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When you select a minor key, how do you get Band in a Box to actually change the song to a minor key?
When I'm in C and change it to Am nothing happens, How do I get a song that is C F G to change to Am Dm E?
Last edited by roslon; 02/24/16 11:16 AM.
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If you already have major chords on the Chord Sheet and you change the key signature to a minor key, it won't change your chords.
If you transpose, it will transpose them, but it won't convert the Major chords you already entered into minor just because you transposed the key signature to the relative minor scale. It's not meant to work like that.
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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If you already have major chords on the Chord Sheet and you change the key signature to a minor key, it won't change your chords.
If you transpose, it will transpose them, but it won't convert the Major chords you already entered into minor just because you transposed the key signature to the relative minor scale. It's not meant to work like that. I guess I don't understand what the point of having the minor keys in the drop down menu when they do nothing. I play a song in C and change it to Am and it's exactly the same song, nothing changed.
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I guess I don't understand what the point of having the minor keys in the drop down menu when they do nothing. I play a song in C and change it to Am and it's exactly the same song, nothing changed.
Well, that only depends on what key you transpose it to. If you transpose it to the relative minor, then nothing will change. Transpose it to a minor 4th (Fm), or a minor 2nd (Dm) instead, and see what happens. This is just music theory in practice. It's not a limitation of the program at all. Go and find a song written in A minor, and have a look at what the key signature is. Then you'll understand why it does what it does. Also, start a new song, make the key signature D. Enter some chords, then change to key signature to A, and then change the key signature to Am. Now, you'll see what's the point of having minor keys in the list. Trev
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
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I guess I don't understand what the point of having the minor keys in the drop down menu when they do nothing. I play a song in C and change it to Am and it's exactly the same song, nothing changed.
Well, that only depends on what key you transpose it to. If you transpose it to the relative minor, then nothing will change. Transpose it to a minor 4th (Fm), or a minor 2nd (Dm) instead, and see what happens. Trev The song still ends up sounding like it's in a major key. I can do the same exact thing by changing the song to it's corresponding major key which is what it seems like all the dropdown menu is doing. If I'm playing a I IV V progression in C and I change to the Am the chords do not remain the same. The sound now sounds like it's in a minor key.
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The song still ends up sounding like it's in a major key. I can do the same exact thing by changing the song to it's corresponding major key which is what it seems like all the dropdown menu is doing.
If I'm playing a I IV V progression in C and I change to the Am the chords do not remain the same. The sound now sounds like it's in a minor key. Hi, you're using the word 'change'. I'm not sure exactly what that means. Do you "change" the chords? Or do you "Transpose and Set the Key signature"?
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
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Scotty,
Be sure you are hitting the GENERATE and Play button or your key change won't take affect. (How in the world could I know this?)
Donny
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This thread became muddied when transposing was mentioned, which has nothing to do with the major/minor relationship. A five chord in C is G, a five chord in Am is E or Em(depending on which minor scale you use).
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This thread became muddied when transposing was mentioned, which has nothing to do with the major/minor relationship. A five chord in C is G, a five chord in Am is E or Em(depending on which minor scale you use). Well the O/P just mentioned "changing", i.e. "When I'm in C and change it to Am nothing happens" And I don't really know what "changing" actually might mean. I'm not sure what the O/P did to cause this change. Change the Chords? Change the Key Signature to Am? Change the Key Signature and Transpose from C to Am? There was no intention to 'muddy' the thread, just to seek clarification and explain why selecting the relative minor wouldn't change the chart in this case, but to explain that the chart would / should change in other cases. I actually had hoped the responses would clarify. No argument about what the 5th is for a key of C, etc. They are established givens.
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
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This thread became muddied when transposing was mentioned, which has nothing to do with the major/minor relationship. A five chord in C is G, a five chord in Am is E or Em(depending on which minor scale you use). Well the O/P just mentioned "changing", i.e. "When I'm in C and change it to Am nothing happens" And I don't really know what "changing" actually might mean. I'm not sure what the O/P did to cause this change. Change the Chords? Change the Key Signature to Am? Change the Key Signature and Transpose from C to Am? There was no intention to 'muddy' the thread, just to seek clarification and explain why selecting the relative minor wouldn't change the chart in this case, but to explain that the chart would / should change in other cases. I actually had hoped the responses would clarify. No argument about what the 5th is for a key of C, etc. They are established givens. I agree that more clarification is needed. But I'm not sure that the "established givens" are understood by all. Am and C do have the same no sharps or flats in common but that is about all they have in common. Am and C are really two different key signatures and I believe that was what Ray was referring too. I IV and V7 are different chords in C and Am. AFAIK BiaB can not take C-F-G7 and transpose them to Am-Dm and E something when changing the key signature from C to Am. [edit]-forgot to add this last sentence-if in fact that is what he is trying to do.
