1. Is it possible to edit chords in notation view? It says in the manual that it is, but I can't figure it out.


2. I have a song that I imported from an ABC file. How can I move all the notes down by one octave? (keeping in the same key, of course)


3. Can band in the box be used to make something like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP1U-z2T0bw&list=PL9VT98VjmJzoSbARWIPxeA5J_h2TbaMpv&index=3

Thank you

1. I don't believe it is possible to edit the chord symbol (i.e. Gm7b5) in notation view; however, it is possible to change what it looks like (font-wise) and it is possible to edit the actual notes that appear on the notation staff that make up chords. The chord letter will not change by changing the notes, however. You'll need to go back to the chord grid. And any changes made to chords note-wise on anything other than the melody and soloist track will get regenerated unless you freeze the track after making your changes.

2. Assuming your imported ABC file is on either the melody or soloist track, then you just need to transpose down an octave. There are some hot keys to do that:

• Ctrl+Alt+1 Transpose Melody down one octave
• Ctrl+Alt+2 Transpose Melody up one octave
• Ctrl+Alt+3 Transpose Soloist down one octave
• Ctrl+Alt+4 Transpose Soloist up one octave

Also, under the "Melody" menu, there is a selection under "Edit Melody Track" to Transpose. Likewise under the "Soloist" menu.

3. And absolutely you can make something like that; however, you will need to have the chord progression do do so (easily obtained in music books or on the web or even interpreted from an imported MIDI file). BIAB, however, will not just take your melody and make a good accompaniment based on the melody (it has an option to try, but it doesn't work very well). Just enter the chords, select an appropriate style from the many available, and you've got your accompaniment from which you can play along on the instrument of your choice.

Thanks. Your tip about right-clicking *(on the other thread) works great for inserting or deleting bars. I also found that right clicking in notation view gives you an option for adding a chord.

I've got the transposing working now--thanks.

Another question:
After I selected a style for an imported midi file, a message in a yellow box in the lower right corner of the screen popped up. t said something like "100% of the chords are complex, you can improve this by..."


The box disappeared before I could finish reading it, and I don't know how to make it reappear. This program can be quite frustrating!

There is a log of these messages. Go to the Help menu, Utilities, Display Log Text File of Yellow/Green Messages

The message was about the Natural Arrangement feature of BIAB, new last year in version 2017. Here's what it says in Help Index, Natural Arrangement (All Songs):

Natural Arrangements (re-interpret complex chords)

If you give a pro musician a complicated chord progression with fancy extensions like C7b9b13 or Gm11, the musician may reinterpret these rather than playing them exactly as written. This can achieve a much better sounding arrangement because the musician has freedom to choose from similar chord extensions. You can get Band-in-a-Box to do the same thing with this option for all tracks in all songs. (Note: To set this feature for all tracks in the current song, use the option in the Song Settings dialog. To set this for specific track(s) in the current song, right-click on the track radio button, go to Track Settings | Set Natural Arrangement, and select an option.)

About your first question, could you cite the page in the manual where it says that, please? I agree with John and perhaps it's an error.

For the second question, there are often different ways to do things in BIAB. In this case, you could also go to Options, Preferences, Channels and change the number in the Melody row, second column, from 0 to -1 to sound down an octave, or to 1 to sound up an octave, without changing the notation.

When I want to change chords in notation view, the two ways that I do it are...

1. right-click the mouse above the staff on the chord (or the space where chords are located) choose "Edit chord" from the right-click menu.

2. left-click on the chord and press CTRL+F2

Regards,
Noel

• my latest song: What A Crazy Thing (cowritten with floyd jane)

First paragraph on page 212 of the 2018 pdf manual, under the topic "Standard Notation Window".

"The standard notation window can be used for notation display and the entry of chords and lyrics."

Lesley,

Thank you for the additional information about page 212.

I wasn't aware that the above two processes that I gave had been modified so that one now only needs locate the beat cursor and type a chord. That's a nice addition to the program! Thanks!

To add a little more information for you, in case it's useful...

If you want to enter a chord on beats 1 and 2, position the beat cursor between beats 1 and 3 and type the chords separated by a comma.

For example....

1. click on beat 1 of the bar (this will locate the beat cursor)

2. type c,am <enter>

3. this will put C on beat 1 and Am on beat 2.

