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I've created a chord-friendly "scale" for the Pico, and I'd welcome thoughts on it.

The background: I tried playing chords on the Pico (e.g. C Major being keys 1+3+5) and I didn't find it fun. You need to hold down two keys with one finger (the 1+5) and with another finger hold down another (the 3). It didn't feel natural, and I think playing the Eigenharp should feel natural. Or perhaps I'm lazy.

So it occurred to me that chords would be easier if the keys were ordered across rather than down:

C D

E F

G A

B C

D E

F G

A B

C E

Then C Major becomes 1+2+3 and F Major becomes 6+7+8, etc.

I tried to re-order the keys using "k choose", but that also re-ordered them for absolutely everything, like choosing an instrument and selecting the mode, so I judged that failure.

Finally I created a user "scale", using these lines, which I put in my User scales.txt file:

[Chord-friendly]

intervals=0 4 7 11  2 5 9 12  14 17 21 24  16 19 23 26

This is actually just the major scale but the notes in a different order (which is why I put the word "scale" in scare quotes). The order happens to allow me to play chords as above. I downloaded a demo AAS Strum Acoustic Session and am now having some fun strumming away at C, F and G.

This is clearly a hack. I'm using EigenD 1.4.12 and I vaguely recall someone saying that re-ordering keys in a keygroup would be more flexible (an extra layer of abstraction) in 2.0. That would be good. Meanwhile, improvements on this for 1.4 are welcome, as are comments on my quick rejection of the accepted way to play chords.

Everything but lazy... sharpening, and discovering new ways, the Eigenharp's just go along so well.

Going back to 1.4 (2.0 is in one word "rocking".) using k choose with a kgroup jwill remap everything, just changing the keyboard layout (there are some scripts available) use:

empty join
kmapper 2 listen
clear

after this what you would like, in your example

k 1 add
k 5 add
k 2 add
k 6 add
k 3 add
k 7 add
k 4 add
k 8 add
k 9 add
k 13 add
k 10 add
k 14 add
k 11 add
k 15 add
k 12 add
k 17 add
k 16 add


Keep having fun!!

P.S. - don't forget the scripts!

Great!

MIDI in/note on - can be used to "run" scripts and so change between mappings, of course here comes the recommendation about 2.0 and above all Workbench, that allows total user configuration freedom...