Chord Jammer

A midi web app that lets you play chords with 1 finger in the left hand and jam safely in the right hand. As you change chords, the rh notes are filtered so you always play good sounding notes.

Try it out at Chord Jammer

Code

~/Devel/midi-play/webmidijs-play

Sample config

export let project = {
    chords: {
        'C3': {
            lhchord: Em7Chord,
            rhnotes: EmScaleMelodic,
        },
        'D3': {
            lhchord: AmAdd9Chord,
            rhnotes: EmScaleNatural,
        },
        'E3': {
            lhchord: CM9Chord,
            rhnotes: EmScaleNatural,
        },
        'F3': {
            lhchord: BmAdd11ChordInversion1,
            rhnotes: EmScaleNatural,
            rhnotes2: EmScaleHarmonic,
            rhnotes3: EmBlues,
        }
    }
}

Single finger Chords

With the project config above

• Play C3 to trigger chord Em7Chord and jam in default scale EmScaleMelodic
• Play D3 to trigger chord AmAdd9Chord and jam in default scale EmScaleNatural
• Play E3 to trigger chord CM9Chord and jam in default scale EmScaleNatural
• Play F3 to trigger chord BmAdd11ChordInversion1 and jam in default scale EmScaleNatural

Jamming notes are G3 to C5 and are filtered to be in the default scale for that chord.

Scale Switching whilst playing

You can switch to e.g. the pentatonic scale for the current chord by pressing D#4. Switch back to the default scale by pressing C#4.

Here is a list of modifier keys and what they do to the rh scale:

• C#4 default scale, rhnotes in config
• D#4 rhnotes2 scale in config
• F#4 rhnotes3 scale in config
• G#4 transpose rh scale by options.transposeUpAmount semitones
• A#4 transpose rh scale down by options.transposeDownAmount semitones

You can customise the transposition amounts for a given project via config e.g.

export let project = {
    chords: {...},
    options: {
        transposeUpAmount: 4,
        transposeDownAmount: -2,
    }
}

Potentially other customisations via config will be supported in the future:

• Being able to specify which scales to switch to, instead of pentatonic and blues.
• Being able to change what the modifier keys actually are (unlikely).

Left hand black key modifiers

The octave containing the left hand chord trigger notes will have its black keys used as modifiers. The C# acts as a SHIFT, so

• C# hold down to engage SHIFT mode
• D# cmdSetScaleFiltering(false)
• F# cmdSetScaleFiltering(true)
• G# transposeChord down a semitone
• A# transposeChord up a semitone
• SHIFT D# stopAllNotes()
• SHIFT F# scaleFilteringModificationSticky toggle
• SHIFT G# reset chord transpose - todo
• SHIFT A# reset chord transpose - todo

Config customisations supported

export let project = {
    chords: {...},
    options: {...},

    splitNote: 'C3',         // Where the root note is (see explanation below)
    rhStartOctave: 3,        // To which octave to start mapping notes to
}

Technologies