Illustrated Tour

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FastChords has 5 program modes to enter, organize and play piano music from fake books.

 

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The Chords mode.

 

Used to enter chord names.  See Entering Chords.

 

Has buttons for entering a chord's root, modifier, extension,alteration and bass note.  See The Chords Mode.

 

Can be used just to visualize chords on the keyboard.

 

Can be used to add chord progressions to the chord table.

 

Normally used to add chords to melody lines entered with the Melody Mode.    See Entering Melodies.

 

 

 

 

 


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The Melody mode.

 

Used to enter melody lines.

 

Has a staff to copy the melody lines from music in "fake book" notation.  See Entering Melodies.

 

Shows the rhythmic value of melody notes.

 

can display piano scales.

 


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The Player mode.

 

Used to enter the rhythmic value (note duration) of the notes in the melody lines.

 

Used also to play the songs.

 

Can play full songs or selected portions.

 

Can play all the songs in a directory.

 

 

 


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The Table mode.

 

Used to manipulate the chords and melody lines in the chord table.

 

Has functions to change the octave position of chords, to invert chords, to change the voice.

 

Can optimize and entire song or portions of songs to make them easier to play.

 

Used also to transpose songs.

 

See the various sections of Working with the Chord Table.

 


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The Midi mode.

 

Used to record and play performances in midi capable pianos or keyboards.

 

Used to identify chords played on the instrument.

 

.Can be used to enter chords and melody lines in the chord table.

 

Can single step sthrough performances to observe finger work.

 


 

The Illustrated Tour of this chapter is a mini tutorial to get you going with the program.

 

At the end of this introduction you will be able to:


Understand the various modes of the program

Switch to the appropriate mode for the task at hand

Enter music from a fake book

Print the music in FastChord's format.

Save and Load the songs to disk.