PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows In Praise of the Melodist!

I've been meaning to post this message for several days now, but problems have kept intervening. Things are pretty quiet now, so perhaps this is the time.

You know, there's too many posts here where people are explaining problems they're having with BiaB. All that negativity. Very few posts where people are relating how pleased they are with this software. Well, this post is about being pleased. A lot.

I've been quite busy with BiaB lately. Working on several of my tunes and, a first for me, turning everything over to the Melodist, and just letting it run with things. I had my doubts, honestly, that much of anything would come of it. I've used the Melodist before when I needed help on a tune's melody and it's largely been hit or miss. Mostly miss. But I know from experience that it can come through for you. Several years ago, I was working on a chord progression I wrote on guitar back in about 1978! It's a cool little progression, but I could never come up with a melody that worked the way I wanted it to and I was struggling. So I turned things over to BiaB. Well it churned out several failed attempts, but then it generated one that was mostly pentatonic, and I suddenly realized bingo! That was the answer. So within a matter of an hour or so, I'd finally written the melody to this piece, entirely in a pentatonic scale.

So, what I've learned from all this is, if you stick with it, you'll eventually get a hit. Boy will you ever.

I now have probably close to a dozen tunes that are in the 80-90% complete range that were entirely generated by BiaB's melodist. And these are nice sounding tunes too. Not at all like most results I get when I go to generate a tune with the Melodist. The remaining 10-20% with these tunes has to do with little spots in the melody or harmony I don't care for, or a few obvious errors -- like playing a perfect fifth in the melody against a 7b5 chord. Makes me cringe every time I hear it. It's funny how Major 7ths can sound all dreamy and romantic and playing a natural 5th against a b5 makes one wince, isn't it?

I mean, let's face it, BiaB's Melodist is a computer program -- a smart one, but still just a bunch ones and zeros, albeit most artfully arranged, I'm sure So when I ask the Melodist to generate a melody for a tune I've written or ask it to just go for it and see what happens -- most of the time the results are pretty lame. But every once in a while, the stars must align themselves and the wind is coming off the mountains just right and Jupiter is ascending -- whatever -- every once in a while the Melodist just belts one out of the park.

It's kinda funny how this works, you know? Here I'll be, hitting the Melodist button, listening to the generated tune for maybe 10 or 15 seconds, then hit the button again. Repeat, repeat. I mean, if the song doesn't hook me within the first 10 or 15 seconds, it isn't going to within the next three minutes. So I'm hitting the button again, and suddenly, there's a nice melodic phrase that springs forth. Surrounded by a nice, slick-sounding chord progression. And the phrase turns nicely into another and another, and I'm thinking DAYum! The Melodist, when it gets it right, it gets it all right. Funny how that is. Fascinating, actually. When the Melodist offers up a good one, it has for me consistently delivered complete songs that had no weak spots --- well except for a few minor points, as I mentioned above -- but nothing structurally weak.

One thing I've noticed with the Melodist is it tends to reuse certain motifs, regardless of the sort of style that is selected. And yes, a couple of them have made it into a couple of my Melodist-generated tunes. It's probably inevitable. But that's where the editorial magic comes in. I can always go in and tweak these motifs so that they become mine instead of mindless regurgitations.

So since I'm still kinda new to all this, I'm curious what your experiences have been like with the Melodist. I suppose the Harmony and Soloist functions should be included as well, but I haven't used either yet, so I can't really comment on either. So, any remarkable experiences with just turning loose this program and letting it run with it?

If BiaB was more classically oriented, it would be a real treat to knock out a sonata or a concerto -- or maybe even a symphony!

I'm curious -- have the PG Forums ever hosted a competition to see who can come up with the best 100% Melodist-generated piece of music? It sure would be an easy competition, wouldn't it? I mean all a contestant would have to do would be to keep hitting the Melodist button until it coughed up a tune the contestant liked. Or maybe you could have two categories -- one where the Melodist does everything and another where the Melodist puts a melody to a contestant's music. It might not be much of a contest as far as contests go, but it sure would make for an interesting showcase of the Melodist's capabilities.