The Palette Melody Composing Tool

The Palette program is a tool for the creation of theoretically correct melodies. The program is based on composition theory and the theory of harmony. The strong theoretical base makes the melody composing process easier. The program contains seventeen lessons. Each lesson has one or two demo scripts. The lessons sequentially describe all process of melody creation.

The program represents the melody in a structure that is analogue to the structureof commonspeech.There are words (motives), phrases, sentences, commas (caesuras), question marks and points (cadences).

Such an approach permit a simple and effective algorithm to be applied to the composition of melodies. The program implements twenty four methods of motive development. Some of them are listed here: variation, inversion, repetition, new rhythm, sequence and so on. These methods similar to the visual effects in graphical editors.The program suggests the theoretically correct algorithm for the melody creation.

The main advantage of the algorithm is: we take some existing part of a melody (motive or phrase) and apply the methods of motive development (for example, variation) to this motive of phrase to produce a new motive or phrase of the melody. The program understands the logic of the functional motion.

That is, the program knows the rules, which describe how and in what sequence the chords appear in the chord progression. On each step, the program suggests only those chords, which are suitable for the current position in the chord progression.