PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Chord entry nuisance

It appears impossible to enter chords such as Eb whenever some Alto Sax is selected via the Notation Options. Eb quite recalcitrantly will be denoted as D#.

Just perform some simple experiment:

With Notation Options 'concert clef' settings enter somewhere F# an Gb into the chord sheet. No problems up until now.

Yet now change 'concert key' to 'Alto Sax' in the Transpose Options of the Notation Window Options and watch F# Gb turn into D# D#, thus losing their functional distinction. Likewise D# Eb turn into C C.

This glitch may deserve attention with some upcoming patch.

I can understand the F#/Gb becoming D#/Eb; however, were you expecting the C to become B-sharp (B#)? Don't think I've ever seen that notated (and a B# signature is two sharps and five double sharps). I suspect most players wouldn't know what to do with it (other than mentally converting it to the key of C and now your back where you started).

In the Notation Options window is a place where you can check to have the chords display as harmonic or enharmonic. I've had problems getting that function to work in the past, it was a sometimes thing, but you should give that a try and see what you get. As I recall my particular problem, it was that songs previously laid out would not change the chords accordingly, but New songfiles made after toggling that would.


--Mac

Things are getting worse.

Via some reflex arc type reaction and prior to posting I sure did check on this "chord scale for enharmonics" checkbox stuff in the Notation Options, to no avail. The Help file emphasizes this checkbox ist meant for notes, not for the display of chord symbols.

What is getting worse now? Up until now I was under the impression, the vanishing of Eb chords, say, happens with the Transpose Options of the Notation Window Options only. I sort of was under the impression (without double checking) that a simple and genuine transpose action from C to A, say, would transpose the Lead sheet properly. Alas, it doesn't.

Maybe the Eb was a Boojum after all ...

You can change notes one at a time by right clicking on the note and in the menu that pops up change the note ie: G# to Ab Later, Ray

Hi Ray,
thanks for the pointer - I am very much aware of this feature. PG Music introduced this option a couple of years ago, after piling up pertinent requests on the wishlist. Now you may assign accidentals to your notes ad lib.

However, this thread is about chord symbols. Here BB behaves *not* according to the rules ...

I have also been annoyed at how BIAB transposes. I play saxes and see some weird progressions when I transpose the lead sheets. I have been figuring out the rules that BIAB uses for transpositions, with the intention that I will offer some suggestions for improvements in the wishlist section.

Here are the transpositon rules that I have observed when transposing for Eb Alto. What I did was write chords in concert key on every step of the chromatic scale, using both sharps and flats for the "black keys". Then I transposed the notation for alto sax, and then transposed the key of the song to every possible major key.

1. Whether a chord root is a sharp or a flat depends on the key that you are transposing to.
- a. Chord roots go by the key signature of the new key.
- b. If the chord root is not in the new key, BiaB prefers flats, with the following excetptions.
- c. Exception 1. If the new key is C, G, D, or A, then add a sharp to the key signature to predict what roots will be flats or sharps. -- Don't do that for the key of E, there will be a Bb instead of A#.
- e. Exception 2. In the key of F, there will be an F# instead of Gb.
2. If a note or chord root can be written as a natural instead of a sharp, flat (or double sharp or double flat) it will be. Therefore a IV chord in Gb will be a B rather than a Cb, and an E#mb5 will always be written as Fmb5.
3. BiaB does not like the key of F# -- it gives you Gb instead. Combine this with the rule above and you get interesting results when you have a IV chord. So, if a piece is in the concert key of A, and you transope for Alto sax you get key of Gb, and when you have a I-IV-V progression, the music will switch from mostly flats for the I and V chords to mostly sharps for the IV chord.

Things that BiaB does not take into consideration when transposing:
1. Spellings of notes in chords. Many of the chords BiaB chooses contain double sharps or flats. It would be nice if there were different cut-off points for naming non-scaletone chords in order to avoid double sharps and flats in the chord tone spellings. Flats make more sense for roots of augmented chords, and sharps make more sense for diminished chords. Major and minor are in between.
2. BiaB does not recognize keys of the moment. Therefore a ii-V-I in a temporory key could be written partly as chords containing sharps and partly with flats.

I hope this is helpful to someone. I'll have to wait to another day to write up my wishlist ideas. I should have gone to bed a couple of hours ago, but wanted to share what I learned about BiaB's tranposing rules first.

Jim

That was a nice analysis of BIAB behavior. Thanks for sharing that.

Very interesting, Jim!

