PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Beginners Forum Writing in 6/8

Hello folks! I’m creating a song cover in 6/8 the original is called “All I Want” as performed by the band Kodaline.

I’m having a heck of a time getting the chord changes in the right spot! The first bar works but after that it’s all over the place!

Any suggestions?

As always ….

Thanks in advance!

Welcome to the forum. BIAB supports time signatures of 4/4, 3/4, and 2/4. Working with songs of other time signature requires a workaround in the form of how you think about other meters. You should be able to make it sound right but not necessarily look right in notation.

First question: did you select a style that is 6/8?

See Matt's reply (above) first.

A couple of workaround options, and which one works depends on the style you choose. First think of each BiaB numbered place in the matrix as a cell, instead of a measure or bar of music.

• 3/4 time. Each BiaB cell becomes 1/2 of a bar
• 2/4 time with a triplet (swinging 8th note) style. (Use F5 to change the number of beats to 2). This is especially good for 6/8 songs that are taken in 2. Each cell is now one bar of 6/8 music.
• 4/4 time. Similar to 2/2, except each cell now becomes 2 bars of 6/8 music, or one bar of 12/8

At first this will take a lot of experimentation with styles, but as you get more familiar with the BiaB styles that you have, you will get to the desired result quicker.

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

Thanks for the answers! It’s definitely a challenge! Even picking a 6/8 style and creating in 4/4 the piano likes to accent the 1 in 4/4, I’ll try some more styles. Maybe the 3-4 idea. Also noticed some 12/8 styles are close to the feel I’m after.

It's a challenge, but once you get used to the workarounds, it becomes second nature.

I'm not part of the PG Music team, and have no insider information. BiaB started as a DOS5 app, and has been on Windows since Windows 3.1. Back then, memory was extremely limited, and the entire app could fit on a floppy disk. PG Music has always prioritized back-compatibility (bless them for that). Since 4/4, 2/4, and 3/4 were all they could do back in the dark ages of computing, in order to keep the old tunes and styles from becoming obsolete, we are saddled with workarounds to get what we need to do. Like I said, this is a guess, so I may be wrong.

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

Notes, I had BiaB on Atari floppy disc and I believe that was before DOS5, IIRC.
I sure wish PGM would do other time signatures correctly. It would make my work a lot easier.

I started on Atari also.
Regarding other time signatures, I absolutely agree. I think the embedded design architecture was developed to only handle the limited time-signatures that we still see today, which is a real shame.

(I wonder what 2024 might bring?)

My first BiaB and my second computer was also Atari. I had a TI99 before the Atari. I remember seeing the ads in Electronic Musician magazine for BiaB, but it was for “IBM Compatible” computers only. And then one day they added Atari. Three instruments, piano, bass & drums, no endings, no user styles, no notation just bare bones. I bought it right away.

Although I play 7 instruments, my primary instrument is saxophone. To practice new improvisation ideas without boring a band, BiaB was a godsend. I had a backing band, and could try things out that were more experimental than the safe things we always use. Many failed, but the ones that worked became part of my tool kit.

Then came user styles. I particularly didn't like the Musica Latina styles in the BiaB built-ins, they might fly in Canada, but not near Cuban influenced Miami, Florida. So I wrote some, added some rock styles, and gave them to a few friends who also had Atari computers. My friends told me they liked my styles better than the PG Music styles (Aren't friends great?), so I took out an ad in EM magazine.

One day I got home and Peter Gannon was on my answering machine. I nervously gave him a call back, fearing he would tell me to stop writing styles for his app. To my delight, the complete opposite was true. Peter told me that his biggest market was IBM (now Windows) and if I sent him my Atari disks he would convert them to the IBM format, so I would have a bigger market. To this day I think of his kind response and appreciate it very much.

I bought an IBM Compatible computer, that had DOS5 and Win3.1 on it. BiaB on the PC was still DOS only. I hated DOS because my fingers have typos built in, so I continued to write on Atari, transferring to the PC, until the Win3.1 version of Band-in-a-Box came out.

As my little aftermarket cottage business grew, I bought a Mac Classic II computer and worked on all 3 platforms.

I'm still writing style and fakebook collections for BiaB, and have customers in over 100 different countries. (Again, thank you, Peter Gannon for giving me the initial boost).

Right now, Mrs. Notes and I are working on revising my e-disk #2, the Pop/Rock Fake Book companion. There have been so many new styles written since we did that one the 1990s, we wanted to improve it. We've been working it for almost a year now.

The update will be free for anyone who bought the e-disk. We thought about a small charge to cover our time involved, but decided that free was the right thing to do. I try to treat my customers the way I would want to be treated if I was my customer.

