This is actually a good question that some experienced musician should be able to answer. It has me thinking a lot but not yet ready to jump in. But I suspect the answer is a bit more simple than that.

Rhythm instrument need to support the beat (time signature) and the tempo. But of course the chords don't need to be fully quantized and can play ahead and behind the beat (push and pull), a bit at times. But a little of that goes a long way and too much just sounds sloppy. Amd of couse we have swing and straight which counts the beats differently. I actually tried to simulate this in EZKey2 and had a lot of trouble accomplishing that. If I move the chord too far off the tempo gird is simply would not write midi for it. Experiment failed for me.

Melody and improvised solos can of couse take huge liberties with the beat subdividing into subbeats whole notes, 1/4 or 1/8 or 1/16 notes between the beats of the measure.

I would hate to think the basis for this question is simply a midi file which was not properly synched to the beat. What I saw in the picutures of the chord tracks looked like it was the problem. Out of synch.

Interested in what others think....

Last edited by DrDan; 03/05/25 07:49 PM.
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