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

Hi all,
I'm a bit new to BIAB, coming back to it after not using it for several years.
What I'm having trouble with is imputing a "minor2" or "minor add9" chord. The chord spelling would be R2m35. It's a nicely dissonant chord, that I use in some of my songs.
It is *not* a minor9 chord, since the minor9 includes the 7 (if the chord is spelled in BIAB as it should be), and it doesn't sound the same.

Is there a way to spell a chord, as above (R2m35), or by note name: EBF#G or AEBC?

If not, are there any known work-arounds?

Thanks in advance.

AarJay

I don't know the answer; just wanted to say welcome back.

Don't believe you can do a minor(add9). I would hit the wish list and add it to others who have requested this in the past.

Of course, one of the problems with adding new chords at this point in time is that RealTracks probably wouldn't accommodate them, since they are already recorded.

My workaround is to use Am in the song, import the BiaB file into Sonar, or any DAW that you use, RB will work, and manually add the 9th. This works with MIDI but not RTs.

If you play keyboard or guitar you could mute/delete the keyboard/guitar RT and play your own instrument adding the minor add nine. You may also be able to pitch shift the bass part to add the ninth in a bass line. Again I do this in my DAW.

I hope this helps.

Thanks for all the replies. I'm disappointed but not too surprised.

I'll give the workarounds a try. I was hoping there was some chord inversion I hadn't thought of that might get me there too, but it doesn't look like it, as far as I can tell.

In the meantime, where's the wish list to add this chord type?

AarJay.

You can find the BIAB wishlist forum here.

There unfortunately is no chord inversion or substitution that will quite get you to a madd9 chord in BIAB. Closest I can think of would be using a 7susb13 chord with an altered root - so if you were looking for an Amadd9 then you could use an E7susb13/A. However that would give you an unwanted "D" (the 7th) in addition to the ACEB that you need. An Esus with an added b13 would give you the right notes (if played with an A in the bass) but unfortunately that's not an option. An Esus/C would give you the right notes, but the wrong root.

It's a pity because the madd9 chord is not uncommon in certain genres - for example, some movie composers are very fond of it.

For a C chord, I use C2. Have you tried Am2 yet? How about Am (+) 9?

Trax

Scott, those two are not supported - Am2 or Am+9

How do I enter, for example, an E min7 (b13) chord? i've read alot of forum posts here and this one MAY have come close to an answer (that you can't really). I'm not mega-experienced at BIAB and not a pro jazz musician but i'd be willing to RTFM and try some tweaks including "style editor".


Mike

For Em7(b13) try Em7#5

I've made a couple of Wish List posts about having a "chord dictionary" in which a slew of common variations would pop up for the user to choose from...AND where you can "roll your own" simply by clicking on a fretboard diagram. Then you can DEMO that chord shape.

Just curious why such "roll your own" chord note choices can't already be made...at least for MIDI (I get it why that's not possible for RT).

Best,

Jim

Hi Jim,

Part of what you ask is already there in the form of the Chord Builder. It may be hidden from you right now in the Toolbar Extension over on the RH side. The symbol is a chord on the staff overlaid with a hammer.

Here we can easily view all the chords that BB currently is able to allow entry of, we can even hear an example of the chord played via MIDI synth in Open or Closed position. We can also "send" the chord found right to the current position of the bar marker on the Chord Grid from there.

And, there is also a dropdown slot at the bottom of the Chord Builder window that lists every chord that BB can recognize and use, in order.

While it doesn't do the Fretboard view, it can at times be really helpful, forgive me if you already know about the Chord Builder. Just trying to help.


--Mac

THANKS Mac. Yes I am vaguely aware of Chord Builder. I don't use it much as a guitar player. What I was mostly referring to is the ability to create chords and/or fingerings that aren't supported by BIAB just by clicking on the appropriate fret position on a diagram.

Also, finding fingerings for chords that are nearby on the fretboard relative to the preceding or subsequent chord...rather than having to jump all over the neck would be great and then having those fingerings able to appear on the printed fretboard diagrams would also be great.

