PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows "Tricky" Chords questions

Greetings all. (I'm a BIAB newbie but a semi-pro musician)

I play a LOT of open chords. One of my favs I've seen called a Csus2. It's also a C5add2 or a C(open)add2. It's just the notes cdg. How do I enter this in BIAB? One way I've figured out is to say Gsus/C. But this is inelegant to me, because musically it's a type of C chord, NOT a G chord. Any thoughts?

Under the 'tricky' chords there's a 'C4' chord. What's a C4 chord?

Also I sometimes use, what I learned studying classical music to be a 'quartal' chord. It's basically 2 stacked 4ths. IE C-F-Bb. Can you enter this in BIAB? Is that what a C4 chord is? (Again, I realize this is kind of a Fsus chord, but when you voice it on the piano as C-F-Bb it doesn't work that way. I've heard jazz guys use these 'quartal' triads a lot).

Peace,

Ian

Hi Ian, and Welcome to the Forum!

First, we can view a list of all chords that BB recognizes in one of two ways. The Help section, we can search for the ChordList and display it in Help format, listed by chord types.

The second way is using the Chord Builder, which is accessed via one of the RH toolbar buttons (You may have to select the icon first from the extended toolbar by clicking the little arrow to the right of the second toolbar row down, the Chord Builder icon is a staff view of a chord with a little hammer to the left of it). Here we can find a dropdown slot at the lower RH side of the Chord Builder window that lists all the chords as well. Using Chord builder has the advantage of being able to HEAR a selected chord before telling the Chord Builder to go ahead and Enter that chord at the selected bar.

For the C2 chord, try entering "Cadd2" which is in the chordlist. Whether or not the chord plays other notes may be part of the chosen style file, but for the most part it should get what is desired. (I may be wrong on that, but seem to recall one instance where I was getting an added 3rd to a chord, pretty certain that happened when using one of the older Jazz styles, again, changing the style ironed that out.)

"C4" is just a rather common abbreviation for the Csus chord. I think it is added to the BB chordlist because there are a certain amount of sheet musics that use this abbreviation and so many folks unsure as to what it might mean.

The Quartal is a wonderful situation that I like to use for quite a few reasons also. Just stacking C, F, and Bb, as in your example, can yield a nice and sparse sounding comp chord that, depending upon the Bass Note, could be a C7sus, an Fsus or in some cases even a Bb9(no third).

While BB does not at this time recognize the Quartal entered as a Quartal, qwe do have substituion options that can force BB to play them (often Style file dependent on note choice as well), that, while not notating on the chart in an easy read, can play the notes such that we hear that.

For example, the C7sus might be a good choice to enter to see if the autoaccompaniment instruments for the chosen style file might play the C, F, Bb notes.

And, use of the Slash chord notation to force a bass note can be handy there as well. For example, to change that Quartal to play as a Bb9, entering C7sus/Bb can sometimes sound okay.

I have found over the years that these kind of workarounds can sound really nice when used thoughtfully - but we of course have to be able to work around the rather inconvenient chordnames and notations such may create, meaning that in order to get Notation Charts from a particular songfile performance, I find that it is often necessary to either use a fullblown Notation Software to enter the chart for printout purposes, or, something I do when time is of the essenece, simply use BB to print out as LeadSheet and then Print to paper, and, using whiteout and pen, edit those few chords to the nomenclature musicians expect to see at those points, changing the Chordnames of these workarounds. Then I put the edited paper into the flatbed scanner part of my printer and make a copy. That copy step makes for a chart that musicians don't seem to mind reading, since at least my hand entered chordnames are all the same print, grayscale, etc. when turned into a copy.


--Mac

And I believe that 4 chords are inverted 5 chords such that C4 has the same notes as F5.

Best,
Jim

OK - Thanks guys. Mac - that's good advice about the chord builder and I'm definitely going to figure out how to use that.

Re the C2 - I'm not exactly looking for the C2 because that contains the third - EG C2 is CDEG. The C2sus is just CDG. It CAN be entered into BIAB as Gsus/C which is what I'm trying right now on my current, 1st, BIAB song, but I just think it would be nicer to look at a 'C' chord in the chordsheet area.

