McChords 3.54
(Freeware)
© 1998-2009 Michael J. McCollister
E-Mail: support@MikeMcCollister.com
Web: MikeMcCollister.com/palm/
Forward
McChords will display the notes of sixty chords and forty-eight scales. It also has a four octave (six
if your device has a collapsible graffiti area)
playable piano with pitch pipe capability. The key and chord are selectable
via onscreen buttons. There is an option to play the notes of a
chord or scale as well as a pitch pipe.
Contents of This Document
- Installation
- System Requirements
- ZIP File Contents
- Usage
- Version History
- Legal Disclaimer
Installation of McChords is just like any other Palm OS
program.
Requires Palm OS 3.0 or greater. 44 Kbytes of free memory on the Palm OS
device is required.
McChords.prc |
|
The McChords application that you install on
your Palm OS device. |
README.htm |
|
This file. |
McChords has four pages of operations. The Chords, Scales, Piano and
Pitch Pipe pages. Any page can be selected by clicking on the pull-down
menu at the upper right portion of the screen.
-
Chords:
- Select the chord key by pressing the appropriate "piano
keyboard".
- "Play" at the bottom of the screen will select the method that a chord
is played, be it harmony (as long as your device supports polyphonic
sounds), arpeggio or arpeggio followed by harmony.
- Press "Play >" to hear the ascending arpeggio of the chord if arpeggio
is selected. If your device has a jog dial, then press it to play chord.
Use "Play" at the bottom of the screen to select the method of chord play.
- Press "< Play" to hear the descending arpeggio of the chord if
arpeggio is selected. Use "Play" at the bottom of the screen to select the
method of chord play.
- The tempo at which the chords are played is selectable by the
"Tempo" control.
- Select the chord by selecting the "Number of Notes" and
the "Chord" from the pull-down list. By clicking on
"Chord" you can change whether the chord description is displayed in
shorthand or longhand. You can also select
the chord by pressing the page up or page down keys, or by using
the jog dial if your device has one.
-
Scales:
- Select the scale key by pressing the appropriate "piano
keyboard".
- Select the scale by selecting the "Scale" from the
pull-down list. You can also select
the scale by pressing the page up or page down keys, or by using
the jog dial if your device has one.
- Press "Play >" to hear the individual notes of the scale
ascending. If your device has a jog dial, then press it to play the
individual notes.
- Press "< Play" to hear the individual notes of the scale
descending.
- The tempo at which the scales are played is selectable by the
"Tempo" control.
-
Piano:
- To play the piano, simply press and hold your stylus on the desired
note.
- The frequency range of the piano can be adjusted by
selecting "Low", "Medium" or "High"
from the "Range" pull-down list.
- The top "piano keyboard" is higher in frequency than the
bottom "piano keyboard".
- A third keyboard will be available if your device has a collapsible
graffiti area.
Pitch Pipe:
- To operate the pitch pipe, tap the stylus on the desired note. The
note will be played until the screen is tapped outside of a keyboard.
- The frequency range of the pitch pipe can be adjusted by
selecting "Low", "Medium" or "High"
from the "Range" pull-down list.
- The top "piano keyboard" is higher in frequency than the
bottom "piano keyboard".
- A third keyboard will be available if your device has a collapsible
graffiti area.
- To operate the pitch pipe, hold down the page up or page down key
while pressing a piano key with your stylus. Releasing the page
up or page down key will stop the note. If your device has a jog
dial, then it can be used in place of the page up or page down keys.
- 3.54 (11/01/2009)
- McChords is now freeware.
3.53 (02/22/2007)
- Fixed a bug in which the pitch pipe range was not set properly.
3.52 (12/05/2006)
- Fixed another bug that would crash the Palm OS device when exiting
McChords on a Palm OS 5.x device that does not support polyphonic playback.
3.51 (11/30/2006)
- Fixed a bug that would crash the Palm OS device when exiting
McChords on a device that does not support polyphonic playback.
