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I'm trying to use the Audio Chord Wizard to determine the chord progressions for two jazz piano solos that I would like to learn to play. For some reason, the chord progression that ACW arrives at for each seems way off to me.

Would someone be willing to try generating the chord progression for these two songs, and let me know what you come up with for, say, the first 8 bars of each (or perhaps the whole thing)?

The mp3 files are too large to attach to this message, but perhaps I can send them to you via e-mail to try?

Any takers?

Thanks!


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Hello Glens Falls. Heading there shortly.

I have found that jazz chords with any substantial extensions are harder to recognize by the ACW. Plus there is the limit of two chords per bar.

I might know the chords to your songs if they are jazz standards. What are the names and composers?


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Hi Matt,

Thanks for the offer, but I don't believe that they are jazz standards.

They come off of a CD called "Jazz Piano Essentials" that is also streamed by Amazon Prime Music available here if you are a member of Amazon Prime.

The two songs in question are #7 (Jazz Bossa) and #16 (Love Story).

If there's any way to help me out, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks!


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I listened to the 30-second excerpts. #7 is straightforward with no difficult chords at all. I'm surprised ACW can't read it. The half-diminished was the only subtle chord.

The other one, though, has solo piano (at least for 30 seconds) and there's no bass, so I can see that one would be harder.


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newbert Offline OP
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Originally Posted By: Matt Finley
I listened to the 30-second excerpts. #7 is straightforward with no difficult chords at all. I'm surprised ACW can't read it. The half-diminished was the only subtle chord.

The other one, though, has solo piano (at least for 30 seconds) and there's no bass, so I can see that one would be harder.


Hmm... I would have thought that the second one (solo piano) would be easy for ACW to decipher. (That's actually the first tune from this CD that I tried it on...).

Maybe I don't understand how ACW works. Why would it be harder with a simpler piece (ie - solo piano only)?


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It's harder because the program is trying to read chords. With solo piano, there is often no root (on what I heard) and few chords sounding, so perhaps there isn't enough information.

I haven't used the ACW except during beta testing because people pay me to do transcriptions, so I'm certainly not an expert on its use. There are good posts here that give instruction including the importance of establishing exactly where the song starts and where each measure falls. When these are set correctly with F8, I noticed that accuracy improves.


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I just became an "expert" with the ACW the other day in this thread in the RB forum.

http://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=369381&gonew=1#UNREAD

Check out the vid that Rharv posted.

Once I figured it out is really is easier than it looks.

As far as your specific question about chord detection, the more information it has to work with the better. I play jazz piano and many times I'm not using the root in the left hand. Jazz piano has tons of inversions and sub chords. Without a full band to flesh that out the ACW will be a mess. An example is a 2-5-1 to Bb using minor 9's and 13's. Say a Cm9 with the Eb on the bottom and the D on the top, change the Bb note to an A it becomes an F13, change two notes, the G to an F and the Eb to a D and it's a Bbmaj7. Your hand barely moves, you pinky is on the high D for all three chords. Without a strict C, F and Bb bass note, if you know nothing else about the tune, what chords are those?

However, the ACW will still give you the total number of bars and create an overall song structure. Just that alone is worth it because it saves you from creating a new song from nothing in Biab. At least with the base structure to work with you can manually fill in the correct chords yourself from other sources you may find on the net.

Bob


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