A System for Melodic Harmonization using Schoenberg Regions, Giant Steps, and Church Modes

Abstract: Systems such as Microsoft Songsmith automatically assign chords and harmony to a melody by minimizing the dissonance across all chord changes. Although this produces harmonious music, it is not what practicing musicians do. In this paper, I describe Harmonizer, a prototype system for melodic harmonization. Harmonizer uses Schoenberg's chart of regions as the underlying data structure that allows harmonization using several different methods. Because the chart reveals inter-chordal relationships, the harmonizations may be programmed to emphasize desired relationships. In the prototype Harmonizer, I also explore recent signal-processing methods that enable songwriters to easily input a melody by singing or by playing a musical instrument. The prototype Harmonizer is available on GitHub and a video demonstrating its distinctive harmonizations is on YouTube as explained in the Results section of the paper.