I still write my fake e-disks and suggest MIDI styles. Why? Two reasons:

• If a MIDI style is assigned, the BiaB robot will usually suggest a Real Style. On the other hand if a Real style is assigned, there will be no MIDI suggestion. So to satisfy both BiaB camps, we are still submitting MIDI styles. Of course, you can always change them.
• MIDI is thousands of times more editable than audio. Quite often, to get close to an accurate rendering of a song, it has to be done with a MIDI style. Real styles just won't make the grade there. Still, the user has the choice. You might not want it to sound close to a famous recording.

I did The Real Book in all Real Styles, and I got complaints from the MIDI folks, so from then on, I went back to MIDI.

I, too, wish PG Music would support 6/8, 6/4, 7/8, 5/4, 6/4, 9/8 and other common and uncommon time signatures, without us having to resort to a work-around, but not knowing the architecture of BiaB, I don't know if it can be done and still have the back-compatibility that I commend PG Music for keeping.

For those of us who started on Atari, DOS, and Mac OS6, we've seen BiaB grown from a cute little program, suitable for practicing, to the giant mega-music machine that it is today. You've come a long way Mr. Gannon, and there are plenty of us who appreciate that.

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

For time signatures higher than 4/4, each bar will be spread out over 2 or more bars. An example would be 5/4 will be written as 3/4+2/4. For 12/8 or 6/8, use a 4/4 with a style using a triplet feel. For 9/8 use a waltz with a triplet feel.

We hope this helps!

Yes, we know, but with the greatest respect, that is just a completely musically unrealistic work-around. No serious musician could properly ever read a 5/4 signature time chart produced using this method, and especially 5/4 7/4 and similar timings.

We all just wish that the company would properly integrate these other known time signatures realistically in their architecture.

As a follow up, however as much as I wish, I doubt it will ever happen.

Perhaps AI has potential....

Quite ... it's a 30-odd year old kludge.

Like so many others, I've been using multiple BiaB cells to kludge 5/4, 6/8, and other not so uncommon key signatures. It'll work with some styles, but most of them. Sometimes it's just for a bar or two like a bar of 7/8 inserted into a 4/4/ song. Tricky.

Although it's a bit of a PITA, I tend to look at all the wonderful things BiaB can do, and just put up with the inconvenience.

I once tried to write a 5/4 style that fit in the BiaB cell. I immediately saw the downfall. The BiaB cell has 4 equally spaced chords, and my 5/4 style had five equally spaced beats. It worked fine if there was only one chord per bar of music, but as soon as you put a second chord in the bar, it didn't land on a beat.

So it's 2 and 3 beats or 3 and 2 beats, whatever is more appropriate for the song.

I do a lot of jazz fake books, and sometimes I get 7/8 or 9/8 and that gets real tricky.

I'm starting "The Real Book Volume 6" now, and I notice Dave Brubeck's "Blue Rondo ala Turk" is in there.

I haven't got to it yet, but it's going to be a huge challenge. The 9/8 section is grouped in 2-2-2-3 for a few bars then 3-3-3 for more. Then it goes into 4/4 time and back. I suspect it'll take a few days of experimentation to get that one out. But if I get it to work, it'll be splendid.

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

I love Blue Rondo a la Turk. I remember when the LP came out.

That one will be tedious for you, Notes, but at least it’s a combination of measure lengths that BIAB supports. Anything over 4 beats requires more of a workaround as you (more than most of us) know. Further, there are two issues here for many of us: how does it sound, and how does it look. In my case, there’s one more: how does it export?

We do need a fix for this.

Us mere musicians haven't got the brain power to start adding bits of different time signatures to make a simple 6/8 feel
Like a broken record I wish PGMusic would just be honest and say no never, ever can it be done in BIAB rather than teasing around with fixes.

It will be quite a challenge.

I, too, love the song. When it goes into the 4/4/ swing with Paul Desmond on the alto sax, the relief from the tension is almost orgasmic.

Many of the great pleasures in life come from tension and relief. You are hungry (tension) and get a great meal (relief). Same for thirst and drink, tonic key and release, mystery and solving it, desire and fulfillment (it's a family forum), etc., etc.

Personal aside: I was just a kid in a rock band, and we played before the Dave Brubeck Quartet in a telethon. Paul Desmond, told me he liked how I played and told me to keep at it. That was very kind of him. I wasn't very good at the time, but I guess my passion showed.

I suspect I'll be working at Blue Rondo for a while, that in itself will increase tension, and if I get it fairly right in BiaB, it will be a great relief.


Insights and incites by Notes ♫

Closest I get to Brubeck is playing with drummer Alan Dawson. Remarkable melodic drummer. And I've worked often with guitarist Mike DeMicco who tours with the Brubeck Brothers Band (has two Brubeck sons). I love Paul Desmond's playing!!

Some years ago we often used to play this at the end of a gig. It was a lot of fun, and kept everyone on their toes

He is one of my favorite alto sax players. When I think 'cool school' alto sax, I think of Desmond, for tenor it's Getz.