Quote:

I wonder if there is a Guinness Book of World Records category for Most Songs Played? With all the fakebook versions he has prepared, Bob would have to be in the running.



Leilani and I have played all the songs in all of our fakebooks, and many of them more than once!

Here is how I make a fake book:

  1. Leilani enters all the chords in all the songs - on the songs we do not know, she has to go to YouTube or another source to listen to the song in order to know how to put in the chords and choose the preliminary style
  2. Final style choices are contracted out to professional musicians with instructions to pick the most appropriate style for the song, and NOT to favor Norton Music styles (if I chose the styles myself, I'd pick mine more often, I'm biased, and that's why I contract this part of the process out to impartial musicians)
  3. When the disk comes back from the sub-contractor, Leilani and I play and listen to every song in real time to <1> double check <2> in rare cases modify (usually simplify) any chord that simply doesn't work due to the limitations of BiaB <3> in rare cases take the pushed chords that sound bad (again due to BiaB's limitations) and put them on the beat <4> in rare cases override the style choice chosen by the contractor <5> listen again to make sure the song plays smoothly and sounds good <6> if it does not, make more modifications until the song works
  4. Create table of contents and read_me.txt file
  5. Create installation routine
  6. Create web page with shopping cart info and modify all other pages with links to Fakebooks to show a link to this one as well

So with listening to all these songs, many of them multiple times, we just might take that world record. But we love listening to music, and listening to music that we ordinarily wouldn't be exposed to makes us better musicians in the long run.

It is very time consuming, but it is a labor of love. What we provide is something any one of you can do yourself, but it usually takes many hundreds of hours to complete an entire fake book so what we are 'selling' is a huge savings in time so you can start playing the music hundreds of hours sooner.

Since the thread was about styles ... style writing is just as time consuming. Again a labor of love. But writing a style depends on the style. There is no one single approach -- no "one size fits all" way of doing it. But all styles are played into a sequencer in real time before importing the snippets into BiaB. This makes the Norton styles sound like they are being played by live musicians -- because all the patterns were played by a live musician.

I am so happy and thankful that so many musicians express their appreciation for my work. Your kind comments warm my heart and keep the fire going for me to write more style and fake disks.

Thanks!!!

Notes ♫

Bob "Notes" Norton smile Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com

100% MIDI Super-Styles recorded by live, pro, studio musicians for a live groove
& Fake Disks for MIDI and/or RealTracks