Quote:

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I have found over the years that these kind of workarounds can sound really nice when used thoughtfully - but we of course have to be able to work around the rather inconvenient chordnames and notations such may create.

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That kind of tells me I'm going to have to do the workarounds. Another thing I'll try for the C Quartal chord is Fsus/C. I'm a piano/keyboard player and I'm using BIAB for the guitar and other instruments. Having BIAB play the Fsus/C and comping the 'correct' voicing on my piano will probably give, more-or-less, the austere sound that particular chord creates.

BIAB is a pretty amazing program.

Thanks guys.

Ian

The requests for quartal chords has been made by several of us here. Hopefully, BIAB will provide them in the near future. Later, Ray

Since I'm primarily a pianist, I just use BIAB bass and drums for accompaniment, (Real Tracks only). I do play a lot of quartals on piano. When I play my EWI 4000s, it would be nice to have some quartals as accompaniment on select songs. Just hoping. Later, Ray

C4 is actually 1 4 b7 in BIAB which is just an inversion of the sus chord

The other quartals currently missing are 1 4 Maj7 and 1 b5 Maj7.

In a four part harmony situation C 1,4,6 7 in BIAB is achieved by F5b/C
It blends quite well with Maj7b5 and 7sus chords

Regards

Alan

Hi Alan,

When you said ...

Quote:

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C4 is actually 1 4 b7 in BIAB which is just an inversion of the sus chord

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... you got my interest piqued. This, in turn, got me looking for differences between the chords C4, Csus and Csus7 (entered as C7sus in BIAB).

What I did was to load a midi-only style because it generates quickly and I'm also guaranteed to see the notes being played on BIAB's keyboards. What I discovered was (which I'm sure you already know because I've read some of your past posts and I know that your level of theory exceeds mine) ...

C4 is, as you say, C-F-Bb (which is indeed a second inversion of Fsus)

Csus is C-F-G

C7sus is C-F-G-Bb

I must say, I like the C4 sound. I'm going to have to play around with that one. I only tried one style but at first glance, it looks like C4 is a quartal chord with a root of C. (It might be that I randomly chose a style that treats C4 in this way. More investigation is needed.)

Thank you for drawing my attention to it.

Regards,
Noel

http://www.hearandplay.com/main/quartal-chords

Here's a good start for quartal chords. Google is full of info. Later, Ray

Thanks, Ray. I appreciate the heads-up.
Noel

I may be completely wrong about this (won't be the first time), but I think the X4 chord type might have been introduced after the first RealTracks were made. When BIAB adds a new chord type, an instrument may just be silent if it encounters that new chord for an older RealTrack that did not have that chord type when they were programming it. The chord type will always work correctly on MIDI tracks, but keep this in mind if you hear gaps in a RealTrack instrument. New chord types added for version 2013 include Xadd2 and Xmadd2.

Hi Matt,

Your thoughts were my thoughts too so I went back through all the pdf manuals that I've collected since my first version in 2006 and X4 is given under "Tricky Chords" in the chord list in every manual, 2006 - 2013. This is what made me wonder if it was a quartal chord because these chord types have been asked for a number of times since 2006.

Since my above post, I've tried half a dozen midi styles in different genres and at different tempos and the result has consistently been C4 = C-F-Bb.

That doesn't mean that X4 chords will work with Realtracks, though. From what I understand, RTs require the chord to have been played in the original audio recording of the track and so if C4 wasn't played as C-F-Bb then it won't appear in a (re)generation and Csus4 might be the substitute.

My hearing isn't astute enough to identify the notes of chords in Realtracks. The best I can do is major, minor, maj7, 7, sus4, diminished, augmented and maybe 6 on a lucky day. Anything fancier than those requires me to have the notation to interpret.

Regards,
Noel

Thanks for checking that far back, Noel.

I have experienced a few chords over the years that were not "understood" by some RealTracks at first. The one that drove me crazy for awhile in Brazilian music was XmMaj7, and the piano would just drop out (though the guitar nailed it). I haven't had that happen in a year or so.

I will have to try out the X4 chord; never worked with it.