I've encountered the Chord-Exchange Tool and the Reharmonization Tool today, and I appreciate the general existence of those tools - but I'm quite on the beginner side, and therefore I neither understand the tools themselves good enough nor could I judge what would work musically (nor could I play any complex harmony - plus: complex harmony makes it unnecessarily difficult for me to even read a chord sheet). Therefore I'd wish that BiaB would offer a feature as follows:
- Status before using the feature: The user already has his melody in BiaB - wherever that comes from (e.g. the melody of a stye demo song).
- Now the user can click on a button - wherever that button is integrated, but for sure preferably in a menu or dialogue box where he'll easily find it ;-)
- Result: The user gets an automatically generated chordsheet that fits to his melody but is as simple as possible (if possible for that melody: no sus-Chords, no 7th-Chords, 1 Chord per bar, and the like).
This would make BiaB much more beginner-friendly.
And if then the beginner wants to make his song more interesting, he can then still try out more sophisticated tools (like the above mentioned Chord-Exchange Tool and the Reharmonization Tool) in order to enrich his song bottom-up.
A few questions if I may. Lets say you import the melody for "Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht" or "Silent Night" in English.
Does it make a difference if the imported melody is MIDI or audio? What if the imported melody key signature is unknown? How is the key signature determined? How is the beat determined?
While I like your idea I don't think it could be implemented with any degree of success. Band-in-a-Box has both MIDI and audio analyzers built-in. Both rely of analyzing beat for tempo and chord structure for the key signature. When either beat or key signature can not be accurately determined both analyzers do not perform well.
In my estimation a single line, or note, melody does not provide enough information for an application to determine everything else.
I agree with Jim, a single melody or line is simply not enough information to create a chord progression that makes musical sense.
However, if you know the key signature of your melody, you can experiment with the melodist module:
https://www.pgmusic.com/manuals/bbw2022full/chapter9.htm
Hey Jim and Cerio,
I thought of a given midi melody (e.g. the midi melody of a style picker demo song), not an audio melody - my mistake that I haven't made that clear enough in my initial posting. Therefore the bars would already be determined.
The key signature can be estimated by BiaB, resp. it can be suggested, as BiaB already does in other tools.
The melodist is another approach, since it creates a melody but does not analyze a given melody (and also it doesn't offer enough options to create a really beginner friendly harmony).
However, you can understand my suggestion as "if it's possible, I'd love to have it" ;-)
+1 with a "if it's possible, why not" limitation.
Sincerely, I'm not knocking the idea but wonder about the practicality of implementing it.
+1 with a "if it's possible, why not" limitation.
It would be nice but I doubt that it will ever happen.
The problem I see is what chord can be determined by a note or two? For instance your first measure melody is C-Bb-A. Is the chord a C, C7, C6, Am, Am7b9, F, Fsus4, etc. Even if one wants simple chords is it a C, Am, F, etc.
Maybe this would work; have BiaB list a number of chords that possibly
could work and the user tries each one until he finds the chord that works for him. What do you think about this idea?
Mario,
I'm not sure, since beginners often either don't have the background to judge what fits best or at least don't have the self confidence to decide this.
But how about this: BiaB would generate a complete simple chordsheet, but in the result it might also indicate bars where it offers simple alternatives. That would be only slightly different from your idea.
Anyway, what I had in mind initially was something like shown in this video, for example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRSKjJSeVJw I'd think PG is so good at creating intelligent music tools, that it should be possible to bring such a kind of approach into BiaB.
If the idea is to project a useful accompaniment for an existing song from the melody alone, I would say this is pretty well impossible, not because it's too hard, but because there will almost always be too many "solutions".
Sure, BIAB will always be able to come up with something, but if it's completely different from the way the song actually goes, why would you want that?
Thanx for the video. The problem I have with it is that she assumes one knows chords and enough chord theory to make it work. I am assuming that your suggestion is for people with very little, if any, chord and theory knowledge. For instance it you know that F and A notes are in the F chord you wouldn't need BiaB to figure it out for you. Again YMMV
Your idea is a good one.
In all do respect I disagree with the "since beginners often either don't have the background to judge what fits best or at least don't have the self confidence to decide this" statement. One has to use their ears. If it sounds good it is good, regardless of what others think. Again YMMV
FWIW my view of music creation software is for musician's, meaning they should know something about music. It could be chord progressions all the way to advanced music theory. I look at it like I look at graphic creation software. I could purchase the most expensive graphic creation software but it still wouldn't make me an artist. I have problems just tracking my hand on a piece of paper!
