When evaluating BIAB styles, try listening to the Style Demos with the Melody and Solo Tracks muted. The melody and Solo tracks are distracting and influential.
I don’t want to be influenced by any melody or solo that’s artificially generated based on a progression that I’m not going to use anyway.
What I’m listening for is the overall feel or groove.
I’m listening to what the bass & drums are doing.
I’m listening for licks, phrases, and grooves that will inspire my own progressions, melodies, and arrangements.
I do the same thing, muting the Melody lets you not only hear just the style and generate ideas of your own, but quite often it is amazing how easy it is to determine what the target song the demo was based on is, yet when the Melody is playing it can be thoroughly disguised.
--Mac
I found that slowing demos down gives even more ideas. Many styles sound frenetic to me at the default tempi of 120 bpm or better. I play them at 90-95 or even slower and have found many which are more suitable for what I'm trying to do at those speeds.
R.
Likewise, I often find that speeding a demo up does the trick for me, as far as modern jazz/bebop genre goes.
--Mac
"Run Fast, Stand Still, Or, The Thing At The Top Of The Stairs, Or, New Ghosts From Old Minds" -Ray Bradbury, from Zen in the Art of Writing
Despite having registered on this forum only last fall, I have had BIAB since v.7, on a machine running Win 3.1. I don't mention this to signify my Great Skills and Experience with BIAB--rather the opposite--but that I have had considerable time to think about it . . .
In fact, this was the first program I had encountered which I actually found intimidating; it seemed that deep. (Regarding new versions: "Our situation has not improved." -Sean Connery as Prof. Jones in Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade)
So, for a long time, I simply pushed buttons. Played demos. Changed styles, instruments. Programmed Beatles songs and played harmonies with Big Synth Noises. Yay. Big deal.
Two things happened to utterly change my approach to, respect for, and use of Band in a Box.
The first was programming in my own songs, things I'd had kicking around for years, even decades. Letting BB generate a Lionel-Hampton-style solo on a 30s-jazz piece, doing minimal editing to get a stunning addition to my composition. Then I programmed in some of my contemporary stuff, and that's when it happened. I was listening with half an ear when it came to a turnaround and I said, "What the hell is that?!" Because it did something totally unexpected. Don't remember what, or even which song; doesn't matter. It just did something I never would have thought of, but which was completely appropriate--and better than--what I would have done. Although the thought didn't come into my mind at that moment, that was when I began to think of BB as a co-composer. And I went a little crazy putting in the music I had written to that point, just for the fun of hearing a 'stranger' play some changes on it.
The second was when the two machines I had for music production went Tango Uniform and I was 'reduced' to a P3/700 Mhz with 192 Mb of RAM, a 30 Gb drive and a $15 sound card (nice speakers, though)--but was determined to keep on working. Up to this point I had simply let all the instruments play in a song, all the time. Now I began muting all but, say, guitar, or bass and drums in an intro, then gradually bringing in the rest of the instruments. Just like 'real' music. Playing with Rests, Shots and Held Chords. Entering Alternate Bass notes (Bb/D, e.g.). Lots of other stuff. And the music began to take on a life of its own. (I have one piece where I alternately mute all but bass, drums, and guitar at points, and I swear there's a sassy sense of humor in the interplay between instruments.)
An important part of growth with BB has been the result of breaks--time away from the computer--at times. I was divorced in 2000, have moved many times since, each resulting in significant down time. But each time I came back to BB (and other programs, too, notably Propellerheads' Reason) something had 'fermented', something new occurred to me, and I was doing newer, stranger, more wonderful things.
Speaking of wonderful--I drove a taxi for several years. And even a minimal laptop with a built-in soundcard, using MIDI only--no audio--allows (or forces) you to try new things. I had lots of time between rushes to just sit in the car and doodle. Some of my favorite stuff came from this time.
Cherish "mistakes". Sometimes they will reveal things you would never have done intentionally.
Read the manual. I keep it in my PC bag, look up the answers to specific questions, or just flip through it from time to time. I swear I find things that weren't there before . . .
Learn about yourself, who you are, how you work best. What is your learning style, your work style? There is no generic best way to achieve goals, but there may be a best way for you. Find out what it is.
"Be strong, go forth, and do it." -King David
Every once I take a hiatus.
No piano, keyboard, band in a box, or horns.
After one to 6 weeks, (sometimes I'm away) I walk over to the piano, put a piece of music on the stand, (Someone to Watch over Me, or Satin Doll) and wow, stuff I never dreamed of comes out of my fingers. Stuff that would not happen even if I spent hours a day at playing.
I don't know why, but I always listen...to music. Gregorian chants to scat. Lutes to bagpipes. Matters not.
Inspiration might come from a sunset, the stars, or an old Ginger Rodgers movie. Or Bogey....who knows.
Snowstorms and Sibelius, a flying butruss and JS Bach. A seagull and JL Seagull.
A beautiful woman and Roy Orbison....
I don't pretend to understand, but it just happens.....
This afternoon I was listening to Diana Krall and Besame Mucho. I've played that song for years, but as soon as my chops are back I'm putting that in her key, cueing the song, and imitating the phrasing......
It's all good.............but time off is sometimes time in a bottle.
I have always found the same thing to happen, John.
Immersion and practicing are a good thing, but taking breaks from it and waiting for things to sink into the subconcious level, plus waiting until the passion and hunger to perform them come into play can be a very good thing. Actually, I have found that intentionally scheduling the learning of new things in this fashion, inclusive of putting it away for a period of time can actually allow me to incorporate the new thing in less time.
Einstein was a terrible fiddle player, he said that he played his fiddle to occupy his concious mind while his subconcious mind worked on the problems he was trying to solve.
In my case, I'm no Einstein, but I have found that putting away the music and working on something else that occupies most or all of the concious side of the brain does indeed leave the subconcious working away on that music related problem.
Expect breakthroughs.
--Mac
Good thread. It's good to walk away from it for awhile. I don't know about you guys, but I like to step back for a week or two, go to YouTube and listen to all sorts of stuff and then come back, hopefully, refreshed and re-enthused. Kind of a double edged sword though. Listening to the great artists and knowing you'll never come close to the sound they get can get discouraging.
