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That was fun, Bob

Brille, if I could make a suggestion. Can you increase the space between the chord and the number or symbol following, such as 7, 9, 6, 13 or the bubble for diminished (and I assume similar including 11 and half-diminished)? The space between the letter and MA looks good, but there's not as much before MI. This lack of space is most apparent after an accidental. Ex. Bb9


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@Bob: I searched my Biab fundus for a piece with alterations and different chord extensions to show the characteristics of the font – and My Prince was the first that fell into my hands. I agree with you that there could be simpler chord interpretations here and there. I suspect that this transcription was made by a guitarist (I myself play bass, guitar and tolerably piano). The dominant#5#9 chord is easy to grip on the guitar and therefore quite common - and, for me, in this particular tune harmoniously even slightly more logical than the change from Major 7 to Dominant 7. Pianists might see things like this a little different than guitar players.
But in principle I agree with you: Many of the spread transcriptions of standards for BiaB are not always edited properly. I would be very happy about a well-edited implementation of the key standards. But this is a lot of work and also distributing it is legally not without problems.

Bernhard (aka Brille)


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@Matt: You have good eyes and have seen exactly the problematic parts. I started yesterday to optimize the character spacing. This is not trivial because BIAB uses the characters partially illogical. Some symbols are composed from two or more characters (such as the "MA" without extension by small "M" and small "A"), for others there is a single complete character such as "MA7". It took a while before I understood the principle. Peter Gannon could not say anything precise about how the characters are used, so I had to find out myself.
Still a little work to do.
Bernhard


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Very good. To explain, for a decade I beta-tested other software, a notation program, and reviewed special music fonts in development. Before that, I also taught a college course in desktop publishing that covered some of the nuances of font choice. The minute adjustments you need to make can be maddening.

Bernhardt, I'm really impressed so far and I could use your font as-is already. Thanks for doing this.


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@Matt: I optimized the spacing and removed any kerning (I will add some kerning tables later). What do you think: Is spacing now better or do you think there should be even more?

@Bob (For Your Eyes Only): I changed chords in bar 2 and 4 ... and left all the other Dominant#5#9 chords ;-)

Bernhard



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Wow, looking very good! I like the spacing with one exception:

I know you said MA is a single character. That got moved over too, but should not have. MA7 now has too much space before it, if there's anything you can do about that. Maybe throw in a MA7 after a sharp sign like A# MA7 so we can see (and we'll tell Bob to overlook it for testing).


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Hi Matt,
"MA", when used alone: BiaB types small "M"+"A".
Most of the other "MA plus extension"s (like MA7) are single characters.
A little similar with "MI" (the symbol "-" in PGChords.ttf).
But that is not essential with respect to your question. Any subscript sign after the superscript flat-sign "b" will have this much space, until I prepare kerning tables, which remove too much space between selected character pairs (typical example is "A" and "W" - what in music notation is rather rare :-)
I will add kerning tables for selected character pairs later, when all the design works are done. And please do understand that I will not publish the font, as long as Peter Gannon has not give his "okay". He likes the font as well, but he has not yet come to respond to my last emails regarding supporting the font in BiaB - which means allowing the use of other fonts when "Jazz Symbols" is checked.


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OK, thanks. I guess to see that, the sample chart would need a flatted chord with MI, like Eb MI7.


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You are doing some good work Brille and I wasn't asking you to change that chart or anything. It was just me being somewhat serious in pointing out how some chart writers make things overly complicated.

The subject comes up from time to time on Keyboard Corner especially with big band charts for piano. A lot of them are 5,6 even 7 pages long requiring two music stands when with use of 1st and 2nd endings and repeats it could be condensed down to 2.

It's like a typical big band ending of a lot of jazz tunes like Mack The Knife where the whole band punches the last chord. That chord is usually written as Eb13#11 when they could have simply written it as F7/Eb. Try that yourself on piano, the tonic in the left hand and a simple major chord one step up on the right. Easy peasy. Who needs to try to decipher and voice a 13#11 in the middle of a gig?

Anyway, enough of that what you're doing here is badly needed. PG has made a lot of improvements lately but the notation function hasn't been touched in 20 years.

Bob


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Originally Posted By: jazzmammal
...what you're doing here is badly needed. PG has made a lot of improvements lately but the notation function hasn't been touched in 20 years.