3.50 (11/14/2006)
- Added support to select play method (harmony, arpeggio or both) on the
chords screen.
- The polyphonic (harmony) chord sounds better.
- Added support for new Palm 5-way navigator API.
3.40 (12/30/2004)
- Moved Pitch Pipe functionality from the Piano form to a dedicated
form.
- Fixed cosmetic problem with some Palm OS devices when the graffiti
area is minimized.
- Fixed a display bug in which the keyboard would wiggle when the
graffiti area is minimized on the HandEra 330.
- Fixed a bug on widescreen Sony devices in which the keyboard was not
centered properly.
- Changed support e-mail address.
3.31 (12/30/2003)
- No longer crashes the Palm Zire 21 when a chord is played.
- The game sound amplitude is now checked every time something is
played since some new devices allow for sounds to be adjusted
while this program is running.
- If the game sound is off there is no longer a delay after
pressing a tempo selection.
- Added support for landscape Sony devices.
- Added support for shifting keyboard and controls for a
landscape mode device.
- Fixed some problems with proper screen refreshes on the HandEra
330.
- 3.30 (09/13/2003)
- Now handles the PalmSource collapsible graffiti area and the Sony
virtual graffiti area which gives the ability to have a third keyboard
on the piano form.
- The Sound Preference menu item will now bring up the Zire 71 sound
panel on a Zire 71.
- The Sound Preference menu item will now bring up the Treo 600
sound panel on the Treo 600.
- In the registration form menu, "Graffiti Help" will now
display "Graffiti 2 Help" for devices that have
Graffiti 2.
- Removed the color HandEra icons since there will never be such a
device.
- 3.22 (07/01/2003)
- On the registration form, if the "abc" in the graffiti area is tapped,
the numeric keyboard now comes up.
- Fixed some very minor bugs.
- 3.21 (02/15/2003)
- Sound quality for the polyphonic chords on a Palm OS 5 device has
improved greatly. Also, there is now no longer any choppiness when a chord is being played.
- Added the Minor Flat7th chord.
- Added space for the up and down arrows in the popup lists so that they
do not overwrite any of the chord or scale names.
- Fixed a memory leak if the Beam McChords or Send McChords
Menu items were used.
- Made some minor bug fixes.
- 3.20 (11/18/2002)
- Now supports polyphonic chords on Palm OS 5 devices. At this point,
the Palm Tungsten T is the only device that supports this feature.
- The piano now plays correctly on Palm OS 5 devices. Before the fix
the notes were very choppy.
- Added the ability for McChords to be beamed or sent to another
Palm OS device.
- Made some minor user interface changes.
- The "Sound Preferences..." menu item now brings up the
"Sounds & Alerts" Panel on the Palm Tungsten T.
- Added support for the Palm 5-Way Navigator.
- When the chord or scale list is selected, the selected item is now
visible when first brought up.
- Improved the look of the grayed out piano keyboard on color devices
that have non-white backgrounds.
- Fixed some cosmetic problems on Palm OS 3.0 devices.
- Fixed a bug that under certain conditions the tempo preview would
sound funny.
- Added some memory checks to make sure that McChords will
exit gracefully if a device does not have enough memory.
- 3.10 (08/13/2002)
- Increased the number of scales to forty-eight, including Church Modes.
Also includes the Melodic Minor (Descending) as a scale.
- Now works with the Palm OS 5 high resolution screen.
- Now includes high resolution icons for Palm OS 5 devices.
- No longer forces the display to a 0 degree rotation on the HandEra
330.
- 3.0 (05/11/2002)
- Added the feature to show shorthand chord names. This can be toggled
by clicking on "Chord".
- Added support for changing the frequency range on the Piano form.
- Keys are now highlighted during the playing of the chords and scales.
- On a color device, the ebony keys now have a 3-D look.
- Made some minor user interface changes.
- Fixed the double click sound that occurred when changing chords and
scales on the HandEra 330.
- Fixed a display bug in which part of the note information on the piano
was chopped off.
