Music21: A Deep Dive into Scale Manipulation with Python

This video dives deep into Music21's scale module. After learning how to create common scales (such as major, minor, modes, chromatic, octatonic, and whole-tone scales), it explores how we can build unique custom scales with music21's CyclicalScale class. We then draw upon this functionality to create a program that 'translates' a melody from one scale to another.

[AVUREDUES]

This is phenomenal!! I'm so glad I stumbled onto this video. This is something I didn't even know I was looking for, I've just been doing hackjob pieces of it on the fly as needed with different projects.

My only feedback is that the presentation was a little flat- It would be easier to follow with more pauses between distinct ideas and deliberate verbal emphasis on important points. Still, the clarity of word choice was great, and the ideas were structured well for the presentation!

Are you the author of this module? What inspired you to make this? I can't wait to play around with it this weekend!

[joshuacoppersmith]

Thank you! Music21 looks amazing and your presentation was clear and concise (at least for someone with some programming experience). This is a whole world of possibilities. But I doubt I'll be generating scores in Python. Rather, I'd really love to see a workflow for exporting a part from Musescore 4 into Python, manipulating it as a Music21 object, then importing it back into Musescore. The programmer in me might watch your vids with excitement, but watching would be about as far as it goes if there is no way to integrate the results into more bread-and-butter musical work.