Coming from a Jazz guitar background and having experimented a bit with electronic music tools I have to say that it’s almost impossible with today’s tools. For a Jazz-style jam/composition you need to be able to sequence more complex chords (e.g. a Major 7 chord with a #11 within the Lydian scale, a Dominant 7 chord with a b9/b13 within the Altered Dominant scale) over a longer loop length (e.g. 16 or 32 bars). Todays sequencers are either crippled length-wise (e.g. Elektron Digitakt), or interface-wise regarding chords voicings (e.g. Sequentix Cirklon) or are linear and thus impossible to edit after live-input (e.g. Squarp Pyramid). I’ve made due with the Elektron sequencer on the Analog Keys (e.g. set scale for chord track to 1/4x to get a 16 bar length, press a step and hold chord on midi keyboard to input chords, set bass and melody tracks to 1/1x and sequence a simple bassline/melody that work over all chords) but it’s still very crippled compared to how one live-jams on an instrument.
Incidentally, I’ve proposed a script for a harmonic sequencer that would allow for exactly such a sequencing within a more Jazz-influenced setting (norns: ideas - #1193 by sir-vector). Hopefully it gets picked up by one of the coding wizards on this forum.
4 Likes
