New to BIAB, thought I'd enter a "simple" song - Margaritaville. Has anyone been able to code this song?

• I entered a 7 bar intro.
• I entered a 16 bar verse and 16 bar chorus.
• I made the verse/chorus repeat 4 times (2 vocal / 1 instrumental / 1 vocal).
• I added a 4 bar tag ending.

Now I need help: I'd like the 3rd repeat to use a fuller style than the others. Any way to indicate that?

But my major issue is that on the 4th repeat, I want to eliminate the last 2 bars of the chorus, and jump to the tag ending. This would be like a DS al Coda but only on the last repeat. I've watched the Youtube tutorial on DS coda but I can't figure out how to make it work on this song with 4 repeats.

Hi Wysocki,

Instead of using repeats, I strong encourage you to lay your song out in a once-through format. Doing it this way, makes it very easy to control every section. By copying and pasting, it's also very quick to layout a song from start to finish.

The below song I wrote is a video of BIAB's chordsheet that will show you how I laid out the song from start to finish. I have used the blue and green part markers to define each section. The song is in the AABA format. Blue part markers introduce an accompaniment that has less movement than green part markers. Part markers are set by repeatedly clicking on bar numbers (1 click = blue, 2 clicks = green, 3 clicks = no part marker).

https://vimeo.com/143978481

Because it was in linear format, it was very easy to control bars, changing time signatures, keys and effects.

Intro = bars 1 - 4

First A-Section = bars 5 - 13; bar 13 is 2/4 (the song is written in 4/4)

Second A-Section = bars 14 - 22; bar 22 is 2/4

Bridge = bars 23 - 32; bar 23 sets the key to D major and bar 27 sets the key to A major

Third A-Section = bars 32 - 40; bar 32 sets the key back to G major

Instrumental = bars 41 - 48; I used F5 (Bar Settings) to mute some instruments and to solo a cello.

Hope these thoughts give you some useful information.

Regards,
Noel

Similar to Noel's advice to do the song in a linear format, I begin the song with a 7 bar intro and I use 1st/2nd ending for the first verse/chorus and 2nd verse/chorus and then for a verse of instrumental, I change the style and at the following chorus I change the style back to the original style. At the end of that chorus, I repeat the last two lines "some people claim..." and then use a style change back to the second style and the instrumental plays out to the end of the song.

By using the 1st/2nd ending rather than a single linear format causes BIAB to play a more interesting 2nd verse and chorus without having to use Part Markers to generate different variations of the style. Then by changing the Style to a completely different style adds even more variation and dynamics that continues to build the song arrangement and the song still has the more active B style arrangement on the last chorus and builds again for the two line last repeat and instrumental ending.

Here's a link to the m4a audio of the attached SGU file with no melody or vocals added.
I made no attempt to actually recreate a performance of the song Margaritaville but used two styles found using a filtered search for the song in the StylePicker. The styles used are a/b ISLANDP.STY and c/d CTRYPSS.STY

Margaritaville m4a file in DropBox

Fantastic production Charlie. Pretty close to the original. Great job, no question.

Hey Charlie,

I agree with Trev. That's an excellent production

Happy New Year,
Noel

Thanks for the replies. I'll have to check out the suggestions, but I still am shocked that things like the coda don't work as they should.

Repeats, 1st and 2nd endings, codas and fines are print functions.
If you build your song in a linear form, as per Noel, your printed output can look fine

The DO NOT change the underlying music in any way. If you built it wrong it will play wrong and repeats and codas will not fix it

UNFOLD that thing. Working linear is the only way to work. Forget the musical roadsigns. I was classically trained and started by trying to use the repeats and DC al codas.... and what a pain. I happened to stumble across the UNFOLD to one Chorus feature and life was instantly changed. You can do so much with the song unfolded. Want to do a rit ending.....???? Yep, easy to do in the unfolded form.

On the subject of Folded/Unfolded, I hardly ever unfold. I can always get the layout and repeats I want to work with a folded song. Some input might be easier if Unfolded, but I really don't find much that can't be achieved with a standard chorus repeats, tags etc when using the standard multiple chorus layout. Most important for me, the printed score doesn't have to be multiple pages long when I use the folded method.

I like to use the folded version because I play with sheet music and BiaB chord charts side by side on a laptop screen, and it is easier to follow the progress of the music visually when the layout is similar. But trying to set up the chord chart with multiple repeats, and say a DS al a Fine that is in the middle of the piece (typical AABA) I find impossible in BiaB (I am using the 2024 version). The 1st/2nd ending set up works ok, but then when I open up the drop down box to add a DS or DC al Coda or Fine, the action button is greyed out and there is always a message claiming a conflict with an earlier ending - presumably the 1st/2nd that I have already put in and which I need to maintain. It is only by removing the latter that I can make the action button operable. So then I have lost the first part of the programming I need.

I fully realise that a linear (unfolded) approach provides a way of avoiding these problems, but then I have two screens which look quite different in layout, which negates my major objective. Why can't the BiaB process be made less clunky? It's a breeze in iReal Pro, which I use for other purposes.

I presume you are a keyboard player and want to 'follow the dots'. as a guitarist i used to play margaritaville live and the chords are so easy winging it is straightforward. it's really quite a simple song and folded/unfolded - either way is fine on my BIAB version.

In Song Settings ( <Ctrl>N ), do your ending values look similar to this (bar numbers will change of course):

Also, the song will jump to the Tag bar on the last repeat of the chorus.

There's also a video on Repeats and Endings that might be useful.

some tunes allow you to use the folded version quite well to your advantage.
a lot of jazz tunes that follow a simple format (e.g. aaba) are a good example.
"vary middle choruses" is a great switch that allows for some variety to play your solos over.

Other tunes I just unfold.
Its just easier.

So, as usual, it depends.