Synthophone :: Dynamic Harmony

Synthophone

Dynamic Harmony

The Synthophone is capable of playing 5 part harmony. You can easily add or subtract voices, while playing, with special fingerings. The resulting harmonic structures are not simply at fixed intervals, but change to remain diatonic to a key area that you select. In addition, inversions of each structure may be played by varying the lip pressure against the reed.

You can specify a reference tonality, so that DYNAMIC HARMONY will generate chord structures diatonic to the key of your choice. Chords result from that reference tonality, the actual note played and the momentary lip pressure (for their inversion).

You may, for a change in flavor, want to move all voices in parallel motion. FREEZE HARMONY does just this.
The last chord played will be memorized and played in the same intervallic relation over the full range of the instrument.
You can still change the number of voices while in the FREEZE HARMONY mode.

HARMONY BASE

There are 9 different harmonic base materials:
3 are available from the EPROM and another six harmonic bases reside in the USER modifiable RAM memory.
These six USER bases can be personalized and saved by simply inputting new notes for each chord in the scale.
For example the bases are:

1	chords in thirds (like DYNAMIC HARMONY)
2	chords in forths (often used in modal music)
3	chords in seconds
4-9	USER

CHORD VARIATIONS through LIP PRESSURE

Chords can be varied according to your lip pressure in five different levels.

level 1	INVERSIONS (DYNAMIC HARMONY)
level 2	b-II SUBSTITUTE functions on high lip pressure ---> allows for chromatic "escapes" from the momentary key the harmony is in.
level 3	variable NUMBER OF VOICES (more lip pressure decreases # of voices)
level 4	variable NUMBER OF VOICES (more lip pressure increases # of voices)
level 5	chords/unison (loose = chords, tight = unison)
level 6	unison/chords (loose = unison, tight = chords)

** levels 3 to 6 provide flexible ways of lipping the number of voices you want to go along with your melodic line.

HARMONY BASE EXCHANGE through LIP PRESSURE

With lip pressure you can interchange the harmony base for each note that you play.
So different voicing techniques can be applied to every note in the scale. For example:

"loose-lip"	will give you thirds
"medium-lip"	fourths
"tight-lip"	seconds

And there are many more combinations.

Choosing chords from various bases through lip pressure is probably one of the most powerful ways
to deal with DYNAMIC HARMONY. Without leaving the current harmonic context, you can
come up with some extensive re-harmonization techniques.

MULTI CHANNEL MODE

The SYNTHOPHONE is capable of playing each voice of a chord on a different MIDI channel.
This is of interest when working with notation programs on computers,
where your entry of harmonized passages can be printed out on paper.

Since all voices in MULTI MODE are arranged on separate MIDI channels,
it would be much easier to separate the parts onto individual staves in your score.
As an example, it's possible to play the following in MULTI MODE:

1st voice	channel 1	flute
2nd voice	channel 2	clarinet
3rd voice	channel 3	oboe
4th voice	channel 4	bassoon
5th voice	channel 5	french horn

Feel free to explore the Synthophone Manual for more in depth info.