[pitpank]

Hello HN,

I'm Pedro, the creator of Harmopark (https://www.harmopark.app). A year ago I found out about this interesting hexagonal lattice named 'Harmonic table' and decided to build a web music tool whose UI includes this note layout with the purpose of exploring harmonic concepts and helping with composing.

Features:

- Build chords in a visual way and get their possible symbols immediately.

- Harmonize scales and their modes. Display a chord chart based on any scale.

- Create chord progressions and visualize them while they play.

- Easily switch progressions to any parallel scale/mode you want.

- Get a mirror version of a chord progression using negative harmony concepts.

- Use modal interchange borrowing chords from the parallel and negative progressions to create more interesting harmonic sequences.

- Export progressions as MIDI files to work with them in a DAW.

- Share progressions via link or embed code.

- Just use the harmonic table as an instrument to play around on. Sound can be adjusted choosing among several synth presets and effects.

I would love to hear your thoughts.

[marmaduke]

This is really neat. I would however watch a screencast or two where you use it, to get a better idea of what to do

Btw on a iPhone se the hexagons are a little hard to hit. I’m not sure what you can do about it.. I’m gonna open it up in a tablet I guess.

[pitpank]

Thank you! I might prepare some screencast demos, it's a good idea. I did a short screencast video a couple of days ago to show a new feature in a forum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAbLCSoBGMU. It's got no narration and gets straight to the point, though. The tool can be hard to use in small devices. Were the keys easier to hit using landscape orientation?

[slx26]

yeah, unless you add a mode to collapse the notes out of the scale to gain a bit of space... but even then, that might be a lot of work for (still) little gain (and it kinda kills the table)

EDIT: just realized that in some scales you would gain nothing

[zach43]

this is truly really cool! are there any resources you'd recommend to learn more about this area of music theory?

[pitpank]

Thank you!

I used Wikipedia quite a lot when researching on the harmonic table format, chord naming and symbols, scales and modes, Roman numeral analysis, and similar stuff. I found myself frequently visiting threads in https://www.reddit.com/r/musictheory/ and https://music.stackexchange.com/.

And of course there are great Youtube channels about music theory (I linked some of them in the Credits page of the website).

Most of the time I just search in Google and jump from blogs to forums to dedicated websites until I find what I'm loooking for.

[veli_joza]

Besides already given references, here's two more:

https://shiverware.com/musixpro/harmonic/chords.html http://www.altkeyboards.com/home

[scroblart]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonnetz

[slx26]

Felicidades, se nota que le has puesto mucho trabajo!

- personalmente, creo que usar dos colores (azul/rojo o verde/azul) seria más claro que usar solo rojo, aunque entiendo que tal vez quieres mantener el esquema de color actual. En todo caso, tal vez un pequeño gráfico en alguna parte lo haría más obvio (rectángulo horizontal de rojo claro a rojo oscuro, con texto indicando algo así como notas más - menos ¿armónicas? (dentro de la escala))

- estaría bien poner las configuraciones de los sintes más accesibles, quizás solo cambiar sonido, que es lo más divertido (aunque entiendo que el foco sea la "teoría"), en el menú de la derecha, y dejar iconos de ayuda al lado para acceder a ajustes más detallados o información como la que enlazas en "How To Use"

- sería genial tener algunas canciones de demo para ver de forma más clara lo que pasa en la tabla en "casos reales". incluso cargar desde midi? aunque probablemente no sea ninguna prioridad

seguiré experimentando, muy interesante! házselo llegar a Adam Neely y a Jaime Altozano! yo justo descubrí a Jacob Collier el otro día! mucha suerte!

[pitpank]

¡Muchas gracias, por el reconocimiento y por las sugerencias!

- Quería diferenciar las notas que pertenecen a la escala seleccionada de las que no pertenecen (como sucede en un piano con las teclas blancas y negras), pero sin utilizar tanto contraste como para hacer pensar que las notas fuera de la escala no se pueden utilizar o algo por estilo. Por eso más o menos utilicé la misma paleta, variando el grado de opacidad. Simultáneamente, las notas se van haciendo un poco más oscuras según se vuelven más graves. Quizá haga alguna prueba con dos colores, a ver qué tal queda.

- Suena bien lo de tener un atajo para cambiar el preset de sintetizador, aunque quisiera tener el interfaz lo más limpio posible porque en pantallas de móvil no sobra el espacio... Si se me ocurre cómo integrarlo lo añadiré.

- Se pueden cargar progresiones con los enlaces que se obtienen al compartirlas, como éste: https://www.harmopark.app/?s=c3g5jd7i_gn0g8JBX9GB1n2g4dzX0aF... . Quizás debería enlazar varias desde algún sitio para que los usuarios recién llegados puedan trastear rápido.

Jaja, puede que escriba a Jaime, sí, por probar... ¡Gracias de nuevo!

[jacquesm]

I realize you both mean well, but HN is an English language forum and if you want the other participants to have the benefit of your comments and responses I'm sure we'd love to see them in English (even though GT is only a few away, it's the polite thing to do...).

For those that would like to know what's being written:

"- personally, I think using two colors (blue / red or green / blue) would be lighter than using only red, although I understand that maybe you want to keep the current color scheme. In any case, maybe a small graphic somewhere would make it more obvious (horizontal rectangle from light red to dark red, with text indicating something like more notes - less "harmonics" (within the scale))

- it would be nice to make the settings of the syntheses more accessible, maybe just change sound, which is the most fun (although I understand that the focus is the "theory"), in the menu on the right, and leave help icons next to access more detailed settings or information like the one you link in "How To Use"

- It would be great to have some demo songs to see more clearly what happens in the table in "real cases". even load from midi? although it's probably not a priority

I will continue experimenting, very interesting! give it to Adam Neely and Jaime Altozano! I just discovered Jacob Collier the other day! good luck!"

-------------

Thank you very much for the recognition and the suggestions!

- I wanted to differentiate the notes that belong to the selected scale from those that do not belong (as in a piano with the black and white keys), but without using so much contrast as to suggest that notes outside the scale can not be used or something for style. That's why I more or less used the same palette, varying the degree of opacity. Simultaneously, the notes become a little darker as they become more serious. Maybe I'll do some test with two colors, see how it looks.

- It sounds good to have a shortcut to change the synthesizer preset, although I would like to have the interface as clean as possible because on mobile screens there is not enough space ... If I can figure out how to integrate it, I will add it.

- You can load progressions with the links that are obtained when sharing them, like this one: https: //www.harmopark.app/? S = c3g5jd7i_gn0g8JBX9GB1n2g4dzX0aF .... Maybe you should link several from somewhere so that newcomers can play fast.

Haha, I may write to Jaime, yes, to try ... Thanks again!

[pitpank]

I'm sorry. I hesitated over the language to use to reply to this comment. I understand it should have been English. Thank you for taking the time to post a translation.

[jacquesm]

No problem!