Styles

A style is a collection of musical patterns that can be used to create a dynamic score. It also contains a time signature and a tempo, and can contain one or more bands.

A pattern is a musical figure, one or more measures long, consisting of a basic sequence of notes for each instrument, or part. These notes are not defined as fixed pitches; they are described according to the role they play in the chord structure. The notes are mapped to MIDI values when they are played, after the current key, chord, and play mode have been taken into account.

A motif is a special type of pattern designed to be played dynamically over the basic score. Motifs are always played explicitly by the application. Motifs are often used in interactive applications to mark an event.

Each pattern can have up to 32 variations. At run time, variations are chosen by the style playback mechanism. However, the author can specify that a variation must never be chosen when a certain chord is being played.

The author also assigns a groove range to the pattern, specifying the groove levels at which the pattern can be played.

Any pattern (other than a motif) can be designated as an embellishment. There are four standard embellishment types: intro, fill, break, and end. In addition, DirectMusic Producer enables authors to establish up to 100 custom embellishment types. A pattern can be assigned to one or more of these types. When a style-based segment is played and a certain type of embellishment is specified at some point in the segment, only patterns of that type are candidates for playback.

See Also

• DirectMusic Style Library
• Style-based Segments