ScaleMaster

Introduction

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Designed for the beginning musician as well as the professional, ScaleMaster is an excellent tool towards advancement in theory and scales in particular, making it easy to look up a scale in seconds, getting a taste of the flavor of a particular scale by listening to it, or finding out how to play it on one’s instrument.

Scales are elementary to all musicianship. They provide flavor and harmonic structure, but are at the same time fairly complex. ScaleMaster is designed to help in several key areas concerning scales. It lists over 100 scale types in all keys and shows them in music notation. There are four different clefs available (treble, bass, alto and tenor). Additionally scale degrees are shown qualified by the interval to the root. To help visualization there are four virtual instruments (bass, guitar, mandolin and piano). These virtual instruments feature overlays that can show scale degrees or position of a note in the current scale and can be shifted to all available positions.

Selecting Scales

To switch to a different scale, just tap the "Scale" button in the toolbar, then pick a scale from the scale picker. The list is alphabetical and you can select a root in the left hand column of the picker. To play a scale directly from the scale picker just tap the speaker icon. The notation display is automatically updated with each new selection you make which indicates the label in the top left corner specifying the class a scale belongs to (i.e. pentatonic).

Shifting Positions

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All instruments can be shifted into different positions by using the arrow buttons in the middle of the screen. For stringed instruments a roman numeral appears in the left corner of the instrument to indicate the current position.

Locking the Interface

To lock all controls on the screen with exception of the virtual instruments you can use the lock button located in the top right corner of the title bar. When locked all buttons will appear grayedout, but any of the virtual instruments will function normally.

Playing Notes

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You can play notes with the instrument selected in the lower part of the screen by tapping on the keys or frets of the instrument. To play the entire current scale, tap the button with the eighth note in the middle of your screen.

Settings

To get to Settings, just tap the Settings button on the button bar at the bottom of your screen. Here you can silence the sound for the application, pick from the four available instruments - bass, guitar, mandolin and piano - or select a different clef. Additionally you can select to play scales with an octave added at the end.