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Here we go again, a decade later

I deleted my post from yesterday about this primarily because there are so many other issues that are far more important that are weighing on my mind.

As I thought more about it, I concluded that all of those issues are beyond my control other than the right to vote this fall.

My original post about this problem was on 03/01/2010. Peter Gannon joined the debate and it lasted for a few days. To their credit, PG did isuue videos about a work around to address the problem about 4 years or so later. A "work around" should only be used when you are trying to do something that is outside of standard notation or tablature.

Something that isn't up for debate is how bluegrass music or fiddle tunes are notated. 99.9% of them are notated in 8th notes. The very few that are notated in 16th notes are done by people who have no understanding of the music. PG usually treats them as 16th notes.

So you may ask, "why is that a big deal?" I'll only offer one answer that should be more than sufficient. You can't take a piece of bluegrass sheet music music and enter it into BIAB as it is written in most so called bluegrass styles without using a work around.

I haven't upgraded BIAB since 2014 because of this issue. I don't plan on upgrading or recommending the program to ANYONE until this is corrected.

This may have been corrected in upgrades since then, but I'm not willing to spend hundreds of dollars to find out.

The default timing for bluegrass and most other acoustic music is 4/4 time and it's written in 8th notes. That should be reflected in all of the bluegrass or acoustic styles.

I hope that Peter Gannon weighs in on this as he did before.

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Bob,

I don't read sheet music so I can't tell you if the issue is corrected or not. I hope someone can post it is because bluegrass and Band-in-a-Box otherwise complement each other like peanut butter and jelly.


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Hello Bob, you have been gone a long time. However, I don't think things have changed that much in regards to you interest. Here is a brief peek at what is in BIAB 2020.

The very bottom chart is from Nov 2019

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bobcflatpicker:

I don't know if you are aware of this forum article or not but it is worth the read if you have not seen it. Peter Gannon shows how to modify any existing 16th based bluegrass style into an 8th based style. He even offers one to download and install.

https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=120359&Searchpage=13&Main=18709&Words=Bluegrass&Search=true#Post120359

I have been also griping about this for years now as I have been playing bluegrass since the early 70's.

Since it has been 11 years since I first brought this to their attention and it has not been corrected by PGMUSIC, I took it upon myself to modify my favorite bluegrass styles and saved them as I saw fit. I figured it was easier for me to spend about 1 hour doing this instead of waiting another 11 years for them to do it.

One can only hope.


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Originally Posted By: jcland
bobcflatpicker:

I don't know if you are aware of this forum article or not but it is worth the read if you have not seen it. Peter Gannon shows how to modify any existing 16th based bluegrass style into an 8th based style. He even offers one to download and install.

https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=120359&Searchpage=13&Main=18709&Words=Bluegrass&Search=true#Post120359

I have been also griping about this for years now as I have been playing bluegrass since the early 70's.

Since it has been 11 years since I first brought this to their attention and it has not been corrected by PGMUSIC, I took it upon myself to modify my favorite bluegrass styles and saved them as I saw fit. I figured it was easier for me to spend about 1 hour doing this instead of waiting another 11 years for them to do it.

One can only hope.




I would feel differently about it if I were asking them to do something outside of the box.

I'm just asking them to do it right.

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Did I miss something here? I thought the issue was about "notation" not about tempo settings. I assume how the tracks actually play and sound is not an issue because it sounds like bluegrass to me.

But I don't want to open old wounds so, nevermind. crazy


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It's obvious that PG Music knows they have a demand for bluegrass styles or they wouldn't have created so many of them.

What is insulting is that they believe most of us won't realize they are substituting 16th notes instead of using 8th notes as transcribed in 99.9% of written bluegrass music.

Is BIAB unable to process these styles at faster tempos?

If that is the case, at least have the decency to say that's why you notate it incorrectly!

This was frustrating when I started a thread about it 10 years ago. It still hasn't been fixed. Does anyone want to take a guess about how it feels 10 years later?

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Since there hasn't been a response from PG Music, I guess I should just accept they are never going to fix it.

