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I've created a 16 bar minor blues with the first 4 chords being: Am7 E/G# Gsus F#m7b5. After the first chorus is played consistent with the chords as written, these 4 bars are played by BIAB as Am Dm Am Am for the remaining choruses. Why the change, and how do I preclude it? I have Natural Arrangement turned off. I want to continue with the chromatic movement in the first 4 chords during the remainder of the choruses. Any help/advice would be much appreciated. Randall
Hi Randall,

Am I interpreting your post correctly when I read it to mean that you have 16 bars that are set to the progression you've given (Am6, E/G#, Gsus, F#m7b5) and then these 16 bars are repeated 3 more times (a total of 4 choruses)?

If that's the case, a couple thoughts spring to mind...

1. Are any of your tracks frozen while you tested other chord progressions?

2. In addition to disabling "Natural Arrangement" activate the Song Setting "Force Simple Arrangement" (for all tracks). This forces BIAB to play the chords as given.

Regards,
Noel
In addition to the good advice above, had you ever exported the sequence to an audio WAV or MP3 file? If so, BiaB might be playing that audio file instead. Check in the same folder as your song file (SGU) for an audio file with the same filename.
Thanks for the ideas.

The 4 bars listed in the first post are only the first 4 bars of a 16 bars blues. Here's the whole sequence:
Am7 E/G# Gsus F#m7b5
Fmaj7 Dm7 C6 Am7
Fmaj7 E7 Dm7 Bb7
Am7 Abdim Bdim Fmaj7 E7#9 Bdim Bb7

In the first chorus looking at the notation I see the first 4 chords played as written. But for all subsequent choruses the first 4 bars are played as
Am Dm Am Am

As such the chromatic sound of A => G# => G => F# is lost.

I made the changes in the Song Settings dialogue as recommended. No change occurred.

I have not created a .MGU or .mp3 file which could be playing.

Any further ideas would be appreciated. Randall

NOTE: When posted the spaces in the way the progression was laid out were all removed. To eliminate confusion, bars 13-16 are laid out as follows:
13 - Am7
14 - Bdim Abdim
15 - Fmaj7
16 - E7#9 Bdim Bb7
That's a blues? I think I've underestimated the blues. cool

I would have guessed the ideas that have already been given. Otherwise, I suppose I would do a Return to Factory Settings if this happened to me.

RandallSmith, can you post the song so we can try it? Maybe place it in a Public area of Dropbox (free) and post the link here.

Mike and others: Hopefully this is what you needed to listen to the song:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/nwp9r6mdveg66tk/AADPFgcX7fURPpk_qlh_SfLRa?dl=0

If it's playable, check Notation to see that after the first chorus the chords in the first 4 bars are changed in a way that makes improvising using the chromatic elements sound wrong. Randall
That song bears no resemblance to what you wrote. For one thing, it comes in with a complex chord on each beat at the tempo of quarter = 500.

The first four beats are:

Gb7(#5#9)/Bb
B13(#5#9#11)/D
A13(#5)/C#
D#7(#5#9#11)/F#

Etc.

Not chromatic at all.

You cannot be serious?

Matt: Maybe I suffer from technological ignorance. Attached are .png screen grabs of the BIAB chords, and BIAB notation for the piano for the first 4 bars. The third screen grab is of the changes to the chords in the first four bars after the first chorus.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/rdi25cn65p6o20j/Screenshot%202019-02-14%2011.43.33.png?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/bzam1qt32yxs2m5/Screenshot%202019-02-14%2011.44.56.png?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/sy865xrtzxkxdex/Screenshot%202019-02-14%2011.52.31.png?dl=0

Is this what you're seeing. I don't know how the chords you are describing are showing up in the file. Randall
This is how your song loaded for me.

I'm a jazz player but this one almost gave me a heart attack. The tempo is 500! And look at these chords!

https://mattfinley.com/promos/blues.pdf
Matt: You can see from my screen grabs that what you ended up with has basically nothing to do with what I wrote. If you have the time, and are willing, perhaps you could quickly create a new BIAB song file with the chords as laid out and see if the problem with the first 4 bars of choruses 2-6 appears for you. Thanks, Randall
Hi Randall,

I see what happened. This song file only has one chorus, and you used the Repeats function to repeat those first 16 bars 6 times.

I think you then changed the chords in bars 1-16 after creating the repeat (which doesn't automatically change the chords in the repeat), as if I turn off Fakesheet Mode, I see completely different chords in the repeated sections than I do in bars 1-16.

For example, bars 1-4 say Am7 E/G# Gsus F#m7b5, and in the repeated sections, it's Am7 Dm7 Am7 Am7 (which is likely what you entered originally).

If you go into Edit - Song Form - Repeats/Codas/1st-2nd Endings - Edit List, you can delete that repeat, then remove the repeated bars and set bars 1-16 as your chorus, with that chorus repeating as many times as you like. That way when you edit the chords, it will automatically change the chords for the whole song, not just the first time through.

If you want additional bars to play after that repeated section, you can set up a Tag Ending through Song Settings.

Thanks
Kent
PG Music
Problem solved. In rebuilding the song file I found that when pasting in 16 bars the simplified chording was inserted. I'm not sure where that came from, but presume that it was some form of "operator error." Now the chord changes play through as written. I assume that the file was corrupted in some way and that this was the source of Matt's wacky layout on opening the file. A revised BIAB file is in Dropbox at the link below. Thanks for your assistance.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5pxbj5892hker7g/16%20bar%20minor%20blues.SGU?dl=0
Kent: Many thanks. You're right. I elaborated the Am7 Dm7 Am7 Am7 into the Am7 E/G# Gsus F#m7b5 after I set up the repeats. I was not aware that changes under such a circumstance within a repeat section do not impact all of the repeats. Lesson learned. Randall
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