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Has anyone come across any jazz fake books that can be inported into BIAB that have the melodies, ie sheet music of typical jazz songs ( not just chords ) that you could modify the key or tempo in BIAB, or play along with ?
Some time ago, I purchased the Jazz Norton Fake Book for BIAB but realized afterwards and was disppointed to find it contained only the chords of these tunes.
A seach of the internet hasn't come up with any good hits on this question, except for a BIAB fakebook that is sold by PGMusic. It is not clear if this is included free in BIAB 2014 or 2015 and what songs are included and if these songs include the real tune's sheet music, but the cost is $29. More info on this would be helpful.
At least one site has not recommended the PGMUSIC BIAB fakebook and described as "too limited" .
Thank you for your help.
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There are plenty of file-sets available on the web, under many genres: Jazz standards, pop hits xmas, and much more. These are created by anonymous BiaB users who put them up on the web at no charge. Generally they are not very good, but they have the chords and melody right (mostly) and can be edited into something usuable. They all carry the risk of copyright violation.
Try searching for a single title + BiaB, like this: "Rudolph BiaB" A single hit may lead you to a set of files.
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The problem is this. When I wrote to the publishers asking if I could include the melodies in the fake disks, they wanted to charge from $1.00 to $2.50 PER SONG. And some of the requests took up to 3 years to get answered.
Some of my fake disks have over 800 songs in them. Who would pay that much?
So I when I mentioned that I could buy a book of 800 printed songs for around $50 (not $800.00 to $2,000.00) they said, "Buy the book".
So I started doing fake disks that are companions to printed off-the-shelf fake books. You can load the Norton file, open the book, and play along.
I know that it isn't the best situation for everyone, but it's the best I can do without breaking the copyright laws.
So if you find one that is less than $1.00 per song, you can bet it's illegal.
And a lot of the files floating around the web are also illegal. It's up to your own personal ethics whether you use them or not.
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Thank you both for weighing in on this melody/sheet music BIAB issue.
For those of us who have a licensed copy of BIAB, purchased soundtracks of the jazz music we use, and have purchased the sheet music melodies from the likes of Jamey Abebersold and others, there has to be a way of easily inputing these melodies into BIAB for further manipulation in BIAB, without having to rely on BIAB's interpretation of the chords.
Some of us want to have the original melody/sheet music to start with and go from there.
On a side issue, one of the things that would also be nice is to have a big fake book with all the songtracks from the famous jazz musicians who played those songs on an accomanying cd ( a mega Jamie book ), though at $1 a song, it would be expensive. Wouldn't it also be nice to also have a BIAB file that you could upload to have the sheet music/melody as well ?
The more I think about it, maybe it would not be the worst thing in the world to input the melodies/sheet music into BIAB oneself if there is no other alternative. Any tips/recommendations on doing this?
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Graham,
You are absolutely right.
I just found the BIAB yahoo groups and joined them. There are 2 file groups as it turns out, those with songs and melodies and those with songs without melodies. The former was a goldmine of songs with melodies in alphabetical order.
One can't ask for more for starters. It had all the tunes I was currently working on.
What is nice is that you click on the individual song BIAB icon and BIAB pops up. There is no typing in the name of the song or anything. It is really nice that there is a solution to this BIAB melody issue.
Thank you.
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Dude, did you not read that this stuff is illegal? Don't be talking about this on this forum, you need to keep it private.
Bob
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Jazzmammal: Out of curiosity, are you and administrator of this forum?
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Remember the first rule of Fight Club!
BIAB – 2026, Reaper (current), i7-12700F Processor, 32GB DDR4-3200MHz RAM, Motu Audio Express 6x6 - My SoundCloud.
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I think copyright has a lot to do to catch up to the digital age. There are MILLIONS of MIDI files out there with chords and melodies. Are they all infringing their respective copyrights? Lots of programs (including BIAB) can interpret those and clearly display the notation. If they are legal, what is the inherent difference between a MIDI format data file and a BIAB format data file?
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I think copyright has a lot to do to catch up to the digital age. There are MILLIONS of MIDI files out there with chords and melodies. Are they all infringing their respective copyrights? Lots of programs (including BIAB) can interpret those and clearly display the notation. If they are legal, what is the inherent difference between a MIDI format data file and a BIAB format data file?
Yes they are infringing on copyrights and yes they are illegal if they did not pay royalties. In fact many of the MIDI sites with melodies were closed down by the music police. Many of the remaining MIDI sites are for playback only like YouTube but most of us know how to DL them if we so desire.
Last edited by MarioD; 12/26/14 11:01 AM.
Checkout person "Did you find everything OK"?
Me "Why do you ask? Are you guys hiding stuff"?
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There are MILLIONS of MIDI files out there with chords and melodies. Are they all infringing their respective copyrights? Almost assuredly, yes, unless as Mario says they hold the rights. For example, if I as a composer decide to post a MIDI file of my composition - with melody - to the Internet for free distribution, I can do that. Most of what you might find out there isn't that, though. And it is of very questionable quality.
