Notation, midi notes, scales and modes

Hi,

I wasn't sure whether to put this here, i saw people giving feedback on @yaxu's recent post about "Thoughts on the course" yesterday but i thought maybe i could just post here to separate it out a bit.

One thing I don't think has been covered much yet (beyond me digging in the documentation) are the different ways of inputting musical notation to be played by SuperDirt's synths (in fact i don't know if Superdirt's synths have been mentioned yet?).

As far as I can see there are "notes" generated by the different samples e.g "arpy, arpy:2, arpy:3" etc but this is just a sample which has been recorded (as a major scale i think?) and then sequenced in order.

I know Superdirt takes midi notation i.e c5, ef5, g5 (Cm triad), but i've also seen it used just with numbers, which I presume works like 0 = tonic 4 = dominant, 7 = octave?
Does 0 = C?

I haven't been able to find in the documentation anything which allows you generate say a minor scale on Superpiano? Is there a global parameter setting for a root note and a particular scale? Can this be set per line of code i.e "d1 £" playing a minor scale "d2 $" playing a pentatonic?

Apologies if this has been covered or is going to be covered and i'm jumping the gun, it just feels like this is a bit of a block for me at the moment in terms of actually being able to create more melodic music in Tidal.

Thanks
Tom

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Yes we've been focussed on rhythm for the first four weeks. The first week of the next batch of lessons (after a break next week) will focus on melody, chords, scales, etc.

As far as I can see there are "notes" generated by the different samples e.g "arpy, arpy:2, arpy:3" etc but this is just a sample which has been recorded (as a major scale i think?) and then sequenced in order.

That's right. I think it's actually recorded as a pentatonic "ritusen" scale (samples contributed a while ago by @kindohm). Pentatonic scales are great because all the notes sound good together.

I know Superdirt takes midi notation i.e c5, ef5, g5 (Cm triad), but i've also seen it used just with numbers, which I presume works like 0 = tonic 4 = dominant, 7 = octave?
Does 0 = C?

Yes, this is actually Tidal reading note symbols as numbers. So 0 = c, then it's semitones, so a = 9, c6 = 12, etc:

"c c7 a fs ef6" :: Pattern Int

gives

(0>⅕)|0
(⅕>⅖)|24
(⅖>⅗)|9
(⅗>⅘)|6
(⅘>1)|15

I haven't been able to find in the documentation anything which allows you generate say a minor scale on Superpiano? Is there a global parameter setting for a root note and a particular scale? Can this be set per line of code i.e "d1 $" playing a minor scale "d2 $" playing a pentatonic?

You can use scale to convert numbers to a scale.

Prelude Sound.Tidal.Context> scale "ritusen" "0 1 2 3 5"
(0>⅕)|0.0
(⅕>⅖)|2.0
(⅖>⅗)|5.0
(⅗>⅘)|7.0
(⅘>1)|12.0
Prelude Sound.Tidal.Context> scale "major" "0 1 2 3 5"
(0>⅕)|0.0
(⅕>⅖)|2.0
(⅖>⅗)|4.0
(⅗>⅘)|5.0
(⅘>1)|9.0

In use:

d1 $ note (scale "major" "0 1 2 3 5") # s "superpiano"
  |+ note "e"
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