At least that's true for mopes like me who might run across a 7b9#11b13 chord on a leadsheet maybe once very 3 years and have NO CLUE how to finger it!!! (-:

(Of course, I just play the 7b9 and let the other cats pick off the #11b13 and no one has shot me yet!!!) (-:

So, all my leadsheets have fingering diagrams of unusual (to me) chords printed or Scotch Taped on them!! DON'T LAUGH!!!! Naw...go ahead laugh...I do!!! (-:

But I can see how Chord Builder would be a very helpful tool.

Best,

Jim

Hi Jim,

I am a guitarist also and I know exactly what you are talking about. If you are using Google Chrome there is a free app called guitarist reference that will tell you what chords you are playing. All you do is to click on the fret board where you put your finger and it will show you the name of the chord(s) that those notes may represent. As you know using only 3 or 4 notes can be just parts of a number of chords. I know this app will show 13th chords, b5#9 chords but for some reason does not show 13b9 chords. There may be others that it doesn’t know but I haven’t used it much as I have a couple of big guitar chord books.

As far as your chord progression suggestion that requires some music theory and most of the time a chord can lead to many different following chords. However there are free chord progression programs on the web, just search chord progression. Maybe some of those will help.

Good luck.

That would be a great addition, make sure you visit the Wishlist forum and post the request there.

As of now, there is one way that may do that, which is to use a MIDI guitar input and the Chord Recognition Wizard for Chord Entry, but that Wizard uses the bottom note entered to define the chord, which often is not played as the bottom note, which can result in some wrong chord identifications. I've used it, but good use also requires the knowledge of chord theory in order to be able to correct the mis-identified chord when necessary, ie knowing what the true bass note should be. There are a few other probs as well, for not all possible chords are recognized by BB, and that tends to go double for the kind of chords one can come up with on an acoustic guitar, for example. Those suspensions, for example.



If they can solve the aforementioned probs, I should think that adding this as a feature would be possible.



That is what we often do anyway, and not just on the guitar. Pianists and Organists will also intentionally not play every note of a given dense chord as well. This opens up the harmony and avoids the rather dense sound that playing all notes and extensions can bring to the process. Especially when said dense chord is played as a "closed" chord.

Good jazz guitarists often truncate chords down to the bare essentials when comping. For example, when playing the rather common and not-so-dense dominant 7th chord, rather than include all notes in the spelling, 1,3,5,b7 in whatever order, the consummated guitar chordist might elect to only play the most "important" notes of the chord, such as the Tritone, the 3 and the b7 only. If playing unaccompanied without a bass player, we might add the root note 1 to teh 3 and b7. In jazz we almost never attempt to play the 5, which makes the chord sound much too full because it takes advantage of a rule of physics that rock guitarists love, the 5 chord or "power chord" -- playing the root with the 5th invokes a "ghost" note exactly one octave lower than the root note at one half the amplitude due to the way the frequencies beat and reinforce. In old classical organ parlance, this was called the "resultant" and was often used to make a pipe organ sound like it had bass ranks of pipes that were twice as long as it really possessed. We today, of course, call the same phenomenon the Power Chord. Use that 5th sparingly when playing genres that don't feature Power Chords.



No laughter here, for that is how we all start out with the thing, if we keep delving into the study of music and chord theory, if we push ourselves to "map" the neck such that someday we have the ability to instantly know every single fret and its note name, if we practice until our brain cells quickly know the shapes and relationships between strings and the intervals those shapes make until the thing starts to happen quickly, like "macros" - we get closer to the mark.

The only thing that can be said to be wrong about using any "crutch" is the refusal to ever try taking a few steps without using the crutch, and repeating that daily until the strength builds to the point where we can walk without that crutch at all.

The fastest way I know to add to our musical arsenal via practice, mental exercises, performance and all the other things that go into it is to make sure that whatever we are trying to accomplish is approached in an efficient a manner as possible, while at the same time making sure that our methodology is always one of Having Fun with it as we go. Never turn practice into a drudge session, if that is detected, I think it is far better to put the thing down, go do something else for a bit and then return to the thing with freshness of mind and body. And keep it FUN.


--Mac