Bob

To be fair, there was some adjustment made to keep things like endings and repeats from overlapping, and PG Music did introduce a very nice Big Band Chords font last year.

Still, when Bernhard gets this working, it will be perhaps my favorite change all year.

Bernhard, a Question: I assume we're talking about the printed font, but will this new font also display like this on the screen in leadsheet mode?


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Yes, it will work on leadsheet window(see screenshot below).




In the notation view you have the choice of supersripting the extensions (which I would prefer), but as far as I can see, the notation window unfortunately does not support jazz symbol fonts somehow.







But while playing around with the font options I encountered a reproducible error in BiaB: when trying to change the font for "Bar Lyrics Font" or "Bar # Font" to get rid of handwritten fonts BiaB muddles up the Chord symbol font (see screenshot) whenever you choose lets say Arial or anything else! You can reset this bug just with clicking the "Default" button. I see no way to select a different font for "Lyrics" or "Bar #" when "Jazz symbols" is checked.




I will report this to Peter Gannon, this bug should be fixed.

Good News at least: Today Peter put me in prospect to support my new font with the next BiaB patch!

Bernhard




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@Bob: I did understand that you where not asking to change the two chords :-) haha!
I was just joking when changing the two chords in the sheet.
But your comment inspired me, to think over chord relationships once more! Thank you for your very good hint!
Bernhard



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@Matt: Off topic ... I know. But today I (easy) listend to your wonderful "Brazilian Wish" recording on Spotify. Wow! I have big respect, great music! When I am next in New York, I need to come to one of your concerts. Unfortunately I have to wait until next year to be in the United States again (I come to watch the total eclipse of the sun in August 2017!)
Bernhard


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Originally Posted By: Brille
@Matt: Off topic ... I know. But today I (easy) listend to your wonderful "Brazilian Wish" recording on Spotify. Wow! I have big respect, great music! When I am next in New York, I need to come to one of your concerts. Unfortunately I have to wait until next year to be in the United States again (I come to watch the total eclipse of the sun in August 2017!)
Bernhard

Thank you so much for these kind words! It's not so off-topic; all nine songs were composed in BIAB (Peter knows). I do have a great band (at least four of the players on the CD at most concerts) but alas I only play two or three times a year now. My website (see my profile, left) gives the dates. Next one is April 2017, then July 2017.


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Originally Posted By: Brille
Yes, it will work on leadsheet window(see screenshot below).

Good News at least: Today Peter put me in prospect to support my new font with the next BiaB patch!

Bernhard



Excellent! This will definitely make me use the Leadsheet View more. And that's great news PG Music is considering including your new font.


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@Matt: I agreed with Peter that he integrates the font in the next build pack. He has to make some changes to BiaB first that the font selector accepts alternative symbol fonts. If you can't wait I can send you the font with private mail - but as is you have to replace the original PGChords font, which will not be necessary after the changes in the next build.
Bernhard


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Thanks for the offer, but I think if you do it for me you would be inundated by requests. I'm happy to wait for the official update. The only exception would be if you wanted someone else to test it, which I would happily do.

My compliments on this work, Bernhard. You have done us an outstanding service!


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Hi Matt,

I'm still in touch with Peter, we are trying to make the new font more variable to allow different options of the display (Triangle / MA, - / MI and so on). I think this will work.
Off-topic: I would be very interested in how much and how deeply you used BiaB to compose your songs. Can you anyhow document this as a kind of case study? That would be quite interesting for me because I like to compose myself. And may be for others too.

Best regards
Bernhard


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Pretty easy answer: 100% BIAB composed.

In the studio, we made some changes that BIAB can't do, such as the section of one tune in 7/4. I also did a lot of part writing in a notation program I use, as did the pianist I hired to further arrange the tunes (tweaking). The CD was recorded live in several studios over a few weeks, so you aren't hearing any BIAB on the final recording.


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I am very curious about your honest and detailed references. How did you proceed? Have you set the chord changes in BiaB first or did you even have BiaB generate a song? Did you then choose a style and print the result as sheets for the musicians? Did the melodies come from you or from BiaB? Do you have any BiaB files of your tracks that one can listen to as compared to your real recordings? Questions, questions. :-)
Bernhard


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