It wouldn't be as bad if I hadn't praised PG Music for their outstanding customer service to friends and fellow musicians over the years.

What really sucks is that PG Music knows for a fact that what I'm saying is 100% correct. And still they refuse to correct it.

I'm done with PG Music as far as BIAB is concerned. I still have friends on the forum so I'll participate there to stay in touch with them. But I'll never again recommend the program to anyone.

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Hi Bob. I don't know the first thing about bluegrass but I do have some information that may help.

I just loaded a demo that had most of the melody in 16th notes, and fixed it rather easily.

In the last couple of years with the new GUI, you do Edit, Song Form, Expand. [This was possible before, but the menu command changed in 2018; same function.] Expand doubles the length of the song, doubles the tempo, and makes the melody notated in mostly eighth notes as you want.

Then I went through the RealTracks that were playing frantically and changed each of them one by one to play Half-time. This feature has been possible for several years now.

What is more recent is something I asked for and got only a few years ago: the ability to alter the RealDrums the same way. You now have the option to make the RealDrums Half-time, which is needed in this example. Note that I had a similar reason to make this request like yours: all the BIAB sambas are written at tempos of around quarter = 200, when most sambas in the real world are composed in 2/2 time using tempos close to half = 100. Much easier to read!

Put it all together and it sounds adequate to me (but again, for bluegrass, I wouldn't really know).

So, to answer your original question, BIAB has not to my knowledge introduced styles that meet your request, but it DOES now have the tools necessary to construct them, if a bit awkwardly.

And has anyone made the request in the Wishlist in the last two years, now that we do have a half-time option in RealDrums? Worth a try.


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Matt,

Thanks for your response. I did post this issue on the Wish List before I started a thread on the Off Topic forum 10 years ago.

It's not that this problem is an unknown issue. PG Music including Peter Gannon have been aware of it for more than a decade.

Awkward work around's just aren't the same as doing it right in the first place.

I hope you and yours are doing well through these troubling times.

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Doing fine, Bob, except for not playing any concerts!

So I’m confused. Did you also post this recently in the Wishlist? Or just ten years ago? My point is that BIAB should now be able to do this easily, since the addition of timebase changes in both RealTracks and now RealDrums.

I will pass a message on to the developers anyway. If you have a recent request in the Wishlist with a good problem description, please post the link here. Otherwise I’ll just link to this thread.

Stay well.


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Matt,

I haven't posted it on the wish list recently. Just more than a decade ago and then I started the thread in March of 2010 on the Off Topic forum.

I would greatly appreciate it if you could get the developers to correct this or at least give a serious look at it.

Thank you in advance for your help.

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Bobflatpicker March 01, 2010 thread: +++ BIAB and its HUGE problem in handling bluegrass/newgrass/jazzgrass/Dawg +++

June 11, 2010 follow up thread: +++ Bluegrass styles in 8th notes, tempo ranges from 160-220 +++

There is one quote from the original request that is worth repeating.
Quote:
This has kept a lot of my friends from buying BIAB because when I show it to them, they are impressed by its capabilities but say “they don’t understand bluegrass”, and they are right.


+1 in support of the request.



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Jim, Bob and others: I did report this to the developers yesterday.


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It's worth taking the time to read through the thread Bobflatpicker started a decade ago. It is a nice, civil discussion with input from current members like Notes Norton, Jford and Silvertones but also from former members like Mac.

Peter Gannon made a comment about the midi bluegrass styles worth repeating:

Quote:
BTW, most if not all of the MIDI bluegrass, newgrass etc. styles that we've done (even and swing) were played in live on MIDI instruments (typically MIDI guitar), and not quantized.


Seems like we were using SuperMidiTracks before they were famous! grin


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Two things stick out in re-reading these old threads.

1. From PG Music themselves: From Mr. Gannon: "We should have a converter, that takes any style and changes it (save-as) from 8th note based to 16th (or vice versa). Then all of the bluegrass styles would be available as 8th or 16th. I'll add that to the to do list."

