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BIAB does a lot of things very well, but one thing it doesn’t do well at all is bluegrass/newgrass. It treats the songs in almost ALL bluegrass styles as if it was written in 16th’s instead of swing 8th’s, which is how it is actually played and written. Especially the instrumentals, aka Fiddle Tunes. These are usually played at tempos from 180-230 BPM.
Even the bluegrass styles that are listed as swing 8th’s are actually treated as 16th’s. It shows PG’s lack of understanding of the genre. They obviously want to support the bluegrass/newgrass community because they do make a lot of styles for bluegrass, but they are in the wrong note value. Even the “dawg”, (David Grisman), music is written as 16th’s, DOGFUNK, etc., although it’s actually played in swing 8th’s at a fast tempo.
I know you can use their bluegrass styles by entering 2 bars as one and halving the tempo, but even this won’t work if you have a lot of chord changes. And it looks screwy when one bar plays and it is actually 2! Not to mention that the "lead in" is then at the wrong tempo.
This isn’t the first time this has come up on a forum, but usually as a comment rather than a dedicated thread.
What I almost always use is a style that isn’t bluegrass but it is swing 8th’s so it works;
C_TRAVIS SW 8 195 Country Merle Travis
These other 2 will also barely work, but they are even 8th’s instead of swing 8th’s, so they don’t have the right feel.
OZARK EV 8 270 Ozark Bluegrass Style
BGPOP EV 8 130 Bluegrass Pop – even 8th’s bluegrass
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.
If anyone wants a .sgu or .mgu, (my .mgu’s are 2 choruses of chords only, 1 chorus of BIAB soloing, and 2 more choruses of chords only), send me a PM and I’ll email you a file or two.
PG is missing out on a very large community of bluegrass, newgrass, jazzgrass, Dawg musicians who would really love their software if it approached the genre from the right note value.
I am using BIAB 2009 Ultrapack, patched to 2009.5.
I hope Peter Gannon sees this thread and comments. If he does, I want him to know that I GREATLY respect the BIAB software and have used it for at least 10 or more years. I also try to get any musician I talk to, to look into BIAB. So I “proselytize”.
If you don’t play these types of music, I’m sure you haven’t noticed. The same as I have no idea of how good the polka styles are in BIAB.
Ideas, comments, styles that have worked for you, etc. You don’t have to be a bluegrass player to see the problem if you check into it.
Let’s please get a dialog going so this can be addressed and fixed by PG. It would increase their business and make a lot of us acoustic musicians really happy.
Thanks in advance for your feedback.
Bob
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I too have had some issues when working in the bluegrass genre with some of the styles. I would like to see more of what would be considered traditional bluegrass styles in the swing 8 version both in the styles, real styles, and realtracks. My other biggest need would be for more pedal steel guitar soloist realtracks, and resonator guitar soloist realtracks.
Rob
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I have had very little exposure to newgrass. There should be some around here, as we have a lot of Southern rural people here, but it seems they mostly listen to Nashville (what I call modern country music/rock fusion).
Unfortunately I have a slow Internet connection. They call it DSL-Lite I call it Diet-DSL and it is not that much better than a dial-up connection (I can't even watch YouTube without a lot of buffering). It seems I live too far from the end of the fiber optics cable to get real DSL and the CATV company won't sell me Internet without buying Cable TV. I haven't watched TV since the mid 1980s and I sure as heck am not going to pay for it.
So don't send me any mp3 files, but if you have any good MIDI files that express the genre accurately, I'd be most interested in getting a copy of a number of them so I can figure out what is common and I'd attempt to write some.
I do have some straight bluegrass on my site, but again, it's straight 16th notes.
I have some country styles with swinging 8th notes, but I have no idea if they are appropriate or not.
Notes
Bob "Notes" Norton  Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com
100% MIDI Super-Styles recorded by live, pro, studio musicians for a live groove
& Fake Disks for MIDI and/or RealTracks
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Bob,
I can send you some midi files, but they will be generated by Guitar Pro and routed through BIAB. It will have that "even 8th's" sound because Guitar Pro doesn't have a "humanize" function.
I could probably send you matching pdf's of the same. These would be small files.
Let me know. Thanks for looking at it. It's been a long time problem for "bluegrass" players who use or want to use BIAB.
It shouldn't be that hard to address for someone who knows the program and realizes it's a FACT that fast acoustic music isn't 16th's but swing 8th's at a fast tempo.
I only use the basic functions or I would make my own style pack and sell it! But folks who are familiar with making new styles could address it in a heartbeat. Like you.
And some "Real Tracks" with the right note value would be great also.
