Let me start by asking a question: Why, why, why, if I say I want a 6/8 time signature for a classic jig, does BIAB insist on notating it as either 12/8 or 4/4? You certainly don't get 6 eighth notes per measure, or just two triplets per measure, in either in the bar chart or the notation page. You get 12 eighth notes, or 4 triplets. It's awkward and confusing. One bar on the bar chart should correlate to one measure on the real-world sheet music. Always. So one bar in 6/8 time should be one measure of 6 eighth notes. If I wanted 12/8 time, I'd ask for it. If I wanted 4/4 triplet swing feel, I'd ask for it.

I'm going to bet the reason BIAB behaves the way it does is that it's your way of "shoe horning" in all your 4/4 swing styles so that they'll work for jigs. Why 4/4? So that you can pretend you have 4 triplets per measure, I'm guessing. That's certainly a clever trick if this is indeed what's going on behind the scenes.

But for us poor unfortunate users, this is confusing at best. BIAB is not intuitive much of the time, and it's things like this that make it that way. Apparently, no development time has been spent in making a 6/8 jig look like a 6/8 piece of music in actual 6/8 time -- you know, the way the user requested it, and the way virtually all jigs are notated in the real world.

If I'm wrong about this, then my apologies.

Please, please, how about making 6/8 be a first class citizen in the bar charts and the notation charts?

If there is a way to do this already in BIAB and I just failed to find it, I'd be happy to hear about it!

And I am making the same request for cut time notation: It seems to have been kludged into the product in a similar "clever" manner. So what is one measure (with 4 quarter notes) on a standardly notated "cut time" piece of sheet music is represented in BIAB as half a "bar" on the bar charts. It's awkward and confusing. One bar on the bar chart should directly correlate to one measure on "real world" sheet music. Always.

As it is, we can't easily correlate written cut time sheet music measures with the bars on the bar charts. We have to remember that they are "doubled" up on the bar charts. Similarly, in the notation view, again, what was one measure on the standard cut time sheet music is half a measure on the notation chart. Again, this results in a lot of confusion and mistakes when going back and forth between real world sheet music and BIAB.

Please, please, how about making cut-time be a first class citizen in the bar charts and the notation charts?

If there is a way to do this already in BIAB and I just failed to find it, I'd be happy to hear about it!

BryMusic

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