This was back in 2010. Ten years later, we still don't have this 'converter' they were going to put on the To Do list.



2. "BB doesn't support 2/2 notation, so we write the notation in 4/4, with 16th notes."

Go to TablEdit.Com and look at the bluegrass tabs. I personally have hundreds and hundreds of them written in 4/4 time using 8th notes for the most part and playing at between 140 to 260 BPM, depending on the song. I have been playing bluegrass since back in the very early 70's and have been taught by some of the best players around, some of them veteran studio musicians. I have 100+ bluegrass books in my collection, many of them going back to the mid 60's. I have 18 3" binders all filled with tabs and songs I have collected over my 50+ years, both Flatpick Guitar and Banjo. I have the entire Banjo News Letter collection dating back to 1973 full of tablatures and the entire Frets Magazine collection. All of the songs are written in 4/4 time using 8th notes per measure, not 16th notes.

Now no one is going to tell me that for the past 50 years I have been involved in bluegrass that all these teachers and all these books are wrong and PG Music is right.

The problem is that they DON'T understand how bluegrass is played or written. That is a fact. I saw that when I 1st started using BIAB back when it came on Floppy Disks. I put up with it simply because it plays correctly but it certainly is NOT written correctly for that genre.

The converter you talked about would be a godsend for the hundreds, perhaps thousands of bluegrass musicians throughout the world who love and use your product and faithfully return year after year to upgrade. I know I would.


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Thanks to all who have weighed in on this. I do appreciate it.

To those who haven't weighed in I have a few simple questions.

What if your favorite musical style was notated wrong in BIAB? What if that had severe implications in how you would use BIAB? What if your beliefs were supported by almost 100% of written music?

What if you had supported their product by upgrading for almost 20 years in hopes they would eventually fix it?

How would you feel about that?

Last edited by bobcflatpicker; 07/06/20 05:44 PM.
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A friend of mine who is an excellent guitarist was approached by Mel Bay to do an instruction book/cd for fiddle tunes. He explained to them that he doesn't read music or use tab.

They told him "no problem. Just play the songs at tempo and then play them slow and we'll have someone notate/tab them." He did and they put out a book/cd combo. I bought the combo and was surprised to see that Mel Bay had notated it in 16th notes. I started to ask my friend about it and decided not to because I knew for a fact that the guy wouldn't know 16th note notation from 8th note notation since he doesn't use either. Everything he does is by ear.

That book is the only one I've ever seen that notates bluegrass/fiddle tunes/traditional music in 16ths. All of the others notate the styles in 8ths.

PG knows that creating these styles in 16ths is incorrect. It would be a simple fix for them to create all of those styles in 8ths and release it in the update at the end of the year. They wouldn't need to do away with the 16th styles, just duplicate those styles in 8ths as they should be.

That's really not much to ask of them. Especially since they know for a fact the current styles are incorrect. It's not even debatable at this point.

I would love to upgrade this winter when the new version is released but I'll never purchase or recommend another PG Music product until they fix it. I've been asking them to do it for over a decade.

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Quote:
I just want to be able to take a song “as written”, and enter the progression into BIAB and use bluegrass styles. These songs are written in 8th’s. We could debate swing 8th's versus even 8th's, but they are still 8th's.


I have been at it for a decade also, I started out a nice guy smile

I remember opening bluegrass songs in TablEdit and I think they were all as you described, though I'm not musical enough to get it all.
EDIT: I remember now that was the issue, I had to halve them to fit the Biab tracks.

This is the free TablEdit player
http://www.tabledit.com/tefview/download.shtml

you can download free flatpicking etc.. .tef tabs

http://www.tabledit.com/links/tabarchives.shtml

http://www.flatpickingtabs.com/

https://www.flatpickerhangout.com/

http://www.flatpickingtabs.com/indianhills.htm

just google them...

