Style-based Segments

A style-based segment is a largely prebuilt piece of music that the author constructs from the following elements:

• Style. A style consists of general information about the music (such as time signature and tempo), as well as patterns. See Styles.
• Chord progression. This might be derived automatically by the authoring tool from a chordmap (by choosing a path through the chord chart), or entered manually by the author.
• Command track. This track, known as the groove track in DirectMusic Producer, is a series of commands for selecting appropriate patterns at set times. A characteristic of the patterns in styles is that they can be designated as embellishments (intro, fill, break, and end) and can also be assigned a certain groove range by the author. The command track of the segment might instruct the style playback engine to select an intro pattern and play it for the first measure, then play only patterns with a groove level of 25 for the next four measures, then play a break, and so on.
• Band. The author can assign instruments and performance channels to all the parts in the various patterns.