Chord Progressions

FretPet makes a great learning tool and quick reference for chord names and harmonies. You can do quite a lot of productive work with the program without ever creating or opening a document. But chords aren't the end of the musical story. To really get involved we need movement. This is where the Chord Bank and Picking Sequencer come in.

The Bank Window

Each chord in the Bank displays all the relevant information that makes it unique. When you select a chord in the Bank it becomes the Current Chord and the palettes reflect its various properties. Any actions you perform directly affect this chord.

The bank window is divided into two sections. At the top of the window is a heading which contains tabs for selecting parts (voices) and information about the current part. The rest of the window contains your chord progression, shown as a series of boxes, each with its own independent sequencer.

All About Parts
The Bank contains 4 Parts, indicated by Part Tabs at the top of the document window. Each part has its own instrument, velocity, and sustain settings. Chords in one part are completely independent of chords in other parts. To maintain synchronicity the sequence size is shared between chords (see The Sequencer below).

Since there are always three parts you can't see most operations only affect the current chord in the active part. Where an operation might affect other than the Active Part this will be indicated in the text.

Window Heading Features

• Part Tabs allow you to select the part you wish to edit. The chord bank always contains 4 parts, but you don't have to use them all.

  Click on an inactive Part Tab to select a part to view and edit.
  Click on the active Part Tab and drag to move the part.
  Option-click on the active Part Tab and drag to clone the part.
  Double-click any Part Tab to toggle Solo Mode.

• The Instrument Popup lets you select a General MIDI instrument for the current part. This is a quicker way to choose an instrument than using the Sequencer >> Instrument Settings… menu item.

• The Tempo Bar indicates the tempo for the whole song and all four parts. The tempo is represented in beats-per-minute (BPM). A "beat" usually corresponds to a quarter-note.

  Click and drag in the Tempo Bar to set any value from 120 to 600 beats per minute. A quick-click sets the value at a multiple of 20.

• The Velocity Bar applies only to the current part. The Velocity setting determines how hard notes in this part will be struck, and it is nearly equivalent to volume.

  Click and drag in the Velocity Bar to set the velocity from 0 to 127. A quick-click sets the value to a multiple of 10.

• The Sustain Bar applies only to the current part. The Sustain setting determines how long a note will continue to ring after it has been struck.

  Click and drag in the Sustain Bar to set any value from 1 to 50 jiffies (60ths of a second). A quick-click sets the value to a multiple of 5.

• Current Chord: The green highlighted chord is the Current Chord. All your chord-modifying actions will pertain to this chord.

Chord Features

• Chord Number: Each chord is numbered according to its position in the bank.

• Chord Circle: Every chord is represented by a small version of the Circle. The Chord Circle - unlike the Circle Palette - always has C at 12-o-clock.

  Click inside the Chord Circle to add or remove notes from the Current Chord.

• The Chord Name will always match the name in the Chord Palette. Each chord in the bank has its own settings for Root and Key, and these will change as you maneuver the bank. To keep a name stable while editing you should use the Root Lock described in The Chord Palette.

• Tablature Numbers represent the fingering of your chord. Each number represents the fret which is held down on its corresponding string. Strings are arranged with the lowest string on the bottom. (Reversing the stringing may or may not reverse this display according to your preferences. See Setting Preferences for details.)

• The Repeat Slider indicates how many times a chord will repeat when the bank is played.

• The Picking Sequencer and Sequence Sizer are described in the next section of the manual

Chord Bank How-To

Navigating the Bank

You can move around in the Bank Window using either the mouse or the keyboard.

Click on a chord in the bank to select it.
Click and drag to select several chords at once.
Up and down arrow keys move by one chord at a time.
Shift-up and shift-down arrow keys change the selection size.
Use pageup and pagedown to move by a whole page.
Use home and end to move to the start or end of the bank.

 

Adding Chords to the Bank

The first time you add a chord to an empty bank the same chord will be copied to all four parts. Once the bank has chords the Add Chord button makes a copy of the four voices of the Current Chord.

Click the Add Chord Button or press <A> to make a copy of the Current Chord.
Option-click the Add Chord button to copy the Current Chord without its picking sequence.

Deleting Chords From The Bank

Press delete or (del) to delete the current selection.

Clearing Chords

The Clear Chord button and corresponding menu items affect the entire selected range of chords.

Click the Clear Button or press command-clear to clear tones (but not picking sequences).
Option-click the Clear Button or press command-option-clear to clear both tones and picking sequences.
Shift-click the Clear Button, press command-shift-clear, or press shift-delete to clear picking sequences (but not tones).

Editing The Bank

The standard editing commands are available for making copies of chords to the clipboard. There are also a couple of added commands that make editing your compositions much easier.

Use the Edit menu commands to perform standard Cut, Copy, and Paste for single or multiple chords.

The Edit >> Paste Sequence menu command fills the selected chords in the active part with sequences from the clipboard, repeating them if necessary. The sequences pasted will be those of the part that was visible at the time of the Cut or Copy.

Edit >> Paste Tones fills the selected range with chord tones from the clipboard. The tones pasted will be those of the part that was visible at the time of the Cut or Copy.

Edit >> Select All sets the selected range to the whole bank.

Playing The Bank

• The Play Button plays the currently selected range.
• The Hear Button plays only the Current Chord.
• You can also use the Sequencer menu commands Play and Hear.

See the section on the Toolbar to learn more about the Loop, Active View, and Free Editing buttons.

The Picking Sequencer is where you determine the order and timing of the notes in each chord. It is modeled after a guitar tablature diagram. You can only click in the sequencer of the Current Chord. If you click in an inactive chord's sequencer area it will become the Current Chord.

Sequencer Features

• Horizontal lines represent the strings of the guitar. Each string has a single note associated with it, the note inside the Fret Bracket. If the Fret Bracket is turned off or if notes are unavailable in the bracketed region then a red x will appear in the tablature area and dots placed on these strings will also appear red.

• Vertical lines represent beats in your picking pattern. There are up to 16 beats available for each chord in the Bank.

• The Sequencer Sizer is the thick bar at the rightmost end of the sequencer. You can click and drag this bar to change the number of beats in a chord's sequence. Changing the size of this bar affects all four Parts.

Editing a Sequence

Click in the sequencer grid to make changes to the sequence. Different modifier keys produce different results. If you forget these modifiers you can always turn on Balloon Help by pressing the Help Key.

BACK NEXT • INTRODUCTION • REQUIREMENTS • QUICKSTART • INTERFACE • • BANK • ANALYSIS • PREFERENCES • EXPORTING • HINTS & TIPS • • VERSION INFO •