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Last edited by Pipeline; 07/25/20 11:40 AM.
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I can put a Biab 16ths 100bpm into Reaper at 200bpm 8ths.
So I can enter the notes correctly to fit the Biab tracks.
The midi from Biab is halved (set rate=0.5)
The chords are imported with mxml.
Because the tracks are at 100bpm 16 instead of 200bpm 8 you will only get a maximum of 2 chords per bar.
Will think about it more in the morning.

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We agree on the point that bluegrass melodies (and similar feels like reels) are typically written using 8th notes, not 16th notes (as BIAB does if you don’t choose edit-expand). This is because the tradition is to write the melodies in cut-time (2/2, also known as Alla breve). In Cut-time, each beat where you tap your foot is actually notated as a half note, to make it easier to read. It makes the notation easier to read, but it would be not advisable to implement that in an accompaniment program where you need to mix n match parts from different styles, because you'd be matching a quarter note with a half note. For example, chikin pickin guitar or other country styles are never notated like that in 8th notes, it's always 16ths, so you it would be awkward adding other parts to your 8th note based bluegrass style.


In my analysis, using 8th notes in bluegrass is called cut-time and 2/2 time signature, though they don’t write the 2/2. That has been done since the 1600s and the original name for it is alla breve. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alla_breve It doesn't affect how the music is played, it just affects the appearance of the notation.



What BIAB needs is a mode to display the notation in cut time 2/2, and then you’d see 8th notes. In cut time each beat represents a half note. We did add notation modes like that for 6/8 9/8 and 12/8 but haven’t done cut time mode yet. That mode would be useful for styles like bluegrass, reels or sambas where you want the notation in cut-time (as if the tempo was doubled). Hopefully we can add that before the end of the year.


>That book is the only one I've ever seen that notates bluegrass/fiddle tunes/traditional music in 16ths. All of the others notate the styles in 8ths.

Note that many bluegrass musicians do notate with 16th notes. For example here is a page with different users uploading bluegrass riffs. You’ll note that most use 16th notes and not 8th notes. https://www.soundslice.com/genres/bluegrass/
examples
https://www.soundslice.com/slices/CVkcc/
https://www.soundslice.com/slices/cKMcc/
https://www.soundslice.com/slices/DlCcc/
https://www.soundslice.com/slices/XM9cc/
https://www.soundslice.com/slices/yj8cc/
https://www.soundslice.com/slices/skbcc/
https://www.soundslice.com/slices/FftNc/
https://www.soundslice.com/slices/XjmVc/

In the meantime:
1. for the last eight years we have an 8th note based bluegrass RealStyle _BGBAND8.m4a (typical tempo 270) http://demos.pgmusic.com/audio/allstyledemos2/_BGBAND8.m4a
2. and for the last 18 years, we've had a 8th note based bluegrass MIDI style Ozark.sty (typical tempo 270) http://demos.pgmusic.com/audio/allstyledemos2/Ozark.m4a

Both of those provide the functionality you are asking for. So that, for example, this statement.... "You can't take a piece of bluegrass sheet music music and enter it into BIAB as it is written in most so called bluegrass styles without using a work around" can be appended with .... unless you use an 8th note bluegrass Real style like _BGBAND8.sty or MIDI style like Ozark.sty. The melodies are notated in 8th notes, the tempos are high like 270 etc.

And by the way, when you listen to one of these styles, are you really tapping your foot (or counting them in) at tempo 270? I don't, it's 135 for me.







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_BGBAND8 works alright with the tracks on halftime it will reduce the chord duration by half, generate, then expand the chord duration x2.
So that's basically doing what I was doing in Reaper.
If users from the bluegrass communities could record some UserTracks instruments 8th notes, tempo ranges from 160-220+.

