PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Macintosh BB 2024, voice leading STILL bad [Resolved]

I see nothing has changed in that area: the virtual keyboard player is still dumb. No good keyboard player would play a few simple chords as shown in the screenshot, in this manner:

1. in the second bar, not only the upper voices take a giant and unnecessary leap (to what musical purpose?); the middle voice crosses over where the top one was, so that's even worse than bad. Just as bad as it could possibly be.

2. in the second chord, there's no need to double the B, this note is already in the bass and therefore is very prominent. I mean the BASS, not just the lowest note in the keyboard part. This is a slash chord. What's more, the note in the bass is now the major third....you don't double that. A smart keyboard player would only play the B in the left hand (and an even smarter one, would not play the B at all. So in that bar you don't end up with just a doubled major third, but a DOUBLY doubled one. Seriously? Ask any decent arranger about how totally unnecessary is that.

This stuff gives problems in an arrangement....first, all that dumb leaping around will get in the way of other parts, and any decent arranger knows that in a arrangement, every part has its own range, etc etc....this is already becoming a music lesson, but the reason why this stuff matters is that voices leaping around like that are NOT NATURAL. If you tell a singer to since the notes C, E, F, G, A they will not sing the E by leaping a sixth downward, but a third upward, because it is MORE NATURAL, the way is shorter, and the other notes will be sung by step because its is MORE NATURAL. Leaps are NOT natural, and the larger they are, the less they are natural.

Anyone who cared to learn even basic harmony, has learned about the 'rule of the shortest way', and of 'keeping notes in common in the same parts' between chords.

When you arrive to the supermarket, do you suddenly circle the bulding and go through the back instead? Or do you just go through the main entrance?

Or when you want to watch TV, do you say 'I want to watch some TV', backward?

Behaving like that is not logical, because it's more difficult and has no benefits.

A decent keyboard player doesn't have the RH leaping around like a fool, because it is also more difficult to play like that, in addition to unnatural. VERY occasionally a pianist might choose to play a chord by leaping to a different voicing, for variety, (so the purpose is VERY specific) so as to not beat the same chord voicing to death. But this is NEVER done at the start of a piece, it's only done after, and it's generally done in a prominent keyboard part only, not a simple pad that is there to support other instruments playing on top.

And guess what....Miles Black, the musician who created this supertrack, would never have played these chords like that, especially at the beginning of the piece, and especially if there's a melody on top such as that of a singer. That is, he would never have played like this for no reason.

And another thing....BB doesn't do all these silly 'embellishments' like I remember, but still too many. Even when you select 'play simple arrangements', there's slides, grace notes, this, that, always frigging overdoing it and overcrowding it. It got better in that area, but it took a LONG time, and it still is generally too much.

My advice to PG Music is to address these important things, instead of offering a zillion gimmicks that I will probably never use anyways. Check out Yamaha keyboard 'arrangers'.....the chords, arrangements, voice leading in the parts, are always musical, free from 'stuff' that overcrowds the texture, and the results are super musical.

Yeah, I know, the Yammy is a 'realtime arranger' and BB is a 'different' thing. So what. Music is music, and the things I mention apply everywhere.