Educational Patches / Orac modules

Does anyone have any ideas for patches they would like to see which lend themselves to learning some music theory? I had the thought to build a midi note filter that left notes outside of a given scale unvoiced, that lead me to think maybe that could be a good learning tool. Anybody got other ideas?

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Great idea @Wannop

A simple idea (I may have more coming :wink: ) - put the words “one” through “seven” as pitches on a major scale. You could have the aux button switch the reference point “one” to a new note when pressed together.

Chromatic notes could be left as pitches without words, or, alternatively (or in addition) have a “chromatic” version of the patch, but that creates the conundrum of whether to use #s and/or bs and if using them interchangeably might actually confuse or mislead a music student. A better idea here (although more work) to have a variation of the patch for each of the seven modes of the major scale, in which case you’d only have bs, labeled appropriately (relative to the root, in reference to a major scale).

I should point out that I am a new student, not teacher of music theory. So some of what you just said confused me! I think I understand what you want, but got lost at the mention of ‘modes’ :sweat_smile:

OH SNAP
What about a 24 note sampler or simple synth, which used one page to display the new keybed visualisation c&g have used in recent patches. This page could show the name of the scale in large text, with ‘good’ notes as solid white and others as black. Another page could be used to change the rules I.e. Root note, major/minor, harmonics etc

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Yeah all of that sounds great!

Modes refer to what happens when you take a major scale and start-end it on a different note.
So - C to C using all the natural notes (C Major scale) is actually called “Ionian” (the mode name)
D to D (using the same notes - all naturals no sharps/flats) is called “Dorian” - and so on with Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolean, and Locrian. This applies to all keys. Feel free to pm me anytime if I can help answer any theory questions.

Was also thinking sampler 24 would be the best starting point - the only thing I don’t like about including the keyboard visualizations in educational apps is, while it can be helpful at first, it could be a “crutch” of sorts and hinder a student’s motivation to internalize the keyboard (as a music educator this is akin to when a student asks if I approve of putting “note stickers” on a guitar’s fretboard :rofl: - however, one person’s crutch is another’s favorite tool, so, who am I to say?)

edit: I realize now, we are probably talking about two different patches, one your original idea - good notes in a given key center (with visualizations, with bad notes possibly left unvoiced), the other addressing the “modes of the major scale” and their scale degree values relative to the major scale (Dorian, for example, has a b3 and a b7)