Here's the current Bluegrass RealTracks Ev16 Tempo 100-140 (Ev8 200-280).
Code:
Name	Instrument	Type	Feel	Tempo*	Genre	 #	N/A	Set	Stereo	Chart	Artist	TS	Holds	Simpler Available	Direct Input Available
<None> Note: list is filtered by bluegrass				230			  		Mn			 	
Guitar, Resonator, Rhythm Folk8thsRandy Ev 085	Acoustic Guitar (26)	Rhythm	Ev	 85	Folk,Country,Bluegrass	2645		263	Mn	N	Randy Kohrs	 	129		
Mandolin, Rhythm BluegrassWaltz Sw 085	Mandolin	Rhythm	Sw	 85	Bluegrass,Country	1699		153	Mn		Glen Duncan	 	208		
Banjo, Rhythm BluegrassWaltz Sw 085	Banjo (106)	Rhythm	Sw	 85	Bluegrass,Country	1698		153	Mn		Glen Duncan	 	207		
Guitar, Acoustic, Strumming Bluegrass Doc Ev 100	Acoustic Guitar (26)	Rhythm	Ev	100	Country	598		33	St		PG Artist	Y	64		
Guitar, Acoustic, Soloist Bluegrass Doc Ev 100	Acoustic Guitar (26)	Soloist	Ev	100	Country	597		33	St	N	PG Artist	Y	64		
Mandolin, Rhythm Bluegrass Doc Ev 100	Mandolin	Rhythm	Ev	100	Country	599		33	St		PG Artist	Y	130		
Bass, Acoustic Bluegrass Doc Ev 100	Acoustic String Bass (33)	Rhythm	Ev	100	Country	592		33	Mn		Dow Tomlin	Y	73	s	
Mandolin Soloist Bluegrass Ev 100	Mandolin	Soloist	Ev	100	Country	820		62	St	N	Andy Leftwich	Y	130		
Mandolin Soloist Bluegrass Ev 100 (Bluesy)	Mandolin	Soloist	Ev	100	Country	821		62	St	N	Andy Leftwich	 	130		
Banjo, Bluegrass Doc Ev 100 (Rhythm - Simple)	Banjo (106)	Rhythm	Ev	100	Country	590		33	St		Scott Vestal	 	120	s	
Banjo, Bluegrass Doc Ev 100 (Rhythm)	Banjo (106)	Rhythm	Ev	100	Country	589		33	St		Scott Vestal	Y	120	s	
Banjo, Bluegrass Doc Ev 100 (Soloist)	Banjo (106)	Soloist	Ev	100	Country	591		33	St		Scott Vestal	Y	120		
Fiddle, Rhythm Bluegrass Doc Ev 100	Fiddle	Rhythm	Ev	100	Country	593		33	St		Andy Leftwich	Y	75		
Fiddle, Rhythm Bluegrass Doc Ev 100 (Chops)	Fiddle	Rhythm	Ev	100	Country	594		33	St		Andy Leftwich	Y	75		
Fiddle, Rhythm Bluegrass Doc Ev 100 (Shuffles)	Fiddle	Rhythm	Ev	100	Country	595		33	St		Andy Leftwich	Y	75		
Fiddle, Soloist Bluegrass Doc Ev 100	Fiddle	Soloist	Ev	100	Country	596		33	St		Andy Leftwich	Y	75		
Guitar, Resonator, Background CountryWaltzRandy Sw 110	Acoustic Guitar (26)	Background	Sw	110	Bluegrass,Country	2646		263	Mn	N	Randy Kohrs	 	129		
