Audiomodern has introduced Chordjam, a new application for iPad, macOS & Windows that’s designed to be a real-time compositional and performance tool.
Chordjam is designed to chords and progression patterns through intuitive user-guided randomization. It automatically randomizes a unique combination of parameters, serving up unpredictable but musical variations.
Here’s an overview of how it works:
Features:
- Generate Random Chords
- Trigger New Chords with Every Note Played
- Unique Voicing Parameters
- Intelligent Sequencer Engine
- Arp Mode
- Chord Progression & Pattern Presets
- Generate Infinite Chord Patterns & Progressions
- Everything is Synced to your Host tempo
- Drag MIDI Chord
- Drag MIDI pattern
- Pads Section for Musical Performance
- Quick Load preset Section
- Choose Quantization settings
- Suffle & Shift Mode
- Advanced Infinity Mode
- Set Sequence range & Motion Settings
- Set Range for Transposition, Time-Delay and Velocity
- Save & Load your own patterns
- Send MIDI to any Device, Software & Hardware
- Advanced MIDI CC/Mapping editor
Pricing and Availability
Chordjam is available now with an intro price of 39 EUR (normally 49 EUR).
Wow, the name isn’t too exciting, but this thing is really cool. Deep!
So who’s writing the music? .. the musician or the machine?
Good point Coco, possibly both, as it is an interaction between user and machine. Similarly sometimes we may think that we purchase instruments based on what we need and wish to achieve, yet product marketing can be very influential in making our choices ?
It’s electronic music, it’s been machine music since day 1. Nobody writes it, it’s generated by circuits and algorithms and then curated by the musician. That’s what we like about it.
No you’re wrong. The instrument is just a tool we use to realise the music we’ve got sloshing around in our head, whether it’s electronic or not… the point is that the idea originates with the composer… whether we use a comb and a bit of paper or a full blown Moog modular doesn’t make any difference… all of my synths just sit there and wait for me to write/play something on them (not great for when I have writer’s block…).
Self-generating music software such as this that suggests chords and melodies is just colour-by-numbers… you may as well make a big gameshow wheel and give it a spin.. ‘And the winning chord is…. Bbm!!!!!’… it can be argued that this is just a step further than looking up something in a book eg. looking at a chart of the circle of fifths in order to work out where to go but I’d refute that in saying that a book or chart is truly passive and relies on YOU to interpret the info and make a compositional decision… software such as this just spoon-feeds you and all you’re left to do is swipe left or swipe right… yes – I like that chord sequence or no I dont.
Rant over 😎
You make a good point.
But let’s take that idea to an extreme level.
Let’s say a composer has all the ideas in his/her/their head and never actually listens to their work until it is finished. My brain generates: “I want to start on a minor IV, to a major I, then go to a bVII, then make that minor, then to a dominant.” Now (for this thought-experiment), I cannot deviate from the purity of that idea. In fact, I can’t listen to it, much less edit it until I’m finished. Were I to listen to it and decide that I don’t really like one of those chords, then I’m just passively trying random ideas (that originate from my grey matter) and swiping left/right.
We could call this the tyranny of the creative purist. As a composer I aspire to this level, where the composer source of 100% of ideas, the tools are 100% passive. In reality, I edit quite a bit.
This app can be set up to do some partially curated random progressions, but it doesn’t have to be used like that. The app can be used with 100% composer-directed ideas– and 0% random/generative processes. The app also has quite a bit of potential as a learning tool. But, because the app literally blocks even the chords it lists, — I give it a huge thumbs down.
It could be possible for them to fix what’s wrong with this app, but I won’t hold my breath.
Perhaps at some point, we’ll see a piece of music accredited like this:
Generative Music Processes Configured/Curated (not composed) by – so-and-so
Well, Coco, that’s *your* definition of electronic music, but it certainly is not everyone’s. The concept of authorship that you describe and that stems from European classical music has been discarded by or is unknown to many musical schools and traditions, especially in the electronic field. Many creators of techno, noise, ambient or avant-garde music do not consider themselves as composers, or even artists, but rather as operators, programmers or producers. They operate and program machines to produce a product. Computer generated music has been performed since the late 1950s. Tekno artists in the 1990s played shows behind black walls to stay anonymous and eliminate every personalization of music. And in Berghain, it’s insignificant who made the music, why they made it and which tools they used, the only thing that matters is the function of the music at the location it was made for. So in conclusion, there are many fields of music were the use of generative and automated tools is not considered “cheating” or „uncreative“, because the traditional (western) concepts of authorship and creativity are rejected in the first place.
This is a fascinating, clarifying, and very helpful post. Thanks for taking the time to write it.
initially I thought that it will sound as “mechanical” as other similar apps, but after watching few videos and eventually purchasing ChordJam I have changed my mind.
This is really top notch chord generating app and definitely worth every penny Audiomodern asks for.
Highly recommended and especially if you suffer from inspiration block.
Sorry for long message but I was thinking about this..
One thing I’ve noticed in plug in world is a HUGE inflow of music theory/chord generators.
It’s almost overwhelming on ipad and PC. It’s not just chords…melody, riffs, beats, harmonies …everything…
I can imagine this might hit folks with hard earned musical knowledge and experience a bit like a bad thing.
(at least my classically trained keyboard player thinks so!!). “now anybody can do it!!!,,,,,,and do it NOT WELL”
I know some producers that feel the same way about auto mixer/master type of services or plug ins..
I can sympathize with this because there is just so much media and so much music… is most of it not very good or just mediocre?? probably.. (including much of mine!!! LOL).. If the Premier League had 5000 teams it wouldn’t be so great…and it would be no fun to have to watch 100 games before stumbling on a great team…
My other opinion is that why would we care where we get ideas from??
Chord progressions are not songs.
The computer itself has opened up music production for so many people and resulted in so much great music to people that don’t have the ability to record and mix audio like the old days…
Most modern charted music is just one of the 5 or 6 power progressions anyway!!!!
Overall this seems hugely helpful if it works well, and folks with a great ear and strong music theory background could make alot more of it as real time inspiration. The best musicians should get the most out of it
Midi based writers of all kinds should get alot out of it.
Just my overall opinion.
What do you all think??
BTW….
This is crazy… A Beatles album that is entirely generated by Open AI !!!!!!!!
Strange but listenable at least as a curiosity.. Open AI is getting better at chess than everybody and it plays totally differently than anything else.. it doesn’t use a book of moves..
https://youtu.be/yZu24pddzwk
Thanks for your thoughts on this. Interesting & useful perspective.
I think the tech has great value in both the creative process, and for learning. Fortunately, there are very affordable options like Scaler 2, Cthulhu, and the freeware MIDIchords.
Whether or not the developer makes something that limits your creativity or assists it, is the other question. Just poking around CAN be a creative process. However, anyone who has sifted through 100s of synth patches, or 1000’s of loops knows it can just be a waste of your precious life.
ChordJam is hit and miss. It has great options for discovering some new scales and basic chords.
ChordJam’s Chord Type section makes absolutely no sense. You can easily choose a contradictory pair of scale and chord-type– the scale wins, which renders the chord type somewhat meaningless in many cases. ChordJam pointlessly omits certain chords (“protecting you from yourself” apparently), and provides no custom chords.
For people who don’t know much about chords, it’s probably fine- they can take some guesses and end up with some happy accidents.
woah. Was not expecting this and I’m SUPER interested to learn more. Very cool!