The chint filter means “colorize harmonic intervals”. It compares two monophonic parts to each other and colors the intervals for visual analysis within a score.
Options
Color mapping
Colors are assigned roughly as a heat map, where cooler colors are more dissonant:
| Color group | Dissonance category | Interval colors |
|---|---|---|
| Black | Rests | Rest-to-rest or note-to-rest where no harmonic interval exists. |
| Gray | Unison/octave | P1, P8 |
| Purple | Perfect consonances | P5, P4 |
| Blue | Imperfect consonances | m3, M3, m6, M6 |
| Green | Weak dissonances | M2, m7 |
| Orange | Strong dissonances | m2, M7 |
| Yellow/Pink | Tritone | A4, d5 |
| Red | Diminished/Augented | d7, most other diminished/autmented intervals are colored red, such as d4. |
Example of colors in music notation:
Selecting analysis staves
chint currently processes only two staves at a time. If
there are two staves in the score, these will be selected automatically;
otherwise, the bottom two staves are selected automatically. To
change the top staff use -t # where # is the number of the staff
starting at 1 for the bottom staff. You can use the special number
$ to indicate the top staff on the system, and $1 or $-1 for
the next staff below the top staff on the system.
Here is an example that analyzes the inner voices of a four-part chorale:
(coloring of individual staves needs to be fixed still.)
If the top and bottom staves are inverted, such that the lower staff is higher on the system than the bottom staff, the chint filter will automatically switch their roles.
Displaying intervals
The -i option will show the harmonic intervals, by default above
the top analysis staff:
Diatonic intervals
The -d option will simplify display of intervals, removing
chromatic qualification on common intervals:
| Interval | With chromatic alterations |
|---|---|
| 1 | P1 |
| 2 | m2, M2 |
| 3 | m3, M3 |
| 4 | P4 |
| 5 | P5 |
| 6 | m6, M6 |
| 7 | m7, M7 |
Diminished and augmented intervals retain their chromatic alterations:
Negative intervals
When the voices cross, add -n to show a negative sign in front of the
interval.
Preserving octave information
Add -8 will preserve octave information in the displayed intervals; otherwise,
perfect octaves will be collapsed into perfect unisons:
Do not collapse intervals to an octave
To be implemented.
Middle placement of intervals.
By default, intervals are placed above the top analysis staff. To place
below the top analysis staff, use the -m option (which will place in the
middle of the top and bottom analysis staves if they are adjacent).
Suppressing colorization
The -T and -B option can be given to suppressing colorization of the
top and/or bottom staves. Currently this only works correctly for -B
and -T will be fixed later.
No coloring, but show intervals between the staves, useful for viewing only interval information:
Alternate color mappings
Alternate color mappings can be used other than the default. A test
mapping can be used by adding -c option, where augmented/diminished
intervals usually have their own unique colors:
Musical examples
See examples using real music:
Use left/right arrows in top left corner of VHV to navigate between movements.
Options -mid used to display diatonic intervals between staves.
One practical use of the chint filter is to identify data errors where a common interval is incorrectly encoded as a diminished/augmented interval, such as an augmented/diminished unison: