Scales

Selecting a scale in your ScaleMaster document involves a several interface element depending on what is desired. There is a scales master list as shown in the image above. This list can be filtered for chord association and finally there is a circle of fifths window for root assignment. Before we get into all of that let's briefly talk about playback options.

 

Playback

Every document has a playback sound set in settings. There are several ways to play notes of a scale. In the notation view above every note will start playing with that sound when tapped. Additionally there is a playback button in the lower left corner of the notation view. Tapping it will play back the current scale in the current direction. The scale direction - up or down - can be change with the scale direction button right next to the playback button. Another playback option is ScaleMaster's recording/playback feature, but it is not strictly a scale playback as it depends on the user what is being recorded.

 

Scales Table

The scales table has several header elements. From left to right in bright orange we have a close button, chord filter assignment, a documentation link (?) and finally the chord filter button itself (more about that in the next chapter). You will encounter the close button in several of ScaleMaster's windows. We can see that all scale entries in the table have a item number, a scale name and a type (i.e. pentatonic). To the right also in bright orange we have an alpha ruler which allows us to quickly scroll to the associated letter group in the list.

 

Chord Filter

When tapping the chord button in the top right corner of the scales table the view changes to display the chord list as shown in the image to the right. That means that only scales compatible with m11 chords are displayed in the list. To clear the chords filter we can use the button with the trash icon in the top right corner of the image to the right. The Chord filter header then shows "Chord:--" indicating that no chord filter is engaged. If a chord filter is engaged chord tones will be highlighted in red in ScaleMaster's notation view (s.a.).

 

Root Assignment

Root assignment in ScaleMaster is done in the circle of fifths window.

 

Summary

In order to fully utilize ScaleMaster it is important to understand that this is a document driven app. For a reason. In most cases it is therefore much better to create new documents for new scale types we are interested in rather than using the same document over and over and changing its scale.

The next chapter will focus on the second biggest interface part in ScaleMaster - the instrument.