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You gus know how you can select the number of choruses you want for a song if your creating a song that may just only use a few chords (say a 12 bar blues). Why not call that function verses. It doesn't make any sense to me as to why you would want to select the number of chourses you would want for a song.
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You a messin with a long time jazz tradition. Not easy to change. 
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That's understandable.
We haven't discussed this in many years, perhaps decades.
I believe the origin of the term chorus as it applies in BIAB is from a jazz background. We say, "take a chorus" if we want someone to solo over the whole song. AABA for example is one chorus.
The folk singer / singer-songwriter world speaks about songs as being two verses and a chorus etc. AABA is two verses, a chorus, and a verse; together that is the form of the whole song.
Just think of 'chorus' as meaning 'once through the song' and you'll 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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+1 for Islansoul's suggestion to use the word "verse" in place of "chorus".
I understand honoring the jazz tradition but find PG Music's use of the word "chorus" confusing.
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Then a choice would be nice.
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That's understandable.
We haven't discussed this in many years, perhaps decades.
I believe the origin of the term chorus as it applies in BIAB is from a jazz background. We say, "take a chorus" if we want someone to solo over the whole song. AABA for example is one chorus.
The folk singer / singer-songwriter world speaks about songs as being two verses and a chorus etc. AABA is two verses, a chorus, and a verse; together that is the form of the whole song.
Just think of 'chorus' as meaning 'once through the song' and you'll be fine. That's how I think of it know thakns to BAIB.
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I gotta +1 the OP
I've studied music a long time. To me I correlate the example given above (AABA) as meaning 2 verses, a chorus and a verse.
I get it; if I'm in a setting where someone says 'then sax solo for 1 chorus' I understand it's once through the song .. but to me that is 'slang' and a 'verse/chorus' are separate.
Just my thoughts. This frustrated me in BiaB early on because I would work on setting a song length and BiaB seemed to have a mind of it's own. Then I realized the number in the Chorus box was the culprit. I was looking for Number of Repeats or something. Not Chorus.
Wasn't intuitive at all. Like I said; in a live setting I would get it, but inside a software it seems odd to me.
It's really just a label in the long run.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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Not just a jazz tradition.
The verse is normally the prelude that sets the scene for a song ...... the chorus of the song can then be AABA or any other format and that is what is repeated. In some songs the verse is repeated with different words and then the chorus is repeated and it too may have different words.
Don't know about modern stuff .... seems like musical theory has left the room ... so feel free to do whatever !
Erol
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I learned to accept the term Chorus, but regardless, it has always seemed an odd term to me. It's not really a 'chorus' in the true sense of the word, where most popular common musical form consists of both Verse & Chorus.
Wikipedia describes verse-chorus form as a binary form that alternates between two sections of music.
+1 for the selection of a more appropriate term if that's possible.
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Such an old discussion, but a valid point. Sure, if PG Music could give us a choice as to the use of the term, that would be great. This does cause trouble regularly for some new users who don't know that BIAB follows the jazz usage for 'chorus'. I would just caution against forcing the other convention on those of us who have used BIAB for several decades.
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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FWIW Matt, you know I'm one of those who have used BiaB for decades, and it threw me off early on and to be honest still does occasionally.
It's not a battle I would choose to fight, but thought I'd voice my feelings on it, since I agree with the OP.
Just my opinion, nothing more
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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This discussion is especially interesting because the feelings were nowhere near as strong here many years ago.
I remember as a young teenager first encountering the terms 'verse' and 'chorus' which seemed strange, given my jazz background. I really do understand the frustration of new users who have the same confusion in reverse about 'chorus'. My wife, a pro singer/songwriter, thinks in terms of verse and chorus (and an occasional bridge) also.
I get it.
So, what to do?
This is the Wishlist, so I give the wish a +1.
I suspect the concept of 'repeats' would need to be rethought. I would just hope, if PG Music decides to make the changes to the documentation and prompts that this would require, that they consider providing some sort of choice, just as they did with the old/new GUI. But I can adapt to new terminology, just like several of you did.
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+1 count my vote.
It does not through me because I'm used to old hymnals that used various meanings for chorus, stanza, verse, refrain, ...
