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Topics from the book,
The Sound of Music

Music Theory
Musical Brain
Synthesizers
Pitch and Tonality
New Music
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Composing
Scales and Chords
Arpeggios
Rhythm
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All About Sound

Arpeggiation

Music has vertical harmonic structures and horizontal moving lines. Scales are horizontal patterns of single semitone and 2 semitone intervals. Arpegiations are moving sequences of chord notes found in all types of music.

A 2 octave arpeggio in C major is played as C,E,G,C,E,G,C going foreword and backward (up and down.) A harp piece often consists of arpeggiated chords, often played in dense rising and falling note sequences. Students  learning to play  musical instruments are required to practice scales and arpeggios to master scale patterns and to develop performance agility. 

Professional electronic keyboards and sequencing software often include arpegiators  and other pattern generators that allow composers  to generate arpegiations with little effort. The most creative uses of note patterns explore polyphonies that exceed the capabilities of live performance both in speed and complexity.

Using midi composition tools, complex rhythms and polyphonies can be woven into a dense fabric of sounds.  One path to new music involves combing variable arpegiations with other patterns in evolving compositions that I like to describe as journeys of discovery. The problem facing a 21st century composer using digital tools is not lack of intellectual challenges and novel ideas but it is to discover pleasing sound experiences that avoid becoming noise.

EMU Proteus Arpegiators

The EMU Proteus 2500 includes sophisticated programming options that allows a player to trigger complex, multi-track sequenced data from a keyboard. The EMU arpegiations include up, down, up/down, forward assign, backward assign forward/backward and random patterns. You can also create unique patterns to control pitch sequences. You determine the tempo by choosing note values from a whole note to a 32nd note.  

Additional variables are count and extension  that control how often the arpeggio  plays with each key press, with the option of  transposing the repeating sequences. A recycle parameter resets the sequence to the beginning when the duration value has been reached. A latch function turns on and maintains the arpegiations until another key is pressed. The note range can be set to a user-defined section of the keyboard. It is possible to cascade arpegiations so one arpegiators controls and second, controls a third. I sometimes create performances using the keyboard to control several  arpegiators that can operate in sequence, overlap, and cascade.

We Seek Audiophile Perfection  We make great music at Persona Digital Studios. We have many years of experience with computer based sound recording and enjoy technology shop talk. We also have a well developed interest in how our brains process sounds. Our in house music production creates audiophile quality recordings presented as CD's, DVDs, singles and albums for Download.  Music Downloads are albums, packaged as MP3 files in a zip folder. Download  the zip folder and save.  In Windows, click on the folder and choose the extract all option to unzip the files to your hard drive. The MP3 files will play on all computers, laptops, notebooks, smart phones, iPods,. iPads, CD and DVD players and all portable music players. Some albums contain liner notes or minibooks as PDF files that introduce the music. More About Downloads.

Persona Digital Studio is located on the Sunshine Coast, Sechelt, British Columbia, Canada.
 www.personadigitalstudio.com  email  music@personadigitalstudio.com.
Our Music Catalogue includes recorded performances by the P2500 Band, Em4U, and the Persona Classical Consort.
Music downloads and books are available from our companion website: Persona Digital Online.