Sight reading with Band in a Box

[FatJeff]

Has anyone tried using this feature? I just ran across this snippet in the BiAB help file while looking for information on how to use the Melodist, and it sounds pretty cool:

- Sight Reading. You can put Band-in-a-Box's Melodist in Jukebox mode, so that it is continually generating and playing new songs in succession. By displaying the Melody track in Notation (likely on the new Lead Sheet Notation window); you can then sight-read along with the Melody. Since the Melodies are unique, this is the ideal type of sight-reading practice; playing along to music that you haven't heard before. And Band-in-a-Box has added new features in the Lead Sheet Window specifically to make sight-reading from a computer screen easier (selectable font size, scroll ahead notation, even an option to display note names displayed in the note heads). By setting the notation to a large font, you can even read the music from across the room.

[fep]

That sounds almost ideal... I just hope it's not above my sight reading abilities... I suppose you could just slow the tempo down to meet your abilities.

[derek]

BIAB 2010 just arrived yesterday. I didn't get the full blown edition, but am jazzed (pun intended) to load it up and mess with it this weekend. The read along feature sounds idea. With it's inherent limitations, it is still just a fabulous product.

[Drumbler]

BIAB is just great.

[wizard3739]

Derek, I have BIAB 2010 and have found it to be a tremedous asset formany different applications. You are going to lovethis software, especially the "real Tracks" for bor making background tracks.

I use BIAB for:

1) practising/preparing for my weekend gigs,
2) writing and arranging music for my jazz trio.
3) Learning new songs
4) Creating study exercizes for new material (currently studying Jim Bastions' Advanced Chordal Bebop Lines Volume II)
5) printing lead sheets for the trio.
6) Preparing exercizes for teaching jazz guitar students students how to practise comping and how to play lead.
7) sight reading practise on a daily basis.

This is perhaps the best learning tool for jazz I have ever found.

best wishes
wiz

[FatJeff]

So Wizard, let me ask you a question then, since you seem to be the BiAB guru around here. :-)

What I was originally trying to do is to put in a new song that had a melody (that's why I was hording around with the help file). So, I already know how to type in the changes - that's easy. But how do I get the program to let me type in the notes for a head? I can't figure out how to do that.

[saponsky]

Great idea, I have BiAB and never thought about it .

[derek]

I have an older version (2007 or 2008), which was the first year they had real drums. It is a bit glitchy, and there are some lag issues. Hoping they have all that stuff figured out in this version. Thanks for the heads up Wiz, I will no doubt be picking your brain on using it soon enough.

[wizard3739]

Fat Jeff, I am not really and expert on Biab but I have been using it for a couple of years. I will do my best to answer you questions. To put in the notes for any song, go through the steps outlined below.

1) Turn on BIAB and go to "file" and then click "new".
2) Highlight "untitled Song" and put in your song title.
3) Input the chords for your song.
4) Click on the 1/8 note icon to bring up the notation window.
5) right click anwhere on the bar lines and click on editable mode.
6) left click on the position where you want each note to go in.

This should get you started; the notation input is very intuitive and I think you will catch on very quickly. I am still learning new things to do with this great program!

best wishes,
wiz

[FatJeff]

Great tip - thanks Wizard! I never would have thought to right click in the notation window, even though I've been in there 100 times.

[Drumbler]

Another way to use BIAB for sight reading:

Select your tune.

Click on the "Generate Guitar Chord Solo" button.

Go to the Leadsheet Window (guitar) and view the chord melody BIAB has just created.

[FatJeff]

I can't seem to get this to work. Every time I generate a chord solo, it generates 0 notes.

[PaulD]

Hi Jeff,

Does the guitar fretboard display open? It should generate the chord solo based on an existing melody, so as far as the resulting notation, that should be in the melody track.

I have been using BIAB for years and use it for sightreading a lot. Over the years I had downloaded or input tons of tunes with a melody tracks, so I will choose one at random, and select a key and try to read it along with BIAB. Sometimes I mute the melody track, sometimes I mute all except the melody track and play along. For example, I have the Leavitt "Melodic Rhythms for Guitar" in BIAB format and am able to play each exercise in several keys.

Another way to use it for reading is to have it generate a single-line solo and try to play along. The nice thing is that you can slow it down as much as you need to play along - for me that still needs to be very slow, but it's helped me a lot with my reading.

If you go to PG's BIAB Forums, there are some there that really like BIAB's notation editor, but (at least for me), it's much easier to use Finale to create the notation, then save as a .mid file and import into BIAB.

Paul

[FatJeff]

Originally Posted by PaulD

Hi Jeff,

Does the guitar fretboard display open? It should generate the chord solo based on an existing melody, so as far as the resulting notation, that should be in the melody track.

Hmmm, I'll have to double check - it may be that I don't have a melody in the song I'm trying to generate the chord solo for.

Originally Posted by PaulD

I have been using BIAB for years and use it for sightreading a lot. Over the years I had downloaded or input tons of tunes with a melody tracks, so I will choose one at random, and select a key and try to read it along with BIAB. Sometimes I mute the melody track, sometimes I mute all except the melody track and play along. For example, I have the Leavitt "Melodic Rhythms for Guitar" in BIAB format and am able to play each exercise in several keys.

Another way to use it for reading is to have it generate a single-line solo and try to play along. The nice thing is that you can slow it down as much as you need to play along - for me that still needs to be very slow, but it's helped me a lot with my reading.

Is there a way to export that Leavitt file? I'd love to have a copy.

Originally Posted by PaulD

If you go to PG's BIAB Forums, there are some there that really like BIAB's notation editor, but (at least for me), it's much easier to use Finale to create the notation, then save as a .mid file and import into BIAB.

Paul

Yes, I agree - that BiAB notation editor is horrible. That's pretty much my experience with their entire user interface, however, so pretty much par for the course. I use Sibelius and have tried importing MIDI from Sibelius into BiAB with mixed results.

[PaulD]

Originally Posted by FatJeff

Is there a way to export that Leavitt file? I'd love to have a copy.

I'm not exactly sure how I would share the files. I guess there are about 40 or so BIAB files. Let me see if I can figure something out.

Originally Posted by FatJeff

I use Sibelius and have tried importing MIDI from Sibelius into BiAB with mixed results.

Yeah, I had a few problems too, but I've managed to overcome most of the issues I've faced when exporting from Finale into BIAB in the following ways:

• When importing into BIAB, make sure you have sufficient measures defined to contain the .mid melody file otherwise you won't see the entire melody you've imported.
• Select the same key in BIAB that you used in Sibelius.
• An options window should come up when you select "import from midi file" where you can put a 2-bar offset from the start of the BIAB song, so the melody will start after the count-off.
• BIAB seems to import an octave lower than what you wrote in your notation program. If the octave in the .mid is too low, BIAB tends to leave out notes and put rests in their place. So when you first look at the resulting melody, it looks very different than what you were expecting. All you have to do is transpose the melody up an octave once it's imported in BIAB and it should look right.

Paul

[FatJeff]

Thanks Paul, but don't kill yourself over those Leavitt files. I can live without them.

As for importing MIDI into BiAB, the offset of the melody is what drove me nuts. I was always 1/16th note off, somehow. I wonder if I redid the melody in Sibelius without any pickup measures (or with a wholenote pickup measure) if that would alleviate my issue.