However, having a flip switch to go from strophic to pop form would get tails wagging in my dog house.
To be able to add/edit/number the choices while building the song would be nice.
And, a "jump to" option between each.
Ex: right click on a bar for form options. Have a "structure" dialog similar to bar settings dialog where we can choose "Chorus" then add #1 or #2, etc...
intro
verse/stanza
pre-chorus
chorus/refrain
bridge/middle eight
solo/interlude/instrumental
outro/tag
Last edited by Tobias; 01/29/17 09:59 PM.
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I have an idea. Why not allow users to also put a tiny "v" for verse next to say the A for verse when using bar base section, "c" for chorus in B, "s" for solo say in C, i for interlude. If BIAB alread has the option to dictate the end, this makes sense to me.
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Yes, I use bar-based section letters for this (right-click on a measure number).
One of my songs might look like this:
I - intro
A
B - second A part (second verse)
C - bridge
S - solo
V - vamp
B
C
T - tag
etc.
In the jazz world, A generally means first verse, B second (often a repeat of the A section taking a second ending into the C bridge).
And just checking, does everyone know about the Song Form Maker in BIAB? In the old interface, it's an icon in the next to the bottom row of icons, over to the right. In the new interface, it's just called Form and it's an icon in the Tools tab of the new toolbar.
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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And along these lines, I'm not completely happy with the implementation of "Song Form Maker" to build the song by sections.
Personally, I would have liked to have seen maybe a tabbed chord grid display (which internally could be designated A, B, C, etc or whatever) that can be named by the user. So there would be a tab called Intro which contains the chord progression for the A-Intro. Then another tab for B-Verse (with optional number designations for when verses differ), another tab for C-Chorus (or Refrain or whatever you want to call it), another tab for D-Bridge, another bridge for the E-Coda, another tab for the F-Ending, etc.
Everything after the letter designation would be user named, and when done, you have a screen that you can enter something like:
ABBCBBCDBBCEF
Which would then play:
Intro, Verse, Verse, Chorus (Refrain), Verse, Verse, Chorus, Bridge, Verse, Verse, Chorus, Coda, Ending
Then you look at the full song form tab that builds the song based on your input.
Then you wouldn't need to worry about chorus repeats, as the song form would take care of any repeats you do.
Then modify the conductor capability to play based on the song form. Then maybe map keys to each defined section either on the keyboard or on a digital MIDI piano keyboard. That way you could hit a key to repeat sections when playing live.
Just an idea, and hopefully not hijacking the thread.
John Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 12TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 12TB SATA BB2026/UMC204HD&404HD/Casios/Cakewalk/Reaper/Studio One/Notion/Dorico/Noteworthy/NI/Halion/IK http://www.sus4chord.com (under rehosting/construction)
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I always thought the song form maker could be friendlier by allowing alias names like Verse 1 as an alias for A etc. You would still enter the form like AABAC etc. but the meanings would be obvious without even having to look at the chord progressions as it is now.
If memory serves, Peter Gannon developed BIAB to help learn songs from jazz fakebooks, hence almost 30 years of code rooted in jazz terms.
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I agree, but the song structure is "ABAC" etc. , it should say the verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, etc. And it would be great to have each four bar, eight bars, sixteen bars populated for each verse, chorus or bridge. I would function something like the "C7 Chord Option.
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What jford said; "That way you could hit a key to repeat sections when playing live."
Add a hot key for coda as in ALT then 5 so when the current section is done playing it jumps to section 5 (last chorus) and plays to end again. Or if the crowd is simply not getting the song I could jump to the ending and finish gracefully.
Would also be useful for practice and building the song in the chord sheet.
And, a regenerate section X only right inside BIAB.
With a "loop" this section so I could punch in different chord ideas, holds, rests, etc... on the fly and it would regenerate only that section upon each re-loop.
And, a "freeze" section X. Or check boxes in a dialog to choose which sections get regenerated.
Last edited by Tobias; 01/30/17 12:24 PM.
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John Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 12TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 12TB SATA BB2026/UMC204HD&404HD/Casios/Cakewalk/Reaper/Studio One/Notion/Dorico/Noteworthy/NI/Halion/IK http://www.sus4chord.com (under rehosting/construction)
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