I'm trying to arrange Mercy, Mercy, Mercy by Joe Zawinul in the key of A in Band-in-a-Box. I'm having a problem in the second to last bar of the last section. I'm try to input a F#m chord for 1 1/2 beats (dotted quarter) followed by an E chord for a half beat (eighth) followed by a F#m chord for 2 beats.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Frank

I don't know the song but BIAB can have 4 chords per bar. If your song is in 4/4 time, one chord per beat the most you can do. By default, BIAB accepts 2 chords per bar. If you separate the chords by a comma, you can get 4 chords. For example: C, Am will put the C chord on beat one and Am on beat two.

By using Pushes, you can 'push' the chord earlier by either 1/8th or 1/16th. To enter a push, you type a ^ (1/8th) or ^^ (1/16th) before the chord. Try playing with those and see if you can get it to work.

There are other games you can play to get more (perceived) divisions per bar such as Edit|Expand but maybe using Pushes is your answer.

R

Norton has some styles that let two bars work as one.
Double the tempo, and use two bars to make one.
It will sound right, but the whole song will look funny.

BAIB isn't a great tool for doing arrangements.

You could do most the work in BAIB then export the midi into another program for final editing.

There's no midi standard for chords, so exporting and trying to import into another program won't work. A program like Sibelius is easy to re-enter the chord names.

Hi Frank,

You can do this by modifying the bar settings to double the tempo for those measures as follows.

For the bar containing the F#m you need to press the F5 key to get the bar settings dialog and then set the "% change in tempo" box to 100%. Then in that bar and the following bar type the following chords as shown:

bar 1:
F#m...<enter key>,E
bar 2:
F#m...<enter key>,E

That gives you the F#m on beat 1 and the E on beat 4 (now 2-1/2). Finally in the following bar restore the tempo to normal by typing -50 in the "% change in tempo" box and typing F#m on beat 1.

I am using the RB_EDDIE style for this song btw.

I hope this makes sense. If you still have problems I could email you the version I have if you send me a private message.

Ed

Thanks Ed...sounds like a good way to do it.

Frank

Ed's system works like a charm; I've used it a few times. The drummer sometimes sounds a little strange, but otherwise it's perfect.

I accomplished it with "just" the common Pushes way back when I entered that song.




--Mac

In the second bar from the end, you can't get <dotted quarter-eighth note-dotted quarter-eighth note. Norton may have a style that can do that. When I used to play that tune, my arrangement was much the same as Mac's. Since I'm a keyboardist, it really didn't matter that BIAB couldn't play those eighth notes as long as I did. Later, Ray

Yeah, you have to fudge it at that point.

Hi Mac. How do you post a pic in this forum like you did "Mercy"? Later, Ray

Someone beat me to it when you asked in the other thread, Ray. Follow their good advice.

And try not to put the exact same question in two different posts in future, please.

Thanks,

--Mac

I would love a BIAB file of this tune . . . if anyone here would care to share theirs just send me a PM and I will provide an email address.

Thanks in advance,

Double the measures, the melody duration and the bpm rate. Then you have 8 chords to play with.

Answering a question that is over seven years old. That's got to be near a record. And with a very first post. Bob, welcome, what a guy

Mercy me, a 7 year old post.

With contributions from my dear old friend Mac, who I assume is no longer with is (I miss you buddy). I hope he has just moved on to other non-BiaB adventures and has not gone to the great gig in the sky.

About the problem for the new guys...

Band-in-a-Box only allows 4 chords per measure (bar). Furthermore, BiaB will not allow the user to put a chord both on the beat and the eighth note before the beat. Unfortunately, this makes Band-in-a-Box incompatible with thousands of popular songs.

To overcome this problem, in the mid 1990s Bob "Notes" Norton of Norton Music invented EXPANDED styles.

I like to think of each bar (measure) of BiaB as a "cell" instead of a bar, and it will be referred to as a cell for the rest of this memo.

By expanding the song in BiaB AND using a Norton Music EXPANDED style, each cell contains a half measure. Each EXPANDED style will treat each BiaB cell as a half measure, too.

Since two expanded BiaB cells equal one measure when using an EXPANDED style, this doubles the number of chords you can fit in a measure of music (two cells). So you can fit up to 8 chords in a single expanded measure PLUS you can put a chord on any beat and the eighth note before the beat.

The styles are written to play correctly when EXPANDED so they sound right.

Problem solved and limitations overcome!!!

PLUS as a bonus, this gives BiaB an effective resolution of 240ppq, double the resolution of non-EXPANDED styles.

To audition Norton Music's EXPANDED Styles, go to:
http://www.nortonmusic.com/styledemo.html
and look for the word EXPANDED in the table.

Insights and incites by Notes

Since I'm the one who started this post seven years ago...wow it's been that long! I felt like I should at least chime in.

Ed's solution worked great, and I still play the tune at gigs. Actually I just played it last night.

And yes Notes, it was good to see Mac's post. He's definitely missed!

Frank

Mac is the cat the who turned me on to BIAB and that was the beginning of a mutual respectful long distance friendship.

I am forever grateful to Mac, a true gent in every sense of the word.

Catch ya on the other side Mac!

Danny, if by the ‘other side’ you meant Mac is deceased, I don’t think that’s the case. He simply stopped posting here, citing lack of time. But that was several years ago...

I can't see Mac not posting here for that long because he got too busy.

I sent him some e-mails when he disappeared which were never answered, which was out of character for Mac.

I e-mailed his bro and got no response, but I understand that's typical.

So it remains a mystery, and I suspect Mac has gone to the great gig in the sky, but I hope I'm wrong about that.

Notes

His brother may have gotten tired of the inquiries; he's a busy guy.
He did reply to me a couple years ago:


I am not sure if he is gone now, but I do believe it would take something preventing Mac from responding or participating here for it to last this long.
Who knows, maybe he does check in here once in a while anonymously .. if so; we miss ya old buddy.

Thanks Matt, I hope you are correct.

Best to Ya!