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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Dec 2015
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When I'm in the key of A Minor, why are degrees showing up as if I'm in C Major?  Shouldn't I be seeing this? 
Last edited by roslon; 12/02/16 12:25 PM.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: May 2000
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PG Music Staff
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 15,944 |
We should provide that as an option.
I guess it's just a personal preference of mine to think of (in they key of Am) the Am as the 6 (VI) chord. If you do that, the other chords like Bm7b5 make sense (VIIm7b5) (at least to me)
Have Fun!
Peter Gannon
PG Music Inc.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Dec 2015
Posts: 94
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OP
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Posts: 94 |
If someone told me the song we're playing is a I IV V in the key of A Minor, to me that would mean Am, Dm, Em. I've never thought of it as anything else.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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If someone told me the song we're playing is a I IV V in the key of A Minor, to me that would mean Am, Dm, Em. I've never thought of it as anything else. That may be one way but if someone told me we were playing I-IV-V in the key of Am I would play Am-Dm-E7. One has to be careful about that V chord in Am.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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This does depend on how you learned it. I like it the way it is, but an option would be fine.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: May 2000
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I agree that both ways are valid, so I'm not trying to make the point that I'm "right". Just pointing out that for me it makes more sense to think of the Am as the VI chord.
Take a song like Summertime, key of Am. Finally, when it goes to the CMaj (on so "hush" ...), that to me is going to the I chord which makes more sense than it going to the bIII chord.
Have Fun!
Peter Gannon
PG Music Inc.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Peter, I agree. Both views have merit. Neither is better nor worse. Maybe a solution at some point in time is to simply have a checkbox option that changes the labels' text to something like the following.  It still works as far as I can see with any detailed investigation. By using labels such as #1/b2, #4/b5, etc., there's no need to change any of the chord symbols. The only other thing that would need changing is the "Key" label on the lower left (which already happens). Just a thought. Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Oct 2008
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Take a song like Summertime, key of Am. Finally, when it goes to the CMaj (on so "hush" ...), that to me is going to the I chord which makes more sense than it going to the bIII chord. Peter, In relation to the above, I did not learn it that way. For me, maybe it's an Australian thing, III in minor is always a major chord (e.g. F in key D minor) just like III in major is always a minor chord (Am in key F major). This means that if I wrote the progression... .... in D minor, it tells me to play Dm-Bb-Em7b5-A7. I was at a seminar a few years ago with an Assoc. Professor from Berklee who spoke about things like bIII chord. He used it to mean "the chord built on the flattened third of the parallel major scale". That was the first time I'd come across this terminology used in this way. To me, a bIII chord is an Eb variation (in C major) or Cb variation (in A minor). I'm probably just set in my ways but, to this day, the above use of bIII doesn't seem like the most common practice in harmony because I haven't encountered it since that seminar. At the time of the seminar, I found myself wondering if such a technique was a way of trying to make sense of minor harmony from a major-key perspective and introduced to the world as an invention from Berklee. I never investigated it to find out. In Walter Piston's book "Harmony", that many consider to be one of the world's leading authorities in tonal harmony, no reference is made to chords such as bIII from the above viewpoint. - By way of explanation, Piston was a professor of music at Harvard up until 1960. His book is one of the best reference books I've ever read. I continually return to it for understanding harmonic progressions.
Below is from "Harmony" (a revised edition and expanded by Mark DeVoto, 8th impression 1994). When chords in minor are first introduced, Piston/DeVoto use C minor as the reference and they explore the different possibilities given the harmonic and ascending/descending melodic minor variations.  Given the global population of these forums, it would be interesting to hear how different musical cultures around the world talk about minor keys from a harmonic perspective. There seems to be some variation with this. Fortunately, most seem to agree on harmony from a major perspective. Regards, Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: May 2000
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PG Music Staff
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PG Music Staff
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Noel,
Those are great ideas, and the book excerpt is very interesting.
We should be able to provide the option. By the way, there is such an option already in BIAB when switching to Roman numerals or anashville notation.
Have Fun!
Peter Gannon
PG Music Inc.
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