As a horn player, I had noticed some of these things and shrugged them off, since I would fix them in a notation program. You have provided a very methodical analysis that should be helpful to PG Music. Thank you for doing that.

Yes indeed, that is the most comprehensive listinmg of the situation I've seen.

I hope Development makes a copy and checks it out...


--Mac

Could this be why when importing an mp3 made in biab it gets the chords wrong most of the time? Perhaps they share the engine/code.

Ron

No, this thread is about transposition.

Doesn't it involve the same chord engine/code?

Ron

A fair question, but I think the two processes are completely unrelated. One involves recognizing chords. The other involves converting already-known chords to another key.

Ron, BiaB's chord naming rules that I outlined above only effect whether a certain chord is named as a flat or with the equivilent sharp. You can see this in Audio Chord wizard by changing the "key sig" dropdown box - one chord can be G# if you have the key of E selected, and the same chord will be Ab if you have the key of Eb selected - but those are just two names for the same chord. It does not explain why Audio Chord Wizard gives you the "wrong" chords.

Here's a list of things that affect the chords that ACW reports.
1. the bass does not always play the root. I just recorded myself on All of Me, so I was able to compare the actual notes in BiaB to the chords that ACW found in the audio recording. In the 3rd and 4th measures there is an E7 chord, but on the 4th measure the bass was not playing an E, he was playing C#-B-G-E. On the first beat of that measure ACW saw C#-E-G#, which is a C#min, then applying the chord naming rules for the key of C, it called the chord Dbmin (which is equivilent to C#min). On the third beat, ACW saw G-B-D and E and called it a G chord. That's not what the chords are "supposed to be", but it matches the actual bass notes plus a couple of other notes that were being played at the same time. It was easy to see why ACW chose the chords it did, but the chords did sound funny when I played them back in BiaB.
2. Background sounds and percussion instruments can make pitches that are recorded as notes in ACW.
3. Musicians don't play only chord tones, and melodies don't just include chord tones. Sometimes it is hard to figure out what notes are the chord tones and which are not.
4. ACW can only resove 2 chords per measure. If the piece has more then results will be unpredictable.
5. If your bars are not aligned properly in ACW then ACW can be looking notes from 2 different chords.
6. Often a group of notes can belong to a number of different chords. Is C-E-G-A a C6 or an Am7? Maybe it's really supposed to be an FMaj7 but no one is playing the bass note one this particular beat. Maybe one of the notes is a passing tone or a tone from a percussion instrument and the chord is supposed to be something else altogether.

Jim

I have looked at how BiaB transposes minor keys and I have found that the rules it uses are exactly the same as for the relative major (the key with the same number of sharps or flats).

(The following issue applies when transposing notation for Bb and Eb instruments. It does not always apply when transposing a song while still displaying it in concert key)

Those rules do not take into account the raised seventh of the harmonic minor. A diminished seventh chord can be built starting on the raised seventh of a minor key, and this can be a substitute for the V7(b9). Unfortunately, anytime the raised seventh of a minor key occurs on a "black key" BiaB call it a flat intead of a sharp. (A flat tonic instead of a raised seven.)

A strict spelling of diminished seventh chords by thirds (rather than by enharmonics) always results in double flat chord tones when the root is a flat. Starting on a sharp results in chord tones that are naturals.

Following is what BiaB gives for dim7 chords, followed by what they should be -- both spelled by thirds (BiaB will never display double flats, but this is to show why diminished chords should never start on flats. That is going to be one of the first improvements that I suggest.)

Key of Amin. Abdim7 - spelled by thirds this would be Ab-Cb-Ebb-Gbb. It should be G#dim7 = G#-B-D-F (much better)
Key of Dmin. Dbdim7 = Db-Fb-Abb-Cbb. Should be C#dim7 = C#-E-G-Bb.
Key of Emin. Ebdim7 = Eb-Gb-Bbb-Dbb. Should be D#dim7 = D#-F#-A-C.
Key of Gmin. Gbdim7 = Gb-Bbb-Dbb-Fbb. Should be F#dim7 = F#-A-C-Eb.
Key of Bmin. Bbdim7 = Bb-Db-Fb-Abb. Should be A#dim7 = A#-C#-E-G.

Hi Jim, I understand about the chord names changing according to the key sig. But it sounds like Wizzard is still a bit ambitious for this feature which seems to be a novice at recognizing chords. I could call myself a sight reading wizzard untill you put a new chart in front of me. I'd suggest ACCS..... that would be crap shoot. {;^)>

Ron