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For example, if I want a 3b (3 flat), BB won't accept 3b, or b3. I have to type the actual chord thus defeating the purpose of using the Nashville Notation. When I type the actual chord, BB inserts 3b into the box, yet it won't accept it when I type it myself. What gives?

Thanks for your help.


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Ricky,
Even though you are in Nashville notation mode, you can still type in the actual chord. So, for example, if are in the key of C and you want 3 flat, just type in Eb. BIAB will then change the notation and display it according to the mode you have selected. I did that, entered Eb in the key of C, and BIAB displayed 3b for me.
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Thanks Noel. Yes, you are correct. That is what I have been doing, but I don't want to. I want to be able to simply type 3b because I don't know my chords like musically inclined folk such as yourself. My brain is trained on Nashville Notation.


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Interesting. I have just tried it and it's not possible to enter any flat chords, sharp chords work fine, though. I did discover that if you type in 2# for the chord (or 23 in reality because you don't need to use the shift), the chord enters as 3b. This because is 2# and 3b are identical (enharmonic equivalents). I tried the same with 7b and 6#.

Seems that if you want to enter flats you need to enter them as the sharp of the below scale number. I'm not sure if this is by design or a bug, though. (I've emailed Support and pointed this anomaly out to them just in case it is a bug.)

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Last edited by Noel96; 01/18/10 06:35 PM.

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Excellent! That works. See, you music folks know the tricks. ;-)

Thanks again Noel Seems like such a minor thing. Wonder why PG hasn't made that an option. Hmmmm....


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Just so the process is straight in my mind...

1. You select a key, Say a key with flats.

2. You put in Eflat and you get an Eflat?

Or are you in some other key.

The reason this makes a difference is that somewhere, (it's eluding me) there is a toggle to make the chord relative to the key of the song.

One of those things that bothers my wife a lot. She expecting to see an f# and gets a Gb and glares at me. Too much classical training.

I will not admit to attempt to tune my Bb horn for 20 minutes doing everything possible to hit Bflat. I was going to call the manufacturer in Taiwan and RANT. Then in a moment of calm it dawned on me. A# is Bb.

And I was nailing A#.

Ok.

Breath.

Deep.

Close.

Eyes.


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Ricky,
Let me ask you this as you're the only one, other then me, that has mentioned Nashville notation.
I don't use it because it doesn't follow the Nashville notation convention. It irks me that 2,3,6 are displayed as 2m,3m,6m .In Nashville notation that is implied. To me it just clutters things up.


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Hey John. In the case I was discussing, there are no flats in the scale. I wanted a an F in the key of D which is a flat 3 (b3) in Nashville Notation. BIAB won't accept 3b or b3 as an input method, so as Noel suggested, I have to ask for a 2#.

I think this is different than what you are discussing, but I understand your dilemma.


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I understand your point. The musician I worked with who helped to teach me Nashville Notation taught me to indicate whether 2's, 3's and 6's were minor, because they aren't necessarily. They are indicated with a hyphen (-) such as 2- or with an 'm' such as 2m. In fact, I just pulled out my copy of "The Nashville Number System" by Chas Williams and all the charts indicate whether the chords are minor using one of the two methods I described.

Case in point, the song I am currently working on, "Three Barrels" has 2's where some are minor and others are not. The musicians, and myself, would have no way of knowing which I wanted. And with my poor memory, I wouldn't remember. :-)

Hope this helps.


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Yes, minors should be indicated with the dash.

In BiaB, if you change to Jazz Chords Font, you get those dashes, plus the triangle for Maj7, the little circle for diminished and the circle with slash for half-diminished.

The Flat problem may have to do with the Notations Options setting, "Use Chord Scale for Enharmonics". Whichever way you find it, checked or unchecked, try the other way and see what happens.


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I think that minor 2, 3, and 6 are not implied in Nashville notation. The 2 is major in practically every song Hank Williams wrote, where it functions as the V of V. It is often a dominant 7 chord, or it can be if you want it to.

Hey, Good Looking is in C, but there is a D that resolves to the G in the bridge, just before it comes back to the C in the verse. This situation comes up in practically every song that Hank wrote. This chord change continues to be found in country songs up until the present, for instance, I Love This Bar by Toby Keith.

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When I say implied I meant that based on the diatonic scale the 2,3,6 are minor. In further research I discovered that in fact in Nash. Not. all chords are assumed to be major unless notated otherwise. Now I did learn from actual Nashville road players however if memory serves me the reason I was told to imply 2,3,6 as minor was so that when two fingers were raised you didn't have to say minor.


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