Guitar, Acoustic, Strumming Bluegrass Ev 130	Acoustic Guitar (26)	Rhythm	Ev	130	Country	431		11	St		PG Artist	Y	64		
Guitar, Acoustic, Soloist Bluegrass Ev 130	Acoustic Guitar (26)	Soloist	Ev	130	Country	435		12	St	N	PG Artist	Y	64		
Mandolin, Rhythm Bluegrass Ev 130	Mandolin	Rhythm	Ev	130	Country	432		11	St		PG Artist	Y	130		
Mandolin, Soloist Bluegrass Ev 130	Mandolin	Soloist	Ev	130	Country	436		12	St	N	Andy Leftwich	Y	130		
Bass, Acoustic, Bluegrass Ev 130	Acoustic String Bass (33)	Rhythm	Ev	130	Country	427		11	Mn		Dow Tomlin	Y	81	s	
Banjo, Bluegrass Ev 130 (Rhythm)	Banjo (106)	Rhythm	Ev	130	Country	426		11	St		Scott Vestal	Y	120		
Banjo, Bluegrass Ev 130 (Soloist)	Banjo (106)	Soloist	Ev	130	Country	433		12	St		Scott Vestal	Y	120		
Fiddle, Rhythm Bluegrass Ev 130	Fiddle	Rhythm	Ev	130	Country	428		11	St		Andy Leftwich	Y	75	s	
Fiddle, Rhythm Bluegrass Ev 130 (Chops)	Fiddle	Rhythm	Ev	130	Country	429		11	St		Andy Leftwich	Y	75	s	
Fiddle, Rhythm Bluegrass Ev 130 (Shuffles)	Fiddle	Rhythm	Ev	130	Country	430		11	St		Andy Leftwich	Y	75	s	
Fiddle, Soloist Bluegrass Ev 130	Fiddle	Soloist	Ev	130	Country	434		12	St	N	Andy Leftwich	Y	75		
Guitar, Resonator, Background BluegrassWaltz Ev 140	Acoustic Guitar (26)	Background	Ev	140	Country	1297		121	Mn	N	Glen Duncan	 	129,129		
Guitar, Resonator, Background BluegrassWaltz Ev 140 (Outside)	Acoustic Guitar (26)	Background	Ev	140	Country	1300		121	Mn	N	Glen Duncan	 	129,129		
Guitar, Acoustic, Fingerpicking BluegrassWaltz Ev 140	Acoustic Guitar (26)	Rhythm	Ev	140	Country	1108		96	Mn	Gt	Pat McGrath	 	100		
Guitar, Acoustic, Strumming BluegrassWaltz Ev 140	Acoustic Guitar (26)	Rhythm	Ev	140	Country	1109		96	Mn	Gt	Pat McGrath	 	100		
Bass, Acoustic, BluegrassWaltz Ev 140	Acoustic String Bass (33)	Rhythm	Ev	140	Country	1106		96	Mn	N	Byron House	 	117		
Fiddle, Background BluegrassWaltz Ev 140	Fiddle	Background	Ev	140	Country	1107		96	Mn	N	Stuart Duncan	 	123	s	
Fiddle, Background BluegrassWaltz Ev 140 (Outside)	Fiddle	Background	Ev	140	Country	1144		96	Mn	N	Stuart Duncan	 	123,123	s	
Banjo, Rhythm BluegrassWaltz Ev 140	Banjo (106)	Rhythm	Ev	140	Country	1105		96	Mn		Glen Duncan	 	128		
Mandolin, Rhythm BluegrassWaltz Ev 140	Mandolin	Rhythm	Ev	140	Country	1110		96	Mn		Jason Roller	 	130	s	
	