- Fixed some display bugs that are Palm OS 5 specific.
- Fixed a small memory leak on the popup forms.
- Fixed a bug that caused the registration reminder to be displayed too
many times on some devices.
- 2.20 (02/04/2002)
- Added the pitch pipe functionality to the piano page.
- Added tempo control to the chords and scales pages.
- Added the note frequency to the piano page (good for the pitch
pipe).
- Added support for the jog dial on the Sony Clié.
- Made the HandEra 330 jog dial consistent throughout the program.
- The HandEra 330 will now display three keyboards if the graffiti
area has been minimized.
- The piano has been raised up one octave to better accommodate for
the three keyboards.
- 2.11 (09/12/2001)
- Fixed a bug that prevented some valid Registration Keys from registering
McChords.
- Made some minor interface tweaks.
2.10 (08/24/2001)
- If the game sound is disabled, it is now easier to turn that on from
within McChords.
- A menu item has been added to bring up the screen calibration menu.
- Made some minor cosmetic changes.
- Now supports the HandEra 330:
- Includes support for minimizing/maximizing of the Virtual
Silkscreen.
- Supports the HandEra 330 system font set.
- Includes large and medium icons.
- Includes high resolution piano keyboard bitmap.
- Appears as high-resolution in application Preference Panel.
- Fixed some sound problems specific to the HandEra 330.
2.0 (06/17/2001)
- Broke the program into three pages: Chords, Scales and Piano. The piano mode allows the user to play two
keyboards. Also added more chords and scales.
- Palm OS 3.0 or greater is now required to use McChords.
- Now can play chords and scales backwards as well as forward.
- Changed the color of the keyboard and icons a little bit.
- Now using a list to select the chords or scales. This allows for the addition of many more without messing up the interface.
This also allow for a more descriptive selection.
- The page up and page down keys will cycle through chord or selections.
- Added many more chords and scales. Also changed the UI to better manage the large number of chords and scales.
- Now shareware.
1.23 (11/24/2000)
- Updated contact information.
1.22 (06/11/2000)
- Made some minor cosmetic changes.
1.21 (04/13/2000)
- Color icon no longer has a white background when the
third party application Chrome is used.
- Selected keys are now blue on a Color Palm OS device.
- "Get Info" icon shows up in the command bar on Palm OS 3.5 or
greater.
- Made the grayscale selected key to be a little darker.
- Some minor cosmetic changes.
- 1.2 (03/02/2000)
- Previous versions had a mistake in that the diminished
chord was actually a diminished 7th. This has been
resolved by adding the diminished chord and renaming the
previous to a diminished 7th.
- Fixed some screen refresh problems with Palm OS 3.5.
- Selection of keyboard keys look much better on a color device.
- Added gray scale icons for color devices.
- About box improved.
- Now uses game sound volume level.
- Fixed a memory leak.
- 1.13 (07/22/1999)
- Minor cosmetic changes.
- The readme file is now in HTML.
- 1.12 (05/19/1999)
- Very minor cosmetic changes. Version number now shows up
properly in Palm IIIs and above.
- 1.11 (06/26/1998)
- Made some minor cosmetic changes.
- 1.1 (04/14/1998)
- Now checks if the system sound level is off. If it is, an
information dialog is displayed.
- Now works better on the Palm III.
- Made some minor cosmetic changes.
- Made some minor bug fixes.
- 1.0 (03/14/1998)
This program is provided AS-IS; there is NO WARRANTY, express
or implied. The user assumes full responsibility and liability
for any use of this program. All Rights Reserved by Michael J. McCollister,
except as noted below.
Permission to distribute this package complete and unmodified
for personal use via the Internet for no charge (other than
reasonable connection charges) is granted to the public. Distribution for commercial purposes via any other medium,
including but not limited to CD-ROM, floppy, or printed material,
in whole or in part, requires express permission from the author,
Michael J. McCollister (support@MikeMcCollister.com).
Only unmodified versions may be distributed with this notice intact.