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Posted by John Valentino on 5/1/2004, 10:23 pm, in reply to "Re: Four-part Harmony Writing Program" This program is based on the rules of four-part voice leading and functional harmony found in "Tonal Harmony," which is the book used to teach Music Theory I, II, III, and IV at my university. Other schools use other books that contain slightly different rules regarding four-part harmony. There have been several post about "Instant Bach" stating things such as "but there is a rule where..." and "but this can go to that." The rules taught in universities regarding four-part harmony were basically invented after the fact to explain the voice leading in a given practice period; they are not absolute, only general guidelines. A good theoretical example of this can be seen in modal counterpoint, which is almost completely based on the work of Palestrina. There is actually a several page document describing the rules of modal counterpoint called "Instant Palestrina," which is where I got the idea for the name of "Instant Bach." As for tertian harmonies past a seventh, "Instant Bach" does not support them. If you really want V to be able to go to iii, you can actually add that progression to the program yourself by editing the file named "rules.txt." My only warning is that the program can only make a best guess at the voice leadings of progressions that were not included in the original program. However, I did enter the progression and it seemed to work just fine, my warning is mostly for stuff like letting a Fr+6 go to a N6. Anyways, open your "rules.txt" file and over-write it with this: Notice that the progression is listed backwards, there is a reason for that but it is mathematical and not musical. I might one day make another version of this program, but just not in the next few months.
Link: http://jvalentino2.tripod.com
68.94.219.226
I am not planning on making any updates to the program because I am busy with school, and have another program which I am actually being paid to develop.
(Copy under this sentence.)
I V
I 7V
I IV
ii IV
ii vi
ii I
iii I
IV I
IV iii
IV vi
IV V/IV
IV 7V/IV
V I
V ii
V IV
V vi
V viio
V 7vii0
V V/V
V 7V/V
V N6
V 7Fr+6
7V I
7V ii
7V IV
7V vi
7V viio
7V 7vii0
7V V/V
7V 7V/V
7V N6
7V 7Fr+6
vi I
vi iii
vi V
vi 7V
viio I
viio ii
viio IV
7vii0 ii
7vii0 IV
7vii0 I
V/V vi
V/V IV
V/V I
7V/V vi
7V/V IV
7V/V I
N6 I
N6 IV
N6 vi
V/IV iii
V/IV I
V/IV vi
7V/IV iii
7V/IV I
7V/IV vi
7Fr+6 I
7Fr+6 IV
7Fr+6 ii
iii V
iii 7V
(Stop copying above this sentence.)
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