Hi Charlie,
I totally agree with you. It's like you've been reading my mind! This is something that I regularly do. Because of my workflow, doing what you suggest is more likely to occur in Realband (RB) rather than Band In A Box (BIAB), although every once in a while BIAB gets to do it too.
Slash ChordsYou mention slash chords... that's one area in which I use it often. Because the slash chord applies to the bass that will be heard, it's usually not necessary in instruments other than the bass. In fact, I've sometimes found that slash chords can cause some instruments to produce less than optimal sounds. (BIAB 2016 now has an option under Song Settings to apply the slash bass only to the Bass track.)
Once I have the slash chord bass line generated, I freeze the Bass (in BIAB) and save a new version without slash chords. I always make my file-name descriptive so that when I see it, I know what the file contains; thus my new file will be called something like,
songname_no_slash.MGU.
- Instrumental exceptions to the above thinking are Piano and Guitar. Because these instruments also play bass notes, it's sometimes necessary to maintain slash chords when generating them so that low frequency audio conflicts are avoided. If I need to do this, I generate the song with the slash chords in place, freeze the bass and any other instrument that needs the slash chord and save the file with a new name.
DissonanceFor those who read this and who are not sure what I mean by 'dissonance', it's a concept that comes from the days of contrapuntal harmony. This is alternatively known as 'counterpoint' and is the predominant technique for harmonising music that existed prior to the invention of chords as we know them (major, minor, seventh, etc.). Johann Sebastian Bach's music is regarded by many as the ultimate achievement in counterpoint.
To cut a long story short, in counterpoint, notes are considered in vertical pairs (intervals). When a pair is played/heard, it will either sound good (consonance) or not-so-good (dissonance). In counterpoint, intervals are usually referenced against the bass note.
- Consonant intervals are
- (a) perfect 5th
- (b) perfect octave
- (c) perfect unison
- (d) major and minor 3rds
- (e) major and minor 6ths.
- Dissonant intervals are everything else.
- A special note about the perfect 4th... in some contexts this sounds good, in other contexts it has a dissonant quality. For this reason, the perfect 4th is ambiguous and some books treat it as consonant and some as dissonant. My own view is that it's usually more productive to think of it as a dissonant interval.
A principle that comes from the counterpoint period, and is still used by today's composers/arrangers, is that one should generally avoid doubling a dissonance. In other words, a dissonant interval only needs to be played by a single instrument (or section in an orchestra). The reason for this is that a dissonance is very obvious when placed against the consonant backdrop of a major or minor chord. As a result, if too many instruments play a dissonant note, they accent that note excessively and it disrupts the music's texture. (Because an interval is referenced against the bass note, the 'dissonant note' is the upper note of an interval.)
**Here's a link to a good Wikipedia article on counterpointI always apply my above understanding of counterpoint to what you have mentioned.
As an example...
If my song contains the chord G7 (notes = G B D F). I look at the chord harmonically and compare each note of the chord to the bass. I don't worry about what octaves the notes are in. For the purposes of applying counterpoint, it's fine to think of notes occurring within the same octave; the bass note must be the lower note. Applying this to G7 gives me...
- G (bass) to G (in chord): this will be either a perfect unison or a perfect octave = CONSONANT
- G (bass) up to B: this is a major 3rd = CONSONANT
- G (bass) up to D: this is a perfect 5th = CONSONANT
- G (bass) up to F: this is a minor 7th = DISSONANT
Because the F in G7 is dissonant against the bass note, I usually only have one instrument playing the G7 chord. The other instruments will play a standard G major chord (all notes are consonant with the bass in simple, 3-note major chords or minor chords).
More generally: if I have a song that has 7ths, m9ths, maj7ths, etc, I will generate it. I then decide which instrument I want those extended chords to be played on. Once I've done that, I freeze the track, so as to retain the dissonance, and make all the extended chords into simple major or minor chords (as required). Then I regenerate the track. This means that one instrument in my mix will play the full chord extensions that I originally wrote while the others will play a major or minor versions of the same chord.
- The above being said, sometimes I do let extended chords play on all tracks. Before I make that decision, though, I ALWAYS run through the above process. Doing so gives me a choice and I like the option of having a choice because then I know that I'll get the best sound at the end of the mix. BIAB makes the process easy - especially with the "Search and replace" chords function found under the "Edit" menu.
**
HERE are some example files (BIAB & audio): 3.5 MB zip file
As at the start, Charlie.... you've read my mind! The technique of multiple SGU/MGU files that you suggest is very, very valuable to me in producing music.
Regards,
Noel
P.S. Regarding the examples... the Gm/Bb chord (IIm/IV) needed to stay intact since this is a substitute for chord IV (Bb).
