T4E 2010
ChordATune - an Emotion based Melody Harmonizer for
Piano Music
Amani Indunil Soysa
Informatics Institute of Technology
Colombo, Sri Lanka
amani.soysa@gmail.com
Abstract –Harmonization is a crucial task in piano music
creation. However, it is a tedious task for novice piano
players. This is because piano players need to keep track
of the extensive set of western music rules and concepts,
and also need years of training and practice to
harmonize a melody accurately. This research addresses
the problems of harmonization and proposes an
interactive learning tool, ‘ChordATune’ that facilitates
piano players, song writers and music students to
experiment with harmonization concepts to create
harmonies effectively incorporating emotions, genre,
beat and tempo.
Keywords – Artificial Intelligence, Automatic Music
Composition, Hidden Markov Model, Dynamic
Programming
I. INTRODUCTION
Piano music is built upon melody and harmony [1].
Once the basic melody of a song is created, it is essential to
accompany that melody with accurate harmony [2].
Therefore, finding the most suitable harmony is a crucial
task for students as well as players [2].
This paper focuses on a learning tool that can ease the
task of harmonization for novice pianists by introducing a
software tool ‘ChordATune’ that harmonizes a given
melody according to the emotional factor and the genre of
choice. The main goal of this research is to involve the user
with the emotional factor when creating harmony, thereby
letting the user experiment with different styles and
varieties of chord progression when displaying the
harmonized melody. This helps novice pianists to develop
their creativity in song writing and music creation.
II. RELATED WORK
There are several tools related to automatic
accompaniment. MySong, an accompaniment tool that
gives accompaniment to a given vocal melody [3] and
Tonica, a four part choral harmonizing tool that harmonizes
a given melody by generating the other 3 parts of the choral
bias to the composer Bach [4]. Arranger tool and Harmony
Assistant [5] both provide instrumental harmony to a given
melody. However, none of these tools focus on piano music
harmonization or creativity. Therefore, ChordATune
978-1-4244-7361-8/10/$26.00 © 2010 IEEE
Kulari Lokuge
Informatics Institute of Technology
Colombo, Sri Lanka
kulari@iit.ac.lk
focuses on piano music and gives the user an opportunity to
experiment with music.
III. CHORDATUNE OVERVIEW
The aim of the ChordATune system is to give a clear
understanding of harmonization to novice pianists and to
create accompaniments that are musically correct. Since
there can be more than one accompaniment for a given
melody, ChordATune allows variations of accompaniments
according to the emotional factor of the melody and the
genre of music along with drum beats and guitar chords.
IV. CHORDATUNE IMPLEMENTATION
In the ChordATune system the relationship of the
melody and chord progression is mapped according to
Hidden Markov Model concepts. The ChordATune system
is designed for 24 different types of chords; 12 Major
chords and 12 Minor chords. Based on the emotional factor
a percentage of happiness/sadness of the given input
melody is calculated. Around 250 lead sheets were used to
train the ChordATune system, each of them having
monophonic melodies associated with relevant chord
progressions. Once the melody is processed and HMM
properties are initialized, the chords are generated using the
Viterbi algorithm. These generated chords are then arranged
according to the genre or in a guitar tabular format.
V. EVALUATION
ChordATune was evaluated using two different aspects;
1) Analysis of ChordATune as a learning tool according to
Kolb’s Experiential Learning and 2) Critical analysis from
the users perspective.
According to David A Kolb’s learning theory,
Experiential Learning can be divided into four different
categories as Concrete Experience (CE), Reflective
Observation (RO), Abstract Conceptualization (AC) and
Active Experimentation (AE) [6]. Table 1 shows how the
above learning theories are applied in ChordATune learning
concepts.
ChordATune’s main aim is to assist learners to enhance
their learning process. Therefore, it was necessary to find
out how effective the tool was for learners.
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 Table 1 – Experiential Learning Analysis provides a variety of harmonies and styles to a single
melody that helps amateur musicians to easily learn the
Learning Functionalities CE AE AC RO harmonization concepts of piano music.
Creating Songs REFERENCES
[1] Jones, C. S., (2008, September 9). Harmony. [online]:
Virtual Piano X X X Connecxions. Available from:
<http://cnx.org/content/m11654/latest/> [Accessed 20 Jan
Manuscript Editor X X 2009].
[2] Frank, R. J., (2008, July 6). Chords in Musical Practice.
Generating Harmony
[online]: Theory on the Web. Available from:
<http://smu.edu/totw/muspract.htm> [Accessed 23 Nov.
Major/Minor Clustering X X
2008]
(Effect of emotions)
[3] Simon, I., Morris, D., and Basu, S. (2008).
Effect of genre X X
MySong:Automatic Accompaniment Generation for Vocal
Melodies.
Effect of tempo X X [4] capella-software. (2008, January 2). Tonica. [online]:
Recordare. Available from:
Effect of drum beats X X <http://www.recordare.com/capella/tonica.html>
[Accessed 23 Nov 2008].
Use of manuscript notation X X [5] Jasmine Music Technology. (2006). Onyx Arranger / SE40
Comparison Chart. Jasmine Music Technology.
Use of guitar tabular format X X [6] Kolb, D.A. (1984). Experiential Learning. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall

Table 2 – Evaluation Results

Target End
Concept Performance
group product
Novice (30) 100% 90% -
Intermediate
100% 80% -
(15)
Technical (3) 100% - 75%
Professional
100% 70% 80%
(6)

Table 2 shows the evaluation results gained for each

evaluation criteria from different target groups. Most of the
general users were fascinated with the variations of songs
which can be generated by using the same tune. Further,
students claimed that ChordATune is a useful educational
tool that makes it easy to learn, practice and enhance the
abilities of creating music by providing theoretical and
practical knowledge in music. Most students were
impressed by the fret sheet generator which helps make
guitar playing easier.
Professional musicians and teachers claimed that
ChordATune would add significant value to learn music
theory and practices. ChordATune can be used as a
harmonization tool which gives students the opportunity to
experiment with harmonization concepts and how external
factors such as tempo, beat, genre, and emotions can change
the harmony.

VI. CONCLUSION
This paper introduces an interactive learning tool
(ChordATune) to harmonize melodies for piano music
using the emotional factor of the user and the genre of
music. The key advantage of using this tool is that, this tool

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