Bob
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Hi Bob, Thanks for the post. We have 8th note based and 16th note based bluegrass MIDI styles. They sound the same, but are notated differently. If you want 8th note ones, use the 8th note styles. I prefer the 16th based styles, because there is twice as much music in each pattern, leading to more and better sounding patterns and styles. Also we only have 2 bar ending, a little short for 8th note based bluegrass. For RealTracks, we have 16th note based styles. But with version 2010, you can play any RealTracks at half-time, so a 16th based RealTracks plays as a 8th note based one. So any RealTracks will play at 16th notes or 8th notes. As to the claim that we don't understand the genre, people can judge for themselves and listen to the styles here… http://www.pgmusic.com/realtracks12.htmWe 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 todo list.
Have Fun!
Peter Gannon
PG Music Inc.
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Peter, First of all, thank you for taking the time to make such a detailed reply to my my post. I love BIAB and will continue to use it as long as my fingers will move. And I'll continue to promote it. I have read Jack Tuttles site before and I must VERY respectfully disagree with the idea that bluegrass is a 16th note style and I have literally stacks of written music to back up my position. I have played this and many other styles for about 40 years now. Many people, (accomplished musician's included), think that bluegrass/ newgrass is 16th note based because of the speed at which it is currently played. Most of these more traditional songs were played at much slower tempos when they were actually written. But they are still written the same way, regardless of the tempo. A bar is a bar. A lengthy, (about an hour), radio program I played on can be found on the link below: http://soundcloud.com/bobcflatpicke/music-in-the-mountainsThis ranges from bluegrass, to newgrass, to Dawg, to..............who know's what "label" to put on it. It's all played in 8th's, with the exception of small portions of songs played in triplets or 16th's. It really does make a difference when you pick up a piece of sheet music and try to program it into BIAB. Since I couldn't afford to upgrade to BIAB 2010 because of a job loss due to corporate downsizing in 2009, if a way to fix the problem is addressed in the new version, then I thank you and hope that I can find a job this year and buy BIAB 2011. But we can't go backwards in time and change music that was written in 8th's to 16th's just because people are playing it faster. We only change the tempo. Especially since some of this music was written more than a hundred years ago. We adjust the tempo, and we adapt our software to accommodate the way it was actually written. We don’t re-write the musical rules, as proposed by Jack Tuttle. Thank you again for responding. This wasn’t meant to be a critical post. It was meant to address a problem that has kept people from buying what I think is the most valuable piece of music software available today. Bob Chapman
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I agree that most of the sheet music bluegrass songs are notated as 8ths (but likely in 2/2, so that they are counted as half tempo- BB doesn't support that), but I think that musicians are playing them at 16ths.
When we notate the styles as 8ths (as in Ozark) , this makes the tempos very fast (for bluegrass), in the 200 to 400 range. And the limitation of a 2 bar ending in BB comes in to play, and you get a "shave and a haircut" as the entire ending.
So I think they play better in BB as 16th note based styles. When it is a choice between how the notation looks, and how things sound, I always opt for the sound.
Have Fun!
Peter Gannon
PG Music Inc.
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Peter, Quote:
When it is a choice between how the notation looks, and how things sound, I always opt for the sound.
I couldn’t agree more. But when it’s a choice of being able to program or enter a song, shouldn’t we be able to enter it as “written”?
Bob
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Peter, Quote:
As to the claim that we don't understand the genre, people can judge for themselves and listen to the styles here… http://www.pgmusic.com/realtracks12.htm
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 todo list.
I really hope you don't think of this thread as a criticism. But the timing is 4/4, and the notes are 8th's. This isn't my opinion, it's a well established FACT!
I grew up with acoustic music. I listened to and played along with the "legends" of the genre. I bought the sheet music and even managed to win or place in contests playing the same type of music.
The link you have sounds really good. But it's the wrong note value. Don't worry about the tag. We can provide our own "shave and a haircut" to the ending. As a matter of fact, we want to! It's part of the song.
Bob
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>>>But when it’s a choice of being able to program or enter a song, shouldn’t we be able to enter it as “written”?
Yes. Choose Ozark.sty (or any other 8th note based style), and set the tempo to something huge like 300 (for a typical bluegrass song based on 8th notes), and then enter your melodies in eighth notes, and you're good to go.
Have you done this, if so what is the problem?
Have Fun!
Peter Gannon
PG Music Inc.