Regards,
Noel

• one of my songs: This Road

Thinks for this. Is the beat cursor the yellow vertical bar?
I found I can edit notes in notation view, but not add new ones.

Another unrelated question:
Often with, say, 4 by 4 timing the first bar has only one beat, and the last bar has only 3 beats. How can I make BIAB do that? And how can I make the last bar look like a last bar (thick and thin lines at the end of a bar).

I'm just trying to figure out the program by entering a 16 bar folk song with chords. Quite a learning curve!

Most of the styles seem to be for anything but folk or Celtic. I guess I need to buy more styles. But I can't seem to figure out what styles are in each package. It would be nice if they grouped the styles in packages according to genre, so you didn't have to buy a lot of styles you will never use.


Edit : "This Road" is lovely. Is the accompaniment a "style" ?

Yes. The yellow vertical bar is the cursor that progesses with the beats.

In relation to adding notation when in Notation View, it's necessary to switch to Editable Notation Mode. This is the option shown on the image below as '2'.




The "(first bar) + (last bar) = (whole bar)" scenario is a convenient notational technique. It is not how songs are performed. Rather, it simply summarises the performance and collects repetitive sections into a single 'once through' with repeats.

Using the above it's possible to summarise (for example) a 96 bar performance into the repetition of 6 lots of 16 bars. Thus the musician is can play the entire song from a mere 16 bars of notation with repetition.

A long time ago, I decided to stop using BIAB from a notation perspective and to use it from a performance perspective.

Thus, for me, a song that requires 96 bars would be laid out as a single chorus that's 96 bars long. That way, I have complete control over every aspect of how the the 96 bars are performed. Using copy and paste, it doesn't take too much time to set out a song as a 'once through' performance.

Have a look at the below song of mine on Vimeo. It's a video of how the chord sheet progresses as the song plays. This is what I mean by a 'once through' performance.


CAN YOU IMAGINE
https://vimeo.com/143978481


Thanks for having a listen to "This Road". I appreciate the comments. I'll go back through my song's creation and see if I used a style (I don't usually). I'll put my thoughts about styles and how I find instruments in a subsequent post in this thread.

Terrific song, and arrangement! Were you playing the violin, too?

I don't write songs, or sing or play guitar (I used to play guitar a bit) but I am learning to play the chromatic harmonica, and I want to make accompaniments that show the notes--I particularly like having the current note turn red during play--it just seems so neat to be able to do that. I find that when I go to the "fake sheet" mode and play a song that doesn't fit on one page, the notation doesn't change pages smoothly, but lags, or has part of one page on top of another. So until I can sort that out I'm sticking to songs I can fit on one page of notation.

Thanks so much for your help!

Hi again, Lesley.

Thanks for your comments on "Can You Imagine".

In relation to "This Road", I did use a style as the starting place for this song. The style was _PJONPBA.STY.

As I started playing around, though, I tried out various Realtracks and Realdrums to get what I eventually ended up with.

RealTracks Picker makes it easy to begin isolating suitable instruments. My process is...

1. Click on the "Tempo" heading column. This sorts the instruments by tempo.

This tempo is what the instruments were recorded at and so it represents the best tempo choice for a song if you want to get the best sound from a Realtrack.

As a general principle, if a Realtrack is used at a tempo that's more than 10 bpm slower or more than 15 bpm faster than its recording tempo, audio artifacts are produced when the Realtrack is generated and these mar the quality of the final sound.

2. Once sorted by tempo, scroll down/up to find the Realtracks that are closest to my song's tempo.

Also.... if the song is an even tempo (say, rock, latin, etc.), look for RTs that have EV present in the "Feel" column in Realtrack Picker. If the song is swing based, look for RTs that have SW in the "Feel" column.

For example...

Since "This Road" is a rock ballad with a tempo of 85 bpm, I looked at the RTs that had a recording tempo of 80 - 90 bpm and that had EV present in the "Feel" column.

3. I use the Band/Solo audition button in the picker window to audition each track. If I find one I like, I then insert it in the song and generate the song to see how it sounds.

Hope these brief thoughts offer some useful information.

Regards,
Noel

P.S. All the instruments in "This Road" were from BIAB. all I played were the choral voices.