Attached Files (Click to download or enlarge) (Only available when you are logged in)
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Last edited by Pipeline; 07/26/20 02:51 AM.
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> I have 18 3" binders all filled with tabs and songs I have collected over my 50+ years, both Flatpick Guitar and Banjo. I have the entire Banjo News Letter collection dating back to 1973 full of tablatures and the entire Frets Magazine collection. All of the songs are written in 4/4 time using 8th notes per measure, not 16th notes. Now no one is going to tell me that for the past 50 years I have been involved in bluegrass that all these teachers and all these books are wrong and PG Music is right.

Are you sure they weren’t using the cut-time signature mark (a C with a vertical line through it, indicating 2/2 time, with four 8th notes per beat), rather than just a C (indicating 4/4 time)?


Many of the bluegrass sheet music and instruction books I look at use 8th notes, but clearly label the time signature as “cut-time” which is 2/2. The cut time signature is a C with a vertical line through it. That doubles the displayed note values turning 16ths into 8ths and 8ths into quarter notes etc., so that it is easier to read. In that time signature, there are 4 eighth notes per beat and 2 beats per bar. But that isn’t 4/4 time, and if you want to write it in 4/4 time signature (as done in BIAB and most other styles of music) you need to use 16ths notes.

Using either time signature, the typical tempo of bluegrass is about 130 bpm, and not 260. If you don’t believe me, try counting in a bluegrass tune with your band at tempo 260 and see what happens!

For example, the Real Bluegrass Book https://www.amazon.com/Real-Bluegrass-Bo...C310&sr=8-7
( click "Look Inside" and scroll down to a tune like Alabama Jubilee and notice the cut-time 2/2 indicator)

If someone walked up to you and asked you to play some 16ths notes banjo riffs for him, would you answer that bluegrass banjo players would only rarely play 16ths notes, and typically play 8th notes, as seen in bluegrass music books?

As mentioned, we plan on coming up with a cut-time display mode before the end of the year, so that any notation could be displayed with 8th notes instead of 16ths, but that will just affect notation display and not affect the tempos or sound of the music.


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Peter, I want to thank you for engaging in this discussion. While I’ll never be using the bluegrass styles, the same concept is involved for my preferred genre, samba. You helped me understand your thinking some years ago and I appreciate that. I think it was less clear in that case whether ‘most’ used cut time; I recall you asked me for examples because it wasn’t always obvious. I’ve also seen examples where the original was notated in cut time but fake book or pop versions write it in common time.

What really helped me was the addition of time base changes to RealDrums a few years back. I requested it. Now I can make anything work and I don’t consider that too difficult or time consuming. But whatever converter you might come up with for the bluegrass styles, please keep samba in mind as well. It could save a few minutes of experimenting. Thank you again.


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Matt, Good point and yes, samba has that same issue (where the same speed of samba can be thought of as a tempo of 90 or 180 depending on the context. A converter and a cut-time display mode to show 8th notes instead of 16ths) would help out there.



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Very cool. And Bob should be happy and upgrade.

As an aside, my drummer for many years was Joel Rosenblatt. Joel played 13 years with Spyro Gyra, then Tower of Power and is now doing New York City work (including Hamilton). He was very gracious with me as I counted off samba tunes in 4/4 because I had composed them in BIAB! But he helped me to understand how I should be doing it.


BIAB 2024 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 6.5 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6; Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Roland Integra-7, Presonus Studio 192, Presonus Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors
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btw) if you want any style that is done at a tempo of say 120, to work at double tempo (240), you change the timebase of the tracks at the top to half-time, and then it works.

for example, _YEEHAW.sty is a tempo 130 bluegrass style,

to change timebase of a song or a style......
and if you instead want it to work at a tempo of 260 so it shows eighth notes, you use the radio buttons at the top and set each track of the song to "half-time" and then it will play fine as 8th notes at 260. Then you can choose File-StyleMaker- save song as style and you'll get a style that will always play like that. For example, save it as _YEEHAW8.sty

If you prefer to just work in the stylemaker to begin with....
to change a style ....
You can also edit the style like that (menu-file-stylemaker-edit Ctrl-Shift-F9) to open the stylemaker.
1. for RealTracks, RealDrums and MIDI SuperTracks...press MISC and MORE and then change the timebase of each track to HALF TIME, and save-as the style with a new name like _YEEHAW8 and then that style will always play at double tempo.
2. For MIDI tracks in the style, use the menu item Style-Expand Style (to 8th notes).


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Right, I do just that. It wasn’t fully possible until RealDrums had the timebase adjustment to match whet RealTracks could do.

If PG Music or users made those converted styles, could they be made available to all? I might give some samba styles a try.


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>As an aside, my drummer for many years was Joel Rosenblatt. Joel played 13 years with Spyro Gyra, then Tower of Power and is now doing New York City work (including Hamilton). He was very gracious with me as I counted off samba tunes in 4/4 because I had composed them in BIAB! But he helped me to understand how I should be doing it.

Matt,
Thanks. Would your drummer call this tempo=200 or tempo=100?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e7EDPldTuw

It looks like the dance studios refer to the samba tempos based on 16th notes and would call that 100.

https://arthurmurraystudios.com/latin-dance-tempos/
"there are two main styles of Samba: International and American. In the American style, it is performed at 104 beats per minute for pros and amateurs. The International Samba is performed slower, at 96 to 100 beats per minute."


