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Recording, Mixing, Performance and Production
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Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 878
Expert
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OP
Expert
Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 878 |
I recently started playing in a quintet with 2 horns - Trumpet (Bb) and Sax (Bb and Eb).
We have a bunch of existing charts that cover the usual suspects (Miles,Turrentine,Jobim,Adderly,Lots of Standards, etc).
A sufficient but somewhat predictable book.
I bring a lot of guitar centric stuff tunes to the band. (Wes, Burrell, Larry Carlton,Danny Gatton, etc)
I would like to add horn parts to these tunes.
I have no illusions of becoming a great arranger.
I just want to put some charts in front of these guys that they can play.
They like having charts in front of them.
For example - Lets take Wes Montgomery's "Road Song".
Form of the tune is AABA.
The arrangement I'm thinking is for the head Guitar plays the A sections. Horns take the B.
Nothing too fancy but should sound nice. A little variation in the middle of the head
My envisioned approach is to use MuseScore and midi files.
A million midi files exist to get a reasonable version of the head.
Apparently musescore does import midi (to get the melody) as well as add harmony parts to a line.
I envision a creating a simple lead sheet for them so they know the changes to solo over.
Again, I am shooting for something simple.
Would love to hear from those who really know how to do this.
Thanks,
biab2025(Mac) Latest Build
Mac OS (Latest)
Apple Mac Mini M2 pro 32GB Ram
Logic Pro (latest or pretty close)
Heddon Super Spook XT (Mullet)
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Recording, Mixing, Performance and Production
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 27,507
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Veteran
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 27,507 |
I’ve done this professionally for 60+ years.
MuseScore will do fine for this job. I especially like what they did to improve fonts in version 4.
MIDI is good, and you are correct, tons of MIDI files exist for jazz lead sheets. I prefer Music XML as the source if I can get it, because it has everything of MIDI (notes) and also all the text. MuseScore itself has a great site for downloading scores in either format.
Using a computer program for notation makes transposing for your horn players a snap. There will occasionally be some oddities to edit, like unneeded accidentals (E# instead of F, for example, but that’s not too common unless your key signature has many accidentals).
On your lead sheet, you can add chords but don’t count on getting chords in there automatically. So many online sources are wrong, or at least horribly simplified. MIDI doesn’t include chord info, but Music XML does. Unfortunately the XML standard isn’t fully implemented or standardized, so count on doing some editing.
I’ll answer specific questions as I have time.
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Recording, Mixing, Performance and Production
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Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 878
Expert
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OP
Expert
Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 878 |
Thanks Matt.
I expect to do some fiddling to create the lead sheet.
The bass player and I usually review a chart and decide which version of the chart we plan to play.
I would like to put together the leadsheet pretty close to the way we play it (intros, endings, repeats, etc)
The horn players like having a chart in front of them.
I like having part markers for rehearsing sections.
I figure I may end up with some cutting and pasting
biab2025(Mac) Latest Build
Mac OS (Latest)
Apple Mac Mini M2 pro 32GB Ram
Logic Pro (latest or pretty close)
Heddon Super Spook XT (Mullet)
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Ask sales and support questions about Band-in-a-Box using natural language.
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