
Target Notes
Every jazz player knows that for every harmonic function there are notes that sound more inside the chords than others. Even more, some notes are responsible for giving the current chord it’s sound (i.e. 3rd or 7th)
The ability to target different notes knowing the amount of tension and the color they create over the different chords in a progression is an essential aspect when improvising or arranging.
The Target Notes Add-On will create one-note melodies over any progression using different targeting techniques. This melodies could be used to practice improvisation or create arrangements of the progression for multiple instruments (each instrument using different targeting techniques)
Following are two examples using target notes over Afternoon in Paris.
The first one is creating guide-tone lines which give the chords their basic color:
These are the 3rd (or sus4), 7th (or 6th) and altered 5th.
This next one just targets the 3rd of the every chord.
There are many possible target notes to practice, individually and in sets creating lines. This add-on offers all possible target notes that work over the progression. Avoid tensions are replaced by the closest chord-tone (i.e. if the 9th is an avoid note it will be replaced by the root)
Mapping Tonal Harmony Pro may also play the melody created so you can hear it against the play-along accompaniment.
The UI on the iOS version offers the same features and looks like this:
So, there you go, two new add-ons in Mapping Tonal Harmony Pro macOS that will change the way you practice and look at music forever.
Here’s a link to the webpage for the app
mDecks Music Blog 