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When I said that there are a great many free BiaB files on the web, I neglected to mention that most are worth what you pay.
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Jazzmammal: Out of curiosity, are you and administrator of this forum? Oh yeah, sure. It's just that it's in very poor taste to be talking about how to find illegal music downloads on a commercial music site. Forum Rules: 8. Posting (or requesting) links to songs, music or other copyrighted material is forbidden. You are allowed to post links to your own original songs.FORUM RULES are listed right at the top in big bold letters. It's not that difficult to understand. Copyright law is spelled out in detail all over the net and you can find tons of hits in 10 seconds so please don't take my word for it. Here's one good one: http://www.gcglaw.com/resources/entertainment/music-copyright.html Short and sweet, chords cannot be copywritten but melodies and certain song specific musical hooks are. Technically you're not even allowed to do public performances for free without permission. Whether or not you're making a dime off of it has nothing to do with it, it's the performance that counts. Do we all violate this on a daily basis, sure but it's like driving 95 down the freeway for years and you never got caught. Doesn't make it legal, you just never got caught. Bob
Biab/RB latest build, Win 11 Pro, Ryzen 5 5600 G, 512 Gig SSD, 16 Gigs Ram, Steinberg UR22 MkII, Roland Sonic Cell, Kurzweil PC3, Hammond SK1, Korg PA3XPro, Garritan JABB, Hypercanvas, Sampletank 3, more.
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As far as I can see, nobody has violated the forum rules by either POSTING links to sites that infringe copyright or requesting same. As far as I know (and I am no a legal scholar) poor taste is not a crime. Apparently neither is behaving in a condescending fashion towards one's peers.
I don't know a single musician over the age of 50 who did not own at least one copy of the original illegal Real Book. If anyone either undertook the effort to transcribe all those tunes or purchased the sheets individually) then THAT person has the right to stand on a high horse and criticize others.
I stand by my statement that Copyright laws are outmoded in a digital age. I have legally purchased (Eb and Bb versions) of the Hal Leonard 6th edition Real Books (volumes I and II) on Kindle. Kindle is a MAJOR pain in the toches to navigate on a tablet at a session or on a gig. I converted them (illegally) to .PDF format which are much easier to manipulate in a live setting. Do I feel like a criminal for that ? No I do not, I paid for the content, and not the format. Would I LOVE to have these tunes in a format that I can transpose to accommodate vocalists? Yes, and I do. I have literally every tune I own (from having purchased via the Leonard books) in BIAB format which I downloaded from various sources over the years. I have modified a few to match the Leonard versions.
I am not saying that owning charts with melodies for which I have not paid is right and legal but, again, I have never met a single musician who has not done this.
Most standards and bop tunes in the various Real Books are 50+ years in age (since the death of the composers.) Our copyright laws are such that the rights are bought and sold by speculators (like Paul McCartney) as investment vehicles rather than benefiting the heirs of the original compositions (as the law was intended.)
So yes, there are laws we break on a daily basis, which usually are "victimless." Any one here outside of Colorado ever smoked a joint?
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Maybe I'm wrong, but I really can't see why downloading or sharing a MGU version of Autum Leaves can be so bad.
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You probably don't rely on royalties with your income.
(I agree that a lot of royalties paid are sensless, like the ones for Happy Birthday. But many still receive those who are entitled to them.)
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Maybe I'm wrong, but I really can't see why downloading or sharing a MGU version of Autum Leaves can be so bad.
You would be depriving Paul McCartney of much needed income..... http://www.mplcommunications.com/about.phpMPL Music Publishing top songs include: The Christmas Song, Baby, It's Cold Outside, Hello, Dolly!, Mister Sandman, One For My Baby, Luck Be A Lady, Summer Nights, It's Beginning To Look Like Christmas, It's So Easy, Band On The Run, Fine Line, Blue Suede Shoes, Wonderful Christmastime, Sentimental Journey, Greased Lightning, Tenderly, What Are You Doing New Year's Eve, Tomorrow, Till There Was You, Ebony And Ivory, That'll Be The Day, Riders In The Sky, Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive, Not Fade Away, Live And Let Die, I Love Lucy, Real Wild Child, Route 66!, Big Girls Don't Cry, Autumn Leaves, Hans Christian Andersen, Walk Like A Man, Sherry, In The Still Of The Night, Stay, Say Say Say, Let The Good Times Roll, Grazing In The Grass, Young At Heart, Silly Love Songs, Little Darlin', I'm Glad There Is you, My Love, Seventy Six Trombones and countless others!
Last edited by PhillyJazz; 12/27/14 09:50 AM.
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OMG, not another one of these threads,  What is it about the first rule of fight club we don't understand? 
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You probably don't rely on royalties with your income.
(I agree that a lot of royalties paid are sensless, like the ones for Happy Birthday. But many still receive those who are entitled to them.)
We are speaking about MIDI melodies of songs written (in many cases) more than 60 years ago, used mostly for practicing at home. Maybe it's illegal, but IMO it's definitely not immoral.
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