zSnout's MusicNotes API is an easy way to make musical scales and chords without having to write much code.
Ready to start using MusicNotes API? Let's get started!
Currently MusicNotes API in only written in PHP. If you would like to help add support in other languages, please create a pull request.
To include MusicNotes, you must download and serve MusicNotes yourself. Use this file.
When you send a request, it should look something like this:
http://yourdomain.com/path/to/file?(query)
Remember, your query should be a query written in the format described below, or several queries joined together with ,, ?, &, or :.
MusicNotes queries are meant to be simple, easy-to-understand things. Here's how to write them.
MusicNotes queries come in three parts: the base note (the base note of the scale), the scale type (major, minor, augmented, diminished), and the note number (we're getting the nth note in the scale). These three parts are conbined into one to make a query.
Examples: Csharp, Amin3
A base note consists of two parts: the note and a modifier. For example, in this base note: Csharp, the note is C and the modifier is sharp.
The note can be A, B, C, D, E, F, or G, and the modifier can be flat, sharp, or omitted. You can also use b as an alias for flat.
To get our base note, simply stick the note and the modifier together, like in these examples: A (note A, modifier omitted), Bb (note B, modifier b).
Always make sure to capitalize your note so that it gets interpreted correctly.
Here's a summary of what we've written here in diagram form:
The scale type tells the interpreter which note to output. There are several different types of scales, but MusicNotes supports two common scales, and two less common scales.
These are the major scale, the minor scale, the augmented scale, and the diminished scale.
To specify the scale type, simply write maj for major, min for minor, aug for augmented, and dim for diminished. You can also omit it to specify major.
Here's a diagram of the above conditions:
The note number can take 4 different forms. Here they are:
If you omit the note number, the query will select the entire scale. Remember that major and minor sclaes are 8 notes long, augmented scales are 7 notes long, and diminished scales are 9 notes long.
But what if we only want to get the third note?
The last part of a query is the note number. Without it, an entire scale is selected, which may not be what you wanted to get.
The note number can be anything from 0 to 9, where notes 0 and 1 are equivalent.
For example, we could write 4 or 6.
But what if we want the first, third, fifth, seventh, and ninth notes in a scale?
As we learned at the beginning, we can string several queries together like this: Cmin1,Cmin3,Cmin5,Cmin7,Cmin9.
But that's long. What if we wanted to make it shorter? Enter plus notation!
Plus notation turns this: Cmin1,Cmin3,Cmin5,Cmin7,Cmin9 into this: Cmin1+3+5+7+9.
See what we did here? Instead of writing each note number in an individual query, we put them together with + signs!
Plus notation is especially useful in this case: Asharpdim1,Asharpdim3,Asharpdim5,Asharpdim7,Asharpdim9 = Asharpdim1+3+5+7+9.
Examples: D1+3+5 (D1,D3,D5), Ab3+5+7 (Ab3,Ab5,Ab7).
But what if we want to get Bflataug1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9? We can't write Bflataug, since that only gets notes 1 through 7. However, we can use ...
Say we want to get Bflataug1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9. Dash notation is useful for this, because it allows us to shorten the ending 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9 into 1-9.
See what we did here? We took our number set 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9 and (because it's also the range of numbers from 1 to 9) turned it into the range 1-9.
Examples: B1-5 (B1+2+3+4+5), Cmin2-6 (Cmin2,Cmin3,Cmin4,Cmin5,Cmin6).
Here's the above in a diagram:
Here's a diagram of a query/queries:
To make our query, we combine these three parts into one. Here are some examples:
B(B major scale)Dmin(D minor scale)E4(fourth note in E major scale)