tonica

Introduction - Description - Feature List - How to Order

Composing it for you...

Helping you with tonality, harmony and composition

You know what it's like: Only an hour to go until choir practice and you had intended to compose a four-part chorale for your choir to sing... The good news is that now there's no longer any need to turn up empty-handed because you can let tonica do the work for you in a matter of seconds!

Listen to composition

tonica has been designed to create a four-part harmony for any melody.

tonica models its work on the rules affecting four-part harmonies and the composition styles of Johann Sebastian Bach or Max Reger (can be set accordingly).

While other programs encourage users to think they are gifted composers by using an automatic accompaniment, tonica uses a different approach. Based on neural networks, tonica is able to compose in the style of the old masters.

Description

How tonica composes

Step one: You specify the melody

Listen

You compose the melody of a song, hymn or piece of music. The illustration on the left (click to enlarge) demonstrates how this has been done using the "America" or "God Save the Queen" melody. In the illustration on the right we have entered the melody of a chorale.

Listen

Step two: tonica does the rest

Listen

Harmonies are shown in
Roman numeral style

By clicking on "Score", tonica will compose a four-part harmony in a matter of seconds. On the left we have used the "Light swing" style; on the right we have used the "Johann Sebastian Bach I" style.

Listen

Harmonies are shown in
function theory style

Step three (optional): Create a prelude

Listen

By clicking on "Phrase variation", tonica will quickly turn the piece into a prelude. tonica plus, shown on the right, offers particularly beautiful prelude styles.

Listen

tonica does not make you redundant

You can restrict tonica's work to composing the designations of a function. Once this has been done, you can finish composing the harmony yourself and compare it with the work produced by tonica afterwards. You can also ask tonica to compose in specific areas or sections.

tonica caters for your needs

If you want to, tonica will take care of the entire composition process for you. Or, if you prefer, you can ask tonica to do some of the work, but leave the rest for you to finish. You can also compose a four-part harmony and let tonica evaluate it; or you can ask tonica to create a chord for a certain spot in the composition. Indeed, you can even ask tonica to re-compose a certain section in your own composition.

Perhaps you're experiencing a composer's block in a certain place and would like to see some alternatives - tonica can provide you with valuable assistance! You can add the notes with your mouse or play them in, using your MIDI instrument (each part separately). You can add a chord symbol wherever you want in the composition. Tonica uses the chord symbols associated with functional theory or Roman numerals.

The store

tonica has command of basic chords, all inversions, seventh chords, and ninth chords, each in their main and auxiliary functions. It also has intermediary dominants and real modulations (two key levels). Therefore tonica is also suitable for more advanced composers. If you are still getting to grips with harmony, tonica's manual provides a detailed beginners course in music theory and harmony.

tonica draws on an incredibly comprehensive range

The cadence databank

You can ask the software to draw on a store of approximately 120 complete cadences from the old masters. tonica will then analyze the flow of the melody, starting from the end of each line and go back three of four notes and look in its cadence building blocks to see whether a fitting finish by Bach or Reger is available.

The result is harmonies that are really smooth and harmonic and which cannot be identified as being computer generated.

Evaluation and analysis

tonica can help you with your own works

Evaluating your own compositions is easy. The program has been designed to tell you whether you have added the right notes to the chord in the four-parts, whether you have put the accidentals in the right places and whether you have made forbidden consecutives or other mistakes while composing your chords. If you want to evaluate one of your practice harmonies, all you have to do is create two windows, one containing your work and the other with the file created by tonica - it couldn't be easier! Forbidden parallels are automatically displayed in the notation. Chord analysis is carried out in the evaluation window.

Your analysis assistant

Just imagine, you are faced with a complicated analysis of a piece of musical notation, and you are unsure as to whether a chord is a shortened dominant ninth chord or just an extended sub-dominant triad. tonica will take care of all your doubts at the click of a mouse. tonica is also able to analyze exactly complete notations, which contain no function or level indicators, based on a tonal centre. So if you ever wanted to know just what you or others have created, before you proudly present it to an unsuspecting public, or if you ever wanted to sneak a look at the masters, then tonica's analysis function is the ideal tool for you.

Professional: The interface to the outside world

capella export

You can use your notations as the basis for more comprehensive compositions. All you have to do is export them into capella (available separately) before structuring and adding the finishing touches according to the rules of music engraving. From capella, you can then export to MusicXML to share your music with people using other notation programs. tonica does not yet export to MusicXML directly.

MIDI import & export

Thanks to tonica's MIDI interface, you can use your compositions in just about any other music systems.

Compose like a professional with tonica

tonica is suitable for all musicians. The theoretical fundamentals of music are equally applicable to all areas of music. High school teachers can use tonica to compose efficiently composition tasks such as figured basses, soprano parts for composition or entire example compositions. Yet for all its abilities, tonica's best and most popular function remains the automatic composition feature. Surprise your friends with a choral movement over a song by the Beatles or with your "own" composition that sounds almost as good as one from Johann Sebastian Bach!

You can also print your compositions. A composition can easily fill up several pages of letter-size paper. The kit includes example compositions across all levels of difficulty: from practice compositions to vivid literary examples.

Looking for even more? tonica plus!

Those of you that like to experiment will love tonica plus. Given that tonica has been designed to learn through its neural technology, we have developed and introduced an additional style assistant to the program. Not only does this assistant make it possible for tonica to learn new styles (provided they are based on four-part homophonic harmonies), it also enables you to save them as permanently available composition styles.

Once you have created a new style, you might want to export it, making it available to other users in our style library. Which in turn means, that you are able to download styles created by other tonica plus users from the internet and import them into your program.

Feature List

tonica plus 7.0
tonica 7.0
Automatic four-part composition (styles: J.S.Bach, Max Reger, "Light swing")
Learning new composition styles using the Style Trainer - create your own style!
Automatic harmonizing
Analysis of harmonics
Automatic cadence feature (with over 100 finished cadences by J.S. Bach and Max Reger)
Adding (partial) cadences, modulations; multiple options for the insert function
Comprehensive analysis information on the current cadence
All inversions, seventh chords and ninth chords
Main and auxiliary functions
Intermediary dominants
Real modulations (two key levels)
MIDI import & export: providing interfaces to capella
Import and export functions for new composition styles
Choice of presentation either as functional harmonics (T - D) or interval theory (I-V) or Roman Numeral
Unrestricted distances between staves and notation systems
Zoom function for monitor
Print out longer compositions on one sheet of paper
Forbidden consecutives are displayed in the notation - also hidden consecutives on request

How to Order

tonica runs on Windows 98SE, ME, 2000, XP, and Vista. It must be activated within 30 days of installation. Download it to try it out before ordering:

Download tonica 7.0 (3.7 MB)
Download tonica plus 7.0 (3.8 MB)

You may order tonica from the Recordare Online Store for $129.95, or tonica plus for $199.95.

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Last updated January 2, 2008.