Notes_Norton

White Wedding – Billy Idol

I've read that Ray and Stevie both liked blind jokes. We should all follow that example and be able to laugh at ourselves. And we should not take offense when no offense was intended. I'm follically challenged, and do not take offense when someone mentions that I'm bald, instead I'll make a joke about it. When playing "Hi-Heel Sneakers" and I sing "Wear your wig hat on your head", sometimes I'll look at Mrs. Notes, lift my cap and say, "Can I borrow it?" Insights and incites by Notes ♫

Two guys walk into a bar, the third one ducks.

Minute by Minute - Doobie Brothers

Chase The Clouds Away – Chuck Mangione I heard part of this on the radio today, and had to hear the whole thing. It's been years, so it's like an old friend, I like how busy the rhythm section is, and how the legato melodies contrast with that. I also like the lower harmony part under the flute and following melodies. It builds to a nice climax, and then tapers off.

I wanted to be a doctor, but I don’t have enough patience

I like Public Enemy doing Cole Porter. Almost as good as Metallica croons the hits of Connie Francis

Senior Service – Elvis Costello

I can get to 11 (if my hands are in my pockets)

How about Fingertips by Stevie Wonder? Or would that be Fingertip-

I was going to buy a book on phobias, but I was afraid it wouldn’t help me.

Billy played on a lot of their works. And he did a great job (as usual). IMO the George Martin contributions go far beyond his occasional piano playing. He took the raw material from the songwriters and turned them from good songs to great songs. I can even see Martin's love of Bach in the structure of some of the great B sections of many of the Beatles' songs. I enjoyed the video bitflipper, thanks for sharing it. Notes ♫

PG Music likes to issue an update every November for Windows, and mid-year for Mac. I think they want the update to be a good Christmas present for the biggest market, Windows. PG Music uses a small army of Beta Testers, and they catch most of the bugs before release, but some usually slip by them. But PG will eventually issue update after update as the end users find more of them. Me? I typically wait until March to get mine. By then the major bugs, if not all of them, have been cleaned up. Tech help there is typically good, but they do have periods where they are overwhelmed and things fall through the cracks. I don't have inside knowledge about this, but that's what it seems like to one who is on the outside looking in. The PG Forum is a good help, too. There are a lot of end users who are eager to help with problems. All in all, I think BiaB is a good tool. It does have some flaws, but most apps do. I've written "for hire" styles for a couple of other Auto-Accompaniment apps and keyboards. Due to NDAs, I can't disclose which ones. But from the ones I've participated in, BiaB has the best output. The method for making musical patterns includes masks to make certain patterns only appear in musically appropriate places. Notes ♫

I'd probably play "One Note Samba" (Samba de uma Nota Só)

The May Queen Overture – William Sterndale Bennett

Since it's on Furnace road, you get built-in cremation as well.

I export MIDI from BiaB, then import to Master Tracks Pro where I do all the editing. The editing can also be done in Cakewalk, I just find MTPro quicker. Since it's MIDI only, I am not bogged down with the more complicated menu system. Every edit function is 2 clicks away. The reason why I use MIDI instead of the RealTracks, is because I can edit them. I can change the inversion of the chords so the melody note is on top if I want, I can swap out drum rolls or get rid of them, I can change instruments, I can add song-specific licks or figures, I can even change drum instruments, say drag the shaker and drop it on the tambourine pitch. Years ago I posted a challenge on the Band-in-a-Box forum. I did "A Day In The Life" in the Beatles Fake Disk https://www.nortonmusic.com/fake32.html and challenged anyone to make it sound as much like the original song with real tracks. No one even submitted an entry. And I did this all in BiaB without exporting to a DAW. The song is on that page, in BiaB's song format (.sgu) as a free sample. If you have good synth modules or software synths, you can get the MIDI tracks tone to sound 95-99% as good as the Real Tracks. The MIDI track is thousands of times more editable so in the end, you can make a better sounding track. Of course that is just my opinion. Now, if I were to submit an original song to a record label, I'd probably use the RealTracks. There is a use for both tools. Insights and incites by Notes ♫

Oh! No!

Zoot Suit Riot – Cherry Poppin' Daddies

For uncommon time signatures in BiaB, I don't consider each cell in the matrix as a bar of music. The cell can be part of a bar or even two bars of music. So if you want 5/4 time, make one cell have 3 beats (use F5) and the next one 2 beats. (or 2 followed by 3 depending on the feel of the song). BiaB has written some 5/4 styles, but since each cell of the matrix is divided in 1 through 4, putting chord changes in any beat, but the first will now work. 4 does not go into 5 evenly. BiaB is back-compatible to the infant program they wrote in the DOS 5 days. This is commendable, but the older systems can't do what new computers can do. Some creative thinking needs to be used to get around the limitations imposed by the compatibility effort. I've used a triplet based style for 6/8 songs, making each BiaB cell two bars of 6/8. Or one bar of 12/8. I've also used an appropriate 3/4 style to make each cell one half of a 6/8 measure. Sometimes you just need to think outside the box. Another example, if using MIDI styles, you can change the instrument voice. That jazz guitar in the style might sound better for a particular song as a Rhodes piano—change the patch number. Or a piano might sound better as a clav. Or you can change styles mid-song and change the instruments of the second style to match those in the first, so the style changes but the 'musicians' do not change instruments. There are plenty of other tricks I've learned and PG Music has a nice forum with friendly people who are eager to help. Insights and incites by Notes ♫

Most definitely do do that!

I've been in so many "human" bands like that, and been part of those struggles, so I didn't need to watch the growing pains. I got to be almost famous once. Our band was the opening act for quite a few stars in concert while they had number one records. Subsequently, we opened for many of the Motown acts and almost landed a record deal (it fell apart because Motown didn't want to pay). I got to jam with The Funk Brothers before they were given that name. I also spent some time backstage with the headliner acts. Nice, regular people, who were in the right place, at the right time, with the right people, and got to become part of our common history. As a kid at the time, I was thrilled to be treated as a peer by the people I looked up to. In a short amount of time, I found most of them to be just ordinary humans, with both flaws, and abilities. I wasn't enamored by their last released album. It was OK, but nothing I'd want to own. IMO it lacked the genius that I heard on everything from Rubber Soul on to Abbey Road. George Martin was definitely an integral part of the team and rightly deserves his title of The 5th Beatle. The five of them made some unforgettable music for me. I am glad I watched it, and although I missed some interesting tidbits, I'm also glad I skipped enough to watch all 3 disks in one evening, and the last disk in its entirety. Insights and incites by Notes ♫