Hey Y'all,

There seems to be some confusion on my original thread from some people as to why we need this new Forum. But remember, at the end of the day, Band in a Box is tool for writing and playing songs. Most of the time, songs are deceptively simply and catchy little numbers that people love to sing.

In that light, I see this as a "safe space" for all us beginners to ask the most basic questions about using to tool to make songs, even if the questions sound elementary. Plus, it creates an organized place for all basic instructions to go. Obviously, if you feel your question is for a more advanced forum and you do not want to post here, you can always post somewhere else, such as the regular BIAB Forum. No one is forcing you to post on the beginner's forum.

Anyway, as a beginner myself, I know that getting a good understanding of the basics will take you far.

My own favorite concepts are:

1. Learning what the basic chord symbols I ii iii IV V vii and dim 7 mean in any key in a chord progression and how you manipulate those to write a song. (And how you gradually move on to slightly trickier "jazz" chords as you advance.)

2. How you can load a style demo in BIAB and find some wicked chord progressions you never thought of.

3. How to use midi files in BIAB and Real band.

4. The marvels of the song form dialog and the little blue and green buttons that take you from verse to chorus.

5. Loading a BIAB file into Real Band, tweaking the audio, adding vox, adding your own tracks and mixing that puppy down.

If those 5 things have to be repeated and discussed a thousand times, then so be it. It's what makes a song.



smile