BUT on the educational side your suggestion just might work. However with only a few notes it may be hard to determine what chord might fit. Thus I'm still a +1.
Hey Mark and Mario,
maybe I should also mention which specific purpose of the suggested tool I'm thinking of:
Mainly, I'm thinking of this: A beginner wants to practice comping by playing along specific melodies. In this case it doesn't matter to him if then he'll have a C chord or an Am chord in a specific bar, as long as the chords are simple enough for him and work over his melody.
A second/side-effect could be that he might also learn something from BiaB about how to harmonize melodies.
Mainly, I'm thinking of this: A beginner wants to practice comping by playing along specific melodies. In this case it doesn't matter to him if then he'll have a C chord or an Am chord in a specific bar, as long as the chords are simple enough for him and work over his melody.
But isn't this is a little esoteric for inclusion in the BIAB application? I mean, "Give me some chords to go with this melody, I really don't care what they are, and make them as simple as possible"? That seems like something more for a training application.
I do like the idea, though! I imagine a slider where you specify how challenging you want the accompaniment to be, from super-simple hymn-like arrangements to totally twisted ones where the chords fit the melody using deviant, dissonant harmonies.
Hey Mark,
this is exactly the one and only reason why I bought BiaB: I want to use it for training purposes.
So for me, every other potential usage just might be a nice feature on top of that, some time later.
The slider idea is interesting btw.
This might be only loosely / distantly related, but here is my cool recent software find:
https://lengua.la/hugoriemann/index.htmlTalented Santiago made this little toy based on Hugo Riemann.
Click on map, then on chord...Then click and "pull" chord button with mouse. Colors represent relation.
Interesting link, Rusty, thanks! Just missing are the maps 3, 4 and 5 without sus-chords (since I think of sus-chords as final options within that range, rather than as the second stage).
Mainly, I'm thinking of this: A beginner wants to practice comping by playing along specific melodies. In this case it doesn't matter to him if then he'll have a C chord or an Am chord in a specific bar, as long as the chords are simple enough for him and work over his melody.
But isn't this is a little esoteric for inclusion in the BIAB application? I mean, "Give me some chords to go with this melody, I really don't care what they are, and make them as simple as possible"? That seems like something more for a training application.
I do like the idea, though! I imagine a slider where you specify how challenging you want the accompaniment to be, from super-simple hymn-like arrangements to totally twisted ones where the chords fit the melody using deviant, dissonant harmonies.
MovetoGroove, OK now I understand and think it is a good idea.
Mark, the slider idea is a good one. Especially if it ranges from simple triads to complex jazz chords, all of course inclusive to BiaB. I will add maybe it should have a save to chord sheet option. That way one could either practice two ways, lead to chords or chords to leads, or actually produce a song via the save.
MovetoGroove, OK now I understand and think it is a good idea. Mark, the slider idea is a good one. Especially if it ranges from simple triads to complex jazz chords, all of course inclusive to BiaB.
Imagine a dynamic slider, where complexity starts at 0 and increases to 11 over the course of several repetitions.
Throw in a dynamic tempo slider that starts slow and speeds the piece up.
Toss in random key variations and your music student will be gasping for air like a pitbull on a treadmill! =8^)
Mario, you can tell your student then that it's all Mark's responsibility, so that he won't cancel your lessons
Mario, you can tell your student then that it's all Mark's responsibility, so that he won't cancel your lessons
Good idea! Mark it is all your fault
Mark, did you play for Spinal Tap? I mean a slider that goes to 11
haha
Mark, did you play for Spinal Tap? I mean a slider that goes to 11
That movie is in my cultural DNA at this point. I just wouldn't have said "starts at 0 and goes to 10".
Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and...
Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?
Nigel Tufnel: Exactly.
Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?
Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?
Marty DiBergi: I don't know.
Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven.
Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.
Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?
Nigel Tufnel: [pause] These go to eleven.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xgx4k83zzc
I can see the attraction of simple play-along accompaniment, but wonder how long it would be before people complain that it isn't generation the "right" chord progression for the song, or indeed how many people will realise that, because the progression isn't the usual one, the song "sounds wrong".
There're usually the options of the Web or fake books for chord progressions, but of course they're not always "right" either. "Right" of course is often subjective.