Subsections

- Note Data Format
  - Long Notes
  - Using Defaults
  - Other Commands
- KeySig
- AutoSoloTracks
- Drum Solo Tracks

#
Solo and Melody Tracks

So far the creation of accompaniment tracks using drum and chord patterns has been discussed. However, there are times when chording (and chord variations such as arpeggios) are not sufficient. Sometimes you might want a real melody line!

MMA has two internal track types reserved for melodic lines. They are the SOLO and MELODY tracks. These two track types are identical with two major exceptions:

- SOLO tracks are only initialized once, at start up. Commands like SEQCLEAR are ignored by SOLO tracks.

- No settings in SOLO tracks are saved or restored with GROOVE commands.

These differences mean that you can set parameters for a SOLO track in a preamble in your music file and have those settings valid for the entire song. For example, you may want to set an instrument at the top of a song:

Solo Voice TenorSax

On the other hand, MELODY tracks save and restore grooves just like all the other available tracks. If you have the following sequence in a song file:

Melody Voice TenorSax Groove Blues ...musical data

no one will be surprised to find that the MELODY track playing with the default voice (Piano).

As a general rule, MELODY tracks have been designed as a “voice” to accompany a predefined form defined in a GROOVE--it is a good idea to define MELODY parameters as part of a GROOVE. SOLO tracks are thought to be specific to a certain song file, with their parameters defined in the song file.

Apart from the exceptions noted above, SOLO and MELODY tracks are identical.

Unlike the other available tracks, you do not define a sequence or pattern for a SOLO or MELODY track. Instead, you specify a series of notes as a RIFF pattern. For example, consider the first two bars of “Bill Bailey” (the details of melody notation will be covered later in this chapter):

Solo Riff 4c;2d;4f; F Solo Riff 4.a;8g#;4a;4c+; F

In this example the melody has been added to the song file.

Specifying a RIFF for each bar of your song can get tedious, so there is a shortcut ...any data surrounded by curly brackets “{ }” is interpreted as a RIFF for a SOLO or MELODY track. This means that the above example could be rewritten as:

F {4c;2d;4f;} F {4.a;8g#;4a;4c+;}

By default the note data is inserted into the SOLO track. If more than one set of note data is present, it will be inserted into the next track set by the AUTOSOLOTRACKS command (here).

# Note Data Format

The notes in a SOLO or MELODY track are specified as a series of “chords”. Each chord can be a single note, or several notes (all with the same duration). Each chord in the bar is delimited with a single semicolon.10.1

Each chord can have several parts. All missing parts will default to the value in the previous chord. The various parts of a chord must be specified in the order given in the following table.

Duration
  The duration of the note. This is specified in the same manner as chord patterns; see here for details on how to specify a note duration.

Pitch
  The note in standard musical notation. The lowercase letters “a” to “g” are recognized as well as “r” to specify a rest (please note the exception for Drum Solo Tracks, here).

Accidental
  A pitch modifier consisting of a single “#” (sharp), “&” (flat) or “n” (natural). Please note that an accidental will override the current KEYSIG for the current bar (just like in real musical notation). Unlike standard musical notation the accidental will apply to similarly named notes in different octaves.

  Please note that when you specify a chord in MMA you can use either a “b” or a “&” to represent a flat sign; however, when specifying notes for a SOLO you can only use the “&” character.

Octave
  Without an octave modifier, the current octave specified by the OCTAVE directive is used for the pitch(es). Any number of “-” or “+” signs can be appended to a note. Each “-” drops the note by an octave and each “+” will increase it. The base octave begins with “c” below the treble clef staff.

Volume
  A volume can be specified. The volume is a string like “ff” surrounded by “” brackets. For example, to set the volume of a chord to “very loud”, you could use the string ffff in the chord specification (here) Of course, it is probably easier to set accented beats with the ACCENT directive (here). A volume setting applies to all the notes in the current chord and will be in effect for the duration of the current bar.

Tilde
  The tilde character, ~, can appear as the first or last item in a note sequence. As the last character it signals that the final note duration extend past the end of the bar; as the first character it signals to use the duration extending past the end of the previous bar as an initial offset. For details, see below.

Null
  You can set a “ignore” or “do nothing” chord with the simple notation “”. If this is the only item in the chord then that chord will be ignored This means that no tones will be generated, and the offset into the bar will not be changed. The use of the notation is mainly for tilde notation with notes held over multiple bars.

To make your note data more readable, you can include any number of space and tab characters (which are ignored by MMA ).

Solo Notation

KeySig 1b F { 4ca-; 2da-; 4fd; } F { 4.af; 8g#f; 4af; c+f; } F { 4ca-; 2da-; 4fc; } F { 1af; }

This example shows a few bars of “Bill Bailey” with the MMA equivalent.

## Long Notes

Notes tied across bar lines can be easily handled in MMA scores. Consider the following:

It can be handled in three different ways in your score:

- F {4c;d;e;4+2f;} F {2r;2c;}

  In this case you MMA will generate a warning message since the last note of the first bar ends past the end of that bar. The rest in the second bar is used to position the half note correctly.

- F {4c;d;e;4+2f~}; F {2r;2c;}

  This time a ~ character has been added to the end of the first line. In this case it just signals that you “know” that the note is too long, so no warning is printed.

- F {4c;d;e;4+2f~;} F {~2c;}

  The cleanest method is shown here. The ~forces the insertion of the extra 2 beats from the previous bar into the start of the bar.

