Responsive and Variable Music
In this scenario, rather than supplying fixed music based on waves or MIDI sequences, you want to create a musical soundtrack that can respond to application events and play with variations. This type of music is sometimes called interactive.
Examples of responsiveness and variability in a DirectMusic performance include the following:
- Different patterns of notes are selected each time the piece is played. The application can influence the selection of patterns by setting a value called the groove level.
- A chord progression alters the notes as patterns are repeated.
- Variations occur each time a pattern is played.
- Information about the rhythm is available to the application, which can synchronize other events with measures and beats.
- Short motifs contained within a style are played on demand. For example, events in a game can each be marked by a short musical phrase.
- When the application replaces the currently playing segment with another one, a smooth transition is composed and played.
To make your musical segments fully responsive and variable, you must base them on styles. Styles contain musical patterns, which, unlike MIDI sequences, are not made up of fixed notes but rather are made up of musical values that become notes when a chord is applied. Style-based segments also contain motifs, short patterns that can be played on demand by applications.
When implementing this scenario, consider the following:
- You can base a style on existing MIDI content or create your own patterns.
- DirectMusic Producer enables you to construct collections of related chords called chordmaps, which you can then use to generate a variety of chord progressions. Chordmaps can also be used at run time to change the chords in a segment each time it plays, thus creating even greater variety.
- As the segment author, you have a great deal of control over which variations can play in different circumstances. For example, a variation can be designed to play only as an introduction or ending, only with certain chords, or only at certain groove levels.
Concepts
How-to
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