Phrase Contour Editor
The Phrase Contour Editor lets you draw the shape of a melody — high, low, rising, falling — and generates real notes that follow that shape. You express musical intent without choosing individual pitches.
When to Use It
- You can hear a melody's shape in your head but can't find the right notes
- You're stuck and want a starting point based on a musical idea, not random generation
- You want to quickly explore different melodic ideas over the same harmonic structure
Layout
The editor is split into two panels:
Top Panel — Contour Canvas
A freeform drawing area where you sketch your melody's pitch contour:
- Vertical axis — pitch register (low at bottom, high at top). This is abstract — not specific notes, just "higher" and "lower"
- Horizontal axis — time, aligned with the pattern's bar grid
- Control points — click to place anchor points, drag to reshape
Bottom Panel — Note Preview
A read-only mini piano roll showing the notes generated from your contour. This updates when you click Generate or Refine.
Drawing a Contour
| Action | How |
|---|---|
| Add a control point | Click on the canvas |
| Move a control point | Drag it |
| Delete a control point | Right-click it |
| Clear the contour | Click the Clear button in the toolbar |
| Load a preset | Select from the Presets dropdown |
The contour is displayed as a smooth curve interpolated through your control points. You typically need 4-8 points to define a phrase shape.
Contour Presets
Built-in presets based on common melodic patterns:
| Preset | Shape | Good For |
|---|---|---|
| Arch | Rises to a peak, then descends | Classic melodic phrases, verse melodies |
| Rising | Gradually climbs higher | Building tension, leading into a chorus |
| Falling | Starts high, descends | Resolution, coming down from a climax |
| Wave | Alternating rises and falls | Flowing, continuous melodic lines |
| Late Peak | Flat then rises sharply near the end | Dramatic build-ups, question phrases |
| Plateau | Rises, holds steady, then falls | Sustained intensity sections |
When a genre profile is active, the default contour is initialized from the genre's phrase tension curve.
Generating Notes
- Draw or select a contour
- Click Generate — the engine creates notes that follow the contour shape within your current key and scale
- Listen to the result in the preview panel
- Not quite right? Click Refine for a new variation (same shape, different notes)
- Happy with it? The notes are written into the pattern and editable in the piano roll
How Generation Works
The contour is converted into per-beat pitch range constraints. At each point in time, the contour's height maps to a MIDI note range (e.g., contour at 80% height = notes between C5 and E5). The selected melody generator then produces notes within these narrowed ranges while still following all its music theory rules.
Generator Selection
You can choose which generator powers the contour fill:
- Rule-Based (default) — follows composition rules within the contour's constraints. Best for musical, singable results.
- Markov Chain — produces style-characteristic melodies shaped by the contour. Good when you want a genre-specific feel.
- Constrained Random — random notes within contour constraints. Good for experimental textures.
Combining with Lock & Reroll
After generating, you can lock specific notes (Ctrl+Click) and regenerate the rest:
- Generate from contour
- Lock the notes you like
- Optionally adjust the contour shape
- Click Refine — locked notes stay, unlocked notes regenerate to match the (possibly adjusted) contour
Keyboard Shortcuts
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
| Click canvas | Add/move control point |
| Right-click point | Delete control point |
| Ctrl+G | Generate notes from contour |
| Ctrl+R | Refine (regenerate with same contour) |
| Ctrl+Z | Undo |
| Ctrl+Y | Redo |
| Ctrl+Click note | Lock note for Lock & Reroll |
| 1-6 | Load preset (Arch, Rising, Falling, Wave, Late Peak, Plateau) |