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Peter, I feel like we're going in circles here. I believe you may be thinking in terms of "hard driving" traditional bluegrass when you say to "set the tempo to 300" for an eighth note based song. Most fiddle tunes or instrumentals are going to be in the 200-220 range, using 8th notes, and the older I get, the more that tempo drops. LOL. And I've already addressed OZARK in the first post. Maybe something you said earlier would be the answer: Quote:
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 todo list.
I don't see why that wouldn't work, especially if it could be done in Real Tracks and Real Styles.
I just would like to be able use all of the great sounding bluegrass styles without having to enter the songs to accomodate 16th notes, when there are literally millions of pages of sheet music and tab out there that make it plain that the songs are played in 4/4 or 3/4 time using 8th note melodies. That's not my opinion, it's the opinion of the people who have written, transcribed and passed these songs down for generations. And the people who are currently writing new songs. I'm not trying to promote a new "standard", I'm just wanting to get PG Music to accept the standard that already exists.
So if a converter is the answer, then it would greatly be appreciated if it could be added. Hopefully this can be done before I get too old to play anymore.
Thanks for taking time to discuss this. I appreciate it.
Bob
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Am I missing something or am I confused. When I use a Bluegrass style I load it then go to Edit/Expand. Then slow the tempo back down. Now you have one bar of 16th notes spread over two bars. Ain't that what you want Bob?
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John,
I hadn't tried that, so I just did. The answer is a definite no.
I just want 8th note swing bluegrass styles. Tempo range of 180-230. All backup instruments playing 8th or quarter notes. Bass drum - snare - bass drum - snare on the 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 beats in one bar. Just like a "country" style, but with bluegrass instruments and playing styles. Bass playing "root - five - root - five" quarter notes in one bar.
Which is exactly the way all of it is written.
Even the styles that say they are swing 8th's, if you listen or open the notation, you'll see it's 16th's.
Bob
Last edited by bobcflatpicker; 03/02/10 05:26 AM.
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>>> Bass drum - snare - bass drum - snare on the 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 beats in one bar. Just like a "country" style, but with bluegrass instruments and playing styles. Drums, swing 8ths in a bluegrass style? I thought we were talking bluegrass here? Perhaps you could provide a youtube link of an example.... =============== But if we can talk about "normal bluegrass" (no swing, no drums) ...... The question here is whether bluegrass is 16th note based or 8th note based. In BB, it is 16th note based, where a 'normal' tempo would be about 140, the banjo player is playing 4 notes per beat ) and a tempo 180 would be really fast. The world record for banjo tempo is tempo of 210 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbNlqXHVyoM&feature=related There is a discussion of it here http://www.bluegrass.com.br/BanjoSpeedForum.htm Note that references to tempos are usually based on 4 picked notes per beat. If you load in our typical 16th note bluegrass styles, and play them at 210, you'll get the same speed as on the youtube video. That's because both BB, and typical bluegrass musicians (as on the Guiness youtube video, and the banj speed forum discussion), count the tempo based on 4 picked notes per beat (ie 16th notes), even though the music is *notated* with 2 picked notes per beat (ie 8th notes) If we made our BB bluegrass styles as 8th notes (in 4/4), then a typical tempo would be 280, faster than the world record (because we would be talking about different things). This illustrates (to me anyway), that bluegrass is written as 2/2 (cut time), so that the notes show up as 8th notes (for easy reading) , but the music is played as cut time, where they are being played as 16th notes in 4/4/. BB doesn't support 2/2 notation, so we write the notation in 4/4, with 16th notes.
Have Fun!
Peter Gannon
PG Music Inc.
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My HUGE problem is the lack of support for Baroque string quartets and RealTracks harpsichord. Plucked. But I'm never going to lose sleep over it. LOL. BTW, the NPR broadcast of the olympics closing ceremony stated Canadian humour is off-balanced. Hmm...
John Conley
Musica est vita
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Peter, Quote:
Perhaps you could provide a youtube link of an example....
The best example I can give to define the music style I’m talking about is this;
http://soundcloud.com/bobcflatpicke/music-in-the-mountains
So I’ll not only be showing an example, I’ll be playing numerous examples of swing eighths. And so will my mandolin playing friend, Jay Blankenship.
We don’t have drums or bass or banjo, but if we did, they would be playing exactly as described.
Bob
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Bob what you're discussing is plain old 2/4 time or what I call cut time. You're using the term swing here. I'm sorry but I think you're messed up on that one. The high hat would be notated like this for 1 measure:
HH xox xox xox xox
That would be real messed up. I tried it.
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Bob I'm in the NC mountains so only have dialup.
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Have you looked in the Country [Bluegrass] [55] there are a few swing 8 styles as well as Even 8 styles.
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