If you have a very long note, as in this example:

you can have both leading and ending tildes in the same chord; however, to force MMA to ignore the chord you need to include an empty chord marker:

C {4c;d;e;4+2f~;} C {~<>~;} C {~2c;}

MMA has some built-in error detection which will signal problems if you use a tilde at the end of a line which doesn't have a note held past the end of the current bar or if you use a tilde to start a bar which doesn't have one at the end of the previous bar.

## Using Defaults

The use of default values can be a great time-saver, and lead to confusion! For example, the following all generate four quarter note “f”s:

Solo Riff 4f; 4f; 4f; 4f; Solo Riff 4f; f; f; f; Solo Riff 4f; 4; 4; 4; Solo Riff 4f; ; ; ;

## Other Commands

Most of the timing and volume commands available in other tracks also apply to SOLO and MELODY tracks. Important commands to consider include ARTICULATE, VOICE and OCTAVE. Also note that TRANSPOSE is applied to your note data.

#
KeySig

If you are including SOLO or MELODY tracks you should set the key signature for the song:

KeySig 2b

The argument consists of a single digit “0” to “7” followed by a “b” or “&” for flat keys or a “#” for sharp keys.

As an alternate, you can use a musical name like “F” or “G#”.

The optional keywords “Major” or “Minor” (these can be abbreviated to “Maj” or “Min” ...and case doesn't count) can be added to this command. This will accomplish two things:

1. The MIDI track Key Signature event will be set to reflect minor or major.

2. If you are using a musical name the proper key will be used.

Setting the key signature effects the notes used in SOLO or MELODY tracks and sets a MIDI Key Signature event.10.2

To summarize, the following are all valid KEYSIG directives:

KeySig 2# Major KeySig 1b KeySig 0b Min KeySig F Min KeySig A Major

#
AutoSoloTracks

When a “{ }” expression is found in a chord line, it is assumed to be note data and is treated as a RIFF. You can have any number of “{ }” expressions in a chord line. They will be assigned to the tracks specified in the AUTOSOLOTRACKS directive.

By default, four tracks are assigned: Solo, Solo-1, Solo-2, and Solo-3. This order can be changed:

AutoSoloTracks Melody-Oboe Melody-Trumpet Melody-Horn

Any number of tracks can be specified in this command, but they must all be SOLO or MELODY tracks. You can reissue this command at any time to change the assignments.

The list set in this command is also used to “fill out” melody lines for tracks set as HARMONYONLY. Again, an example:

AutoSoloTracks Solo-1 Solo-2 Solo-3 Solo-4 Solo-2 HarmonyOnly 3Above Solo-3 HarmonyOnly 8Above

Of course, some voicing is also set ...and a chord line:

C {4a;b;c;d;}

The note data {4a;b;c;d;} will be set to the Solo-1 track. But, if you've not set any other note data by way of RIFF commands to Solo-2 and Solo-3, the note data will also be copied to these two tracks. Note that the track Solo-4 is unaffected since it is not a HARMONYONLY track. This feature can be very useful in creating harmony lines with the harmonies going to different instruments. The supplied file `egs/harmony.mma` shows an example.

#
Drum Solo Tracks

A solo or melody track can also be used to create drum solos. The first thing to do is to set a track as a drum solo type:

Solo-MyDrums DrumType

This will create a new SOLO track with the name Solo-MyDrums and set its “Drum” flag. If the track already exists and has data in it, the command will fail. The MIDI channel 10 is automatically assigned to all tracks created in this manner. You cannot change a “drum” track back to a normal track.

These is no limit to the number of SOLO or MELODY tracks you can create ...and it probably makes sense to have several different tracks if you are creating anything beyond a simple drum pattern.

Tracks with the “drum” setting ignore TRANSPOSE and HARMONY settings.

The specification for pitches is different in these tracks. Instead of standard notation pitches, you must specify a series of drum tone names or MIDI values. If you want more than one tone to be sounded simultaneously, create a list of tones separated by commas.

Some examples:

Solo-MyDrums Riff 4 SnareDrum1; ; r ; SnareDrum1;

would create a snare hit on beats 1, 2 and 4 of a bar. Note how the second hit uses the default tone set in the first beat.

Solo-MyDrums Riff 8,38;;;;

creates 4 hits, starting on beat 1. Instead of “names” MIDI values have been used (“38” and “SnareDrum1” are identical). Note how “,” is used to separate the initial length from the first tone.

Solo-MyDrums Riff 4 SnareDrum1,53,81; r; 4 SideKick ;

creates a “chord” of 3 tones on beat 1, a rest on beat 2, and a “SideKick” on beat 3.

Using MIDI values instead of names lets you use the full range of note values from 0 to 127. Not all will produce valid tones on all synths.

To make the use of solo drum tracks a bit easier, you can use the the TONE command to set the default drum tone to use (by default this is a SnareDrum. If you do not specify a tone to use in a solo the default will be used.

You can access the default tone by using the special Tone “*”. In the following example:

Begin Solo-Block DrumType Tone LowWoodBlock End ... Solo-Block Riff 4r; SnareDrum; * ; ; ... Solo-Block Riff 4;;;;

The first solo created will have a rest on beat 1, a SnareDrum on beat 2 and LowWoodBlock on beats 3 and 4. The second will have LowWoodBlock on each beat.

#### Footnotes

... semicolon.10.1
  I have borrowed heavily from the notation program MUP for the syntax used here. For notation I highly recommend MUP and use it for most of my notation tasks, including the creation of the score snippets in this manual. MUP is available from Arkkra Enterprises, `http://www.Arkkra.com/`.
... event.10.2
  For the most part, MIDI Key Signature events are ignored by playback programs. However, they may be used in other MIDI programs which handle notation.