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The 2013 dance final video, right?

Pretty sure he would call that 100. I would.

On my 2006 CD I have a Samba composition at 113. Romero Lubambo put down the original tracks at 110 but we decided to speed it a bit when we got to the studio to add the rest of the band. That’s probably the fastest samba I play regularly. But my book has tunes from 90 to over 120, and then 180 to mid 200s. Most of the ones in the upper range are because I wrote or transcribed them on BIAB before I started changing to cut time.


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Peter: It's all over the place with no standardized notation. Many of the books don't even have notation, just tablature. Some have 4/4 time with no cut-time or common time symbol, some have 2/4 time with a cut-time symbol, some have 4/4 time with common time symbol.

Earl Scruggs definitive book on Bluegrass Banjo has them as 2/4 time with the cut-time symbol but that seems to be the exception in my collection. Janet Davis's excellent book on Melodic Bluegrass Banjo from Mel Bay is all 8th based notes with 4/4 time signatures. All 12 volumes on flatpick guitar from Flatpick Guitar Magazine are all showing as 8th based notes using 4/4 time. Steve Kaufman's 406 page book on American Fiddle Tunes from Mel Bay has over 300 songs all notated in 4/4 time with 8th notes.

I understand where you are coming from and the BIAB way of notating does not bother me at all since I have quite a few years (50+) under my belt playing banjo, guitar and bass.

Interesting note that PG Music's old program, Master Flatpick Guitar Solo's, which I bought decades ago, has some of their songs, in notation mode, showing as 8th based notes with no cut-time symbol and some has 16th based notes also with no cut-time symbol.

All that being said, the new cut-time display mode will be a welcome addition to this already fantastic program I have been using since the days of floppy disks.

Keep 'em coming.


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Originally Posted By: Matt Finley
Joel played 13 years with Spyro Gyra, then Tower of Power


Really? What years? As closely as I have followed TOP I don't remember him ever playing with them. I know Spyro Gyra and that he's played with Blood Sweat and Tears for like 10 years now.

Last edited by eddie1261; 07/26/20 09:05 AM.

I smashed the hell out of my car today. When the cops came I told him "Officer, that guy was BOTH texting and drinking a beer." The cop said "Sir, he has every right to do that. I mean, it's HIS living room..."
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>All that being said, the new cut-time display mode will be a welcome addition to this already fantastic program I have been using since the days of floppy disks.

Thanks.


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Hello Peter,

Thank you for joining the discussion. I think you may have came up with a way to address the problem.

I sure hope you can get it included in the winter upgrade. I'd love to be able to get up to date with BIAB.

Thanks again.

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> I sure hope you can get it included in the winter upgrade. I'd love to be able to get up to date with BIAB.

Bob,

Great. Sounds like a plan!



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Whoever posted the jpg of the BIAB Bluegrass, do you still have that file? I'd love to get it and play with it some. To say I am unfamiliar with the genre would be like saying Ft Knox is a little bank in Kentucky.

Here is why I am at a loss to grasp this whole conversation. In one breath, I hear "We need BIAB to write in 1/8th notes." And in the next breath "Bluegrass players don't read music or play charts." If that is the case, you must be playing by ear. So how does your ear know if the music is written in 1/8th or 1/16th notes? And why does it matter as far as printing music out? I am interested in this discussion but lost as to what the origins and logic are.

The example I referred to above I viewed and it says it was in 70 bpm. What happens if you make it 140 bpm?

The disclaimer here is that I have never used BIAB, always RB, and never written anything that wasn't 110-140bpm groove kind of music that didn't require that fast chicken-pickin' kind of thing that Bluegrass is.


I smashed the hell out of my car today. When the cops came I told him "Officer, that guy was BOTH texting and drinking a beer." The cop said "Sir, he has every right to do that. I mean, it's HIS living room..."
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