I bought BIAB on Saturday. I love the features I'm discovering. I plan to use it to learn how to read music, and for ear training, to learn licks and to practice improvising against different chord changes.

I thought I'd start with a really simple song, Dylan's "Just Like A Woman". Since I couldn't find any pre-made BIAB versions of the song, I tried to build the song myself by inputting the chords.

But, the song is in 4/4 and some measures have one chord per beat. I can't figure out how to input those chords. Each chord I enter seems to be 2 beats.

How lame am I being?

Thanks in advance for your replies.

Never mind, I figured it out. Place a comma between the two chords.
Now, how to get 2 chords per beat?

That you can't do. It's been on the Wishlist probably since Biab was invented like 30 years ago. A workaround is to expand the song which cuts the time in half but gives you the effect of 8 beats per bar.

Bob

Wow. Thanks, Bob, for the reply.

Learning how to input this song, Dylan's "Just Like A Woman", is turning out to be a great way for me to learn how to use this program. I am also discovering features I had no idea were included when I purchased it (like the games).

Imagine if The Beatles had had this program! They loved to mess around with speeds and rhythms and styles 'til they hit upon the magic combo.

I don't mind putting in some hard work learning the program. I can tell it will pay off.

Welcome to the forum. I hope you swiftly outgrow your username. If not, it's going to be fun years down the road!

The workaround Bob is describing is basically to put into two measures into what used to be in one. You have to adjust the tempo and find a suitable style, but it can often work. The notation won't be right, if that is important to you, but you can usually get the sound to work.

Another way to do a workaround is to purchase some third-party styles from Notes Norton (nortonmusic.com) who markets something he developed called Expanded styles, to fix just this problem. Check those out.

Thank you, Matt, for the warm welcome. And for the workaround suggestion.

As to being lame, my first forum question was one that was already answered in the program's built-in Help file, if I had not been too lame to even look there first. D'oh!

So, I going thru the whole damn thing now, just to get an idea of some of the things it can do, even if I may never use those features.

Overall, it's kinda igniting my will to play. I feel myself responding with "heck, I can do that!".

I’ve been using BIAB for twenty-five years, and each year I go over everything just to refresh.

You have a great attitude. You’ll be helping others soon.

Thanks for your kind words!

I'm twenty measures in, forcing the damn notes to sound like they do in my head - what a way to learn to read (write) music!

Reading the stinkin' manual is certainly helping. And I have the song I've picked to start with, "Just Like A Woman", to learn how to do the various tasks. And it's a Dylan song, so, like, he has written some decent songs...

Which is not my aspiration. Learning to read music, to improvise, ear training and developing licks are my goals.

Type to ya after I stumble thru a few more bars [beer emoticon]

When I was studying engineering the expression was "When all else fails, RTFM."

Read The Manual (the F is understood).

Welcome to the forum, you'll find a friendly and helping group of people here. If you stay here long enough, it will feel like home.

Insights and incites by Notes

Hi Bob,

Thanks for making me feel welcome.

So far, it is inspiring to see how dedicated some of you BIAB people can be to fulfilling their musical visions.

Glad to be aboard the learning train. I know I've got it in me!

I messed around with an MGU file I came across of "Angel Eyes", and watched it play out on the virtual guitar fretboard, all within only 4 or 5 frets- what a great lesson in scales & keys.

PS. Please forgive my guitar-centric focus. I met a fellow who was 80 years old, who, only one year before, had started learning guitar - and he was great! So I figured I've learned complicated stuff before, I can learn this! So I bought my first electric guitar in June!

Congratulations on the guitar. Guitar is my 7th instrument, and I started it in my 50s. It's a wonderful instrument. And it's never too late to start.

The thing to remember is that it takes some time, and that time is different for everyone. The more you learn, the more rewarding it gets. And remember they call it PLAYing music, so always remember, the object is to have fun.

Is this your first musical instrument?

BTW, I wish they had BiaB when I started playing music

Notes

My mother-in-law, who sadly passed away a year ago, decided to start a family ukulele orchestra, so my wife, her sister & brother-in-law, their kids (my niece and nephew), and I all bought ukuleles.

We would play the same 3 or 4 chord songs over and over for half an hour til everyone fell apart laughing at our ineptitude. They had fun.

I took to the ukulele like wildfire. I annoyed the heck out of them by endlessly trying to work out "Born to Be Wild" and "Gentle on My Mind" as solo ukulele pieces. Yes, I saw Jake Shimabukuro live a few times (once, jamming with Joe Craven and Futureman)

So, I understand the major scale and I, IV, V, etc., not much beyond that. Most guitar chords aren't hard, it's just a matter of repetition getting my hands to memorize them. Getting clean, expressive single notes, on the other hand...

