I’d like to share a small web tool I’ve been developing that might be useful for those of us working with music theory within SuperCollider.
It’s called Music Theory Converter App.
What is it? It’s a utility designed to quickly “translate” music theory concepts directly into code or data structures usable in SC. I built it to speed up the process of calculating intervals or typing out arrays manually.
Key Features:
Quick Conversion: [e.g., Instantly converts notes/chords to MIDI numbers or frequencies].
Scales & Modes: [Generates scale arrays ready to be dropped into your Patterns (Pbind) or TDefs].
SC-Friendly Syntax: [The output is formatted to be copied and pasted directly into the SuperCollider IDE].
Web-based: Runs directly in the browser, no installation required.
I would love to hear your feedback, suggestions, or bug reports if you decide to give it a try. I hope it saves you some time in your live coding or composition sessions!
don quixote would like to propose a change of name to “music nomenclature converter app”
that stuff (what the scales might be called, etc.) ain’t theory, it’s nomenclature. (there’s a counterargument that nomenclature is itself theory-laden, but I don’t think we’re quite there yet).
anyway do as thou wilt, and I acknowledge that most people think that music theory = scales and stuff, so naming the project as you do probably makes it easier for said “most people” to figure out what it is.
Any subject, any field of knowledge needs names/concepts to explain itself. And as you can imagine, academic music in the early years of learning is explained using concepts: scales, keys, intervals, etc. Another thing is epistemological issues, which, as you can imagine, this is not the best place to discuss.
Could the app have explained this better? Well, yes, but as you can understand, it’s not a fundamental issue. Anyway, thank you for taking the time to write!
hey, I was kinda joking around. I’m unfortunately professionally quite invested in “music theory”, and having to explain what it is (or rather: can be) to people who have “had some music theory” in high school or whatever (i.e., they learnt scales etc.) is a recurring annoyance. (One guy once asked me, “yeah but there are only so many scales, don’t you just run out of scales at some point”. )
