★ APPLICATIONS ★ CREATION MUSICAL ★ CHORD FINDER ★ |
| Chord Finder (Amstrad Computer User) | Applications Creation Musical |
Chord Finder shold prove invaluable to keyboard players. Over 2,000 chords can be displayed, including some of the more 'modern' ones. As well as displaying the chords, up to 36 chord shapes can be saved to tape and loaded in when required. This is especially useful where the chord shapes for a particular song need to be shown complete with the correct inversions. Operation The program consists of two main displays. The keyboard display is present at all times, but the lower half of the screen can be toggled between displaying the 'MENU of CHORDS' available, and the 'CHORDS SAVED' by pressing the small key on the numeric keypad. The chord shapes are selected by using the four cursor keys to place the large cursor over the required chord name. The root note of the chord is shown by the large up arrow sign directly under the keyboard. This can be moved in one direction only - to the right - by using the shifted right cursor key. The shifted left cursor key will 'home' the root note cursor to the C key. Chord inversions up and down can be displayed by using the > and < keys. To play the notes of the chord, press the large key. Because many of the chords will consist of 4 notes, it is not possible to play the actual notes simultaneously as the sound chip is restricted to 3 channels only. It's about time the chip manufacturers produced a 4 channel sound chip! To save any chord to th second screen display, press the COPY key. You are then prompted to press any key from 0 - 9 or A - Z, giving total of 36. When you have saved some chords press the small key, and the chords saved will be displayed. Moving the cursor as before over the required chord will display the chord as originally saved, and the notes will also be played. To save the screen of 'CHORDS SAVED' to tape, return back to the 'MENU of CHORDS' screen and press the CTRL and S keys. You will asked for the filename that you wish to give to the 36 chords saved and then these will be saved to tape as a file in the normal manner. You do not need to use up all 36 spaces on the 'CHORDS SAVED' screen before saving them to tape - unused spaces will be saved as *— Previously saved chords can be loaded back into the program by pressing the CTRL and L keys. At all times a Help menu is available for both of the screens by pressing the CTRL and H keys. These will list all the operations of the various keys. Most of the operations are accessed when the 'MENU of CHORDS' screen is in operation. Pressing the DEL key will erase any chords currently saved. This is done by issuing the RUN command so be careful not to press it in error. You should find the program simple to operate thnks to the ue of the 'floating cursor'. Notes for Musicians There is a lot of confusion over chords symbols • different publishers use different characters - sometimes correctly - more often than not incorrectly! Some of the common misunderstandings are:
Chords are sometimes followed by a slash and another note...eg Gm7/F. This denotes that a Gm7 chord is to be played, but the root note (for the bass pedal on organ) is to be F. You may also get something like...Gm7/C. Although this is technically correct it is really a Cll chord. In fact, many chords have the same four notes although the root note may be different. For example... C6, Am7, and D11 use the same four notes of the keyboard. The only difference is in the root note used ie. C, A, and D. Using Chord Finder you should be able to test these out for yourself. Is it possible to memorise all 2,000 or so chords? Well, quite frankly I would say no. I can find any chord on the keyboard very quickly without the need for looking it up in a book, or using Chord Finder. If you know the correct technique it's as easy as ABC. However, until that time I am sure that you will find Chord Finder very useful.
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