My plan is to play like BB King, Bonnie Raitt, Duane Allman, Lowell George, Albert Lee, Robben Ford, Danny Gatton. I suppose I might glean something from Eric Clapton along the way, too.

Whatcha figure, a year or two?

Jake is a fantastic uke player. There is a video of him playing Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody and to hear this on 4 strings is inspiring.

My father played trumpet, violin, ukulele and in his later years organ.

I have fond memories of me and my sisters sitting around singing those old, corny songs with my father while he played the uke. I own his old uke and violin but I haven't put the time necessary in either to say I can play them.

I learned guitar, bass, and keyboards as a sax player in a rock band. Not every songwriter has the ultimate wisdom to put a sax part in every song, so I learned to double. My bandmates were good teachers, and eventually I learned bass and rhythm guitar enough to double on those instruments. I even played bass for Freddy "Boom Boom" Cannon for a short series of concerts (he was a slightly past prime star at the time).

When I decided to get serious about guitar, learn to read and play lead, it came quite easily. It did because I wasn't unfamiliar with fretboards and I brought along my music baggage and theory from other instruments.

I think with your previous experience will find it easier than most beginners. How long? Depends on your talent, dedication and the time you put into it.

You picked good people for your ambition. I'd shoot for BB first, as a good basis in the blues is the roots and/or country is the roots of most pop music.

Insights and incites by Notes

Thanks for the encouragement. At this point, I believe it is more important that each note be clear and expressive than to play lots of notes. Hence BB King as a starting point.

Frets don't scare me. Chords don't scare me. Music theory scares me.

I think BIAB will be a useful learning tool for me.

Music theory isn't scary at all. Get a good beginner's book and take it a bit at a time. Knowing theory, at least basic theory, can make your music better by understanding what the basis of music is.

Notes

B.B. King is harder than he sounds, lots of subtle stuff going on there.

I would recommend you check out some of Albert Kings playing as a starting point to learning basic blues guitar playing, he basically stuck to playing within the blues scale his entire career, and the licks he came up with sound great and work over pretty much anything.

Listen to Stevie Ray Vaughn's playing on that David Bowie "Let's Dance" album, pretty much pure Albert King licks.

Once you get Albert King under your belt it's easier to understand what other players are doing. That's how I got started anyway back in the 70's, worked for me

Good luck and have fun!

Hi Notes. Thanks for you advice. I do have a couple books on music theory that I'm working through. I'm finding that being able to watch the notes played in BIAB really helps turn theory into something easier to grasp. The time value of written notes has been a challenge for me to internalize so far.

Hi BA!

Thanks for your advice. I will definitely start studying Albert King right away. I just looked and found instructional videos on his style on YouTube, and if worse comes to worse, I could always buy a TrueFire video.

I chose BB King because of how, in my mind, he puts so much into each note, which I believe is more important than playing lots of notes (Al Dimeola), and, because I found videos on YouTube of BB himself teaching how to play his style. Floored me.

Regards Stevie Ray, it always struck me that he added nothing new to guitar playing: he just copied Albert King with some Jimi Hendrix added in.

Does that get me banned from the forum?

Yes, Albert King got the most out of the blues scale, and I agree, it's a good place to start.

I would also recommend along with your regular lessons, take a little time to put a 12 bar blues progression into BiaB and just play around with the blues scale in that key. Use your ears as a guide, to find a connection between ears and fingers.

While IMHO learning theory and learning to read music notation is important, ear training is every bit as important.

While on the subject of ear training, critically listening to other guitarists, saxophonists, and vocalists is important. But you seem to have that down already.

Insights and incites by Notes

Thanks for the encouragement. I ordered an instructional dvd on Albert King's style and found some YouTube videos.

Once I get a little more capable of getting clean notes out of my electric guitar, I am gleefully anticipating the fun I'll have playing along with BIAB, which, after all, is one of it's main functions!

Yes, I do listen critically to instrumentalists other than guitarists.
For example, I hope someday to play the note by note transcriptions I've found of some early Louie Armstrong recordings. I also want to learn to mimic some of Chaka Kahn's jazz singing, on the guitar! Less notes, more expressive.

But that's getting ahead of myself. At this point to play a simple, clean solo would be a huge leap forward for me.

Right now my routine is to just play easy, simple songs on the guitar and try to get clean, decent sound, something pleasing to my ear. Also, I really want to get good at vibrato and bending.

And, yes, I am determined to conquer ear training, so I recognize how rhythm and intervals look on the page and how they sound to me. Which BIAB does!

Wow. Csus4
C6
Cmaj9
the C major scale

Wow

Yours truly,
Lame Newbie