Last edited by MarioD; 02/25/16 05:32 AM.
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Yes.
I had the impression that if the song was in a major key and it was changed to a minor key, that the O/P had expected the major chords to change to minor chords. It's not meant to work that way. That's what I tried to explain in my first reply.
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
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Yes.
I had the impression that if the song was in a major key and it was changed to a minor key, that the O/P had expected the major chords to change to minor chords. It's not meant to work that way. That's what I tried to explain in my first reply. I went back and reread your first post and of course you are right. Sorry and I hope that I didn't step on your toes to hard!
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You couldn't and wouldn't do that Mario. All cool here ! 
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When you select a minor key, how do you get Band in a Box to actually change the song to a minor key?
When I'm in C and change it to Am nothing happens, How do I get a song that is C F G to change to Am Dm E? Things are getting a bit off track here. First, in the literally hundreds of times I've changed keys in Biab I've never changed a song from major to minor. And Don, you don't have to regen, the changed chords show up instantly. I'm not at home so can one of you guys simply set up a new song in C, enter C, F and G in the chord grid, then change the key sig to Am and see what happens? If that does work then that opens up further questions for Roslon like what version is he on, does he understand you have an option to change keys but NOT change the chords etc. But, if it doesn't work then he has a point. Bob
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Bob, I did that this morning.I input C-F-G-C-F-G7 in the key of C. I used all MIDI and what I heard and saw in notation were the chords C-F-G-C-F-G7. I then changed keys and transposed to Am. What I saw and heard was exactly as in the key of C, i.e. chords C-F-G-C-F-G7. There were no chord changes.
Personally I think there are to many variables to transpose from a major key to a minor one or visa-versa. It is not as simple as moving everything up or down a certain amount of steps.
Note that I am using the latest version of BiaB.
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Here's my understanding of what happens.
If you are using a major key.... and enter the chords for that key everything lines up. The chord changes and the lead or melody will use the correct musical scale to select the notes it will play. Every thing should sound good. If you use the KEY CHANGE/TRANSPOSE to another major key, the chords will change if you selected that option and it will play in the new key.
If you change to a minor key that is the relative minor, since the scale is the identical same scale musically..... nothing changes. C to Am for example or vice versa.
If you change to a different minor.... Lets say you started in C major.... changed to Am, you would notice no change. But change the key sig to Gm or Ebm and now, you will hear some differences. NO, it will not change the chords from the ones you selected to minors.... you have to do that manually.... but it will now try to use the G minor scale for the melody scale with the chords you have selected and that might cause some dissonant sounding notes because the scale doesn't match the chords.
Hopefully that helps.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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The key (pun intended) to understanding this is understanding the difference between the key signature of the song and the key of the song. When you select the drop down, you are able to change the key signature of the song. Key signature doesn't care about major or relative minor. C and Am have the same key signature.
Yes, you have the option of transposing or not. If you choose to not transpose, it will keep all the same chords with the new key signature (and folks will go "what is that?"). That being said, it's handy to have that feature, because often times you import a MIDI file and the key signature gets set to C, even though the song is in Eb. So, when you look at the notation, you get lots of accidentals that don't need to be there.
When you do select transpose, it is simply going to move the chords however many semi-tones away from the base key signature to the new key signature (and remember the key signature of a major and its relative minor is the same - that's why nothing changes), but it won't change major to minor or vice versa. That's because it's not changing the key of the song, it's changing the key signature of the song.
And that's the global setting for the whole song. You can change key signatures at certain bars when you want the key to modulates for example, but that also doesn't change the underlying chords. You have to do that yourself.
It's all about notation (key signature and whether to display accidentals or not), not the actual key of the song.
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This is the quote that is causing the O/P confusion:
I guess I don't understand what the point of having the minor keys in the drop down menu when they do nothing. I play a song in C and change it to Am and it's exactly the same song, nothing changed.
I suspect that the O/P expects the chords to change. I tried to explain why they don't. Over to you guys.
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
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When you change the key from Maj to Min, it won't change the chords. It's not so easy. BUT, it will change the chords BiaB uses to auto generate intro's.
Chris..
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I have this issue even when it is nothing to do with the key set for the song. For example when a minor chord is entered, BIAB RT's play a major chord, no matter how many times you re-gen the part...so it might just be a glitch in the elastique part of the engine?? It does happen,relatively, on a regular basis.
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