Ubuntu Manpage: harpwise - practice harmonica with your microphone and speaker

Provided by: harpwise_6.8.5-0ubuntu1_all

NAME

       harpwise - practice harmonica with your microphone and speaker

SYNOPSIS

       harpwise {MODE} {ARGUMENTS} [OPTIONS]

DESCRIPTION

       harpwise  ('wise'  for  short)  supports  the  daily  practice  of scales, intervals, licks or bends on a
       diatonic (richter) or chromatic harmonica for various keys.

       The primary documentation of harpwise is its usage information, that  can  be  retrieved  by  calling  it
       without arguments:

              harpwise

       this  man  page  has the very same information (so you may keep on reading ...); but there are more usage
       information for the individual modes, which are not available as man-pages (see  below,  on  how  to  get
       them).

MODE

       When  invoking harpwise, the first argument on the commandline specifies the mode of operation; it can be
       one of:

       - listen: The wise listens to your playing (e.g. for scales or bends) and helps to steer through a  chord
         progression

       - quiz:  Train  your  ear,  memory  and  knowledge  of music theory with many different flavours. This is
         actually a fun way to start.

       - licks: Learn licks (some included, pointers for more) as a starting point for improvisations.

       - jamming: harpwise helps to jam along a backing-track.

       And, less interactive:

       - play: Wise plays scales, holes, licks, intervals, chords, etc.

       - print: print and annotate the holes of scales or licks given on the commandline.   Also  print  various
         informationo about licks, scales and much more

       - tools: Some non-interactive tools related to basic harmonica theory

       - samples:  The  wise  assists  in  recording  your  own  samples  or  generates  them for you; this is a
         prerequisite for using many other modes, so you will be asked to invoke it, when necessary

       to read more details, usage examples and options for the individual modes, invoke them without arguments,
       e.g.

              harpwise listen

ARGUMENTS

After the first argument (which specifies the mode) some additional arguments may be given:

- type: mostly 'richter' or 'chromatic' but other choices might be defined. If omitted, this defaults to
'richter'.

- KEY: key of harp, e.g. 'c' or 'g' or 'af' (a flat) or 'ds' (d sharp). If omitted, this defaults to 'c'.

- SCALE: scale on which you want to concentrate, e.g. 'blues', 'major_pentatonic' or 'all'; defaults to
'blues'.

Note, that most scales are notated in second position (e.g. key of g for a c-harp); you may use the
option --transpose-scale to change this.

Some modes (e.g. listen, licks, play) accept additional arguments on the commandline. See their
individual usage messages for details (type e.g. 'harpwise listen') for details.

An example using all these arguments would be:

harpwise listen richter c blues

this does listen to your playing, while marking notes from the blues-scale. However, relying on
defaults, this could also be written shorter as:

harpwise listen blues

or shorter:

harpwise listen c

as 'blues' and 'c' are also the defaults, one might be tempted to write even shorter:

harpwise listen
but that would (on purpose) produce the usage-message of mode listen.

This example would listen especially for the first three notes of the blues-scale, which are given as
arguments and form an adhoc scale:

harpwise listen -2 -3 +4

The possible scales depend on the chosen type of harmonica:

scales for chromatic: all, blues, blues-middle, chord-i, chord-i7, chord-iv,
chord-iv7, chord-v, chord-v7, one, two
scales for richter: all, blues, blues-middle, chord-i, chord-i7, chord-i7om3,
chord-iv, chord-iv7, chord-iv7om3, chord-v, chord-v7, chord-v7om3, drawbends,
foo, major, major-full, major-pentatonic, mape, mape4, mape5, middle, minor,
minor-pentatonic, mipe, mixolydian

Note that advanced users may try to create their own scales, see usage of mode tools for an example

OPTIONS

       Besides the arguments for type, key and scale, there are a lot of options (introduced by  '-'  or  '--'),
       some  requiring an argument themselves.  Options are specific for each mode and are described on request,
       i.e. if you give the special option '-o'.

       Also note, that for most modes, the behaviour of the wise (e.g. the ways of display or  comment)  can  be
       changed interactively; type 'h' to see help on this.

       The  wise offers a broad set of features that can support your practice for a long time. However, it also
       has its limitations: The wise recognizes single notes and it may play chords for  you,  but  it  can  not
       identify your chords. It knows a bit about tempo, but has no notion of rhythm.

USER CONFIGURATION

       ~/.harpwise/config.ini

COMMANDLINE OPTIONS

       Options are specific for each mode; as an example you may type

              harpwise listen -o

       to read options for mode listen.

DIAGNOSIS

       Harpwise  uses  the  excellent  program  sox  (aka play, aka rec) to interact with your sound system. Sox
       handles all playing and recording of sounds.

       However, sometimes, sox might not be configured correctly out of the box. If  you  feel,  that  sox  (and
       therefore harpwise) has problems with sounds or if you see spurious error messages, you may invoke:

              harpwise tools diag

       to execute two basic tests and get some advice.

QUICK START

       Feedback on what you are playing:

              harpwise listen c

       or:

              harpwise quiz random

       for a fun way to improve your harmonica knowledge

       or:

              harpwise jam along 12

       to jam along a 12bar-blues.

EXAMPLES

       See the usage information of the individual modes.

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright (c) 2021-2025 by Marc Ihm (marc@ihm.name)
       This program is subject to the MIT License.