Band in the Box!

ken · Mar 24, 2006

Anyone help please... My tutor has suggested I install Band in the Box on my PC. Any ideas what this does for sax learning?

Ken.

philippe · Mar 24, 2006

At 14:36:04 24/03/06, Ken wrote:
Anyone help please... My tutor has suggested I install Band in the Box on my PC. Any ideas what this does for sax learning?

Ken.

Band-in-a-Box is a great tool for learning any instrument. You need some decent MIDI sounds to run it, but really I would recommend it over any playalong record.
With it you can do things like: loop chord sequences over any number of bars, slow or speed them up at will, change styles, practice and transpose tunes or bits of tunes in any key, use it to write tunes, work out arrangements (it'll work out harmonies for you for example), practice your reading... it also comes with a set of basic ear training tools.
I use it a lot and really for the money you get a lot of use out of it.
The web site is www.pgmusic.com

ken · Mar 25, 2006

At 3:03:25 PM 24/03/06, Philippe wrote:
Band-in-a-Box is a great tool.....

Thanks Philippe, looks as though I will give this a try.

I have Cakewalk on my pc from days before I sold my keyboard and I hate midi with a vengance, but anything to help me with sax has got to be worth a go and you've made that sound interesting.

Ken

ken · Mar 30, 2006

At 3:03:25 PM 24/03/06, Philippe wrote:Band-in-a-Box is a great tool for learning any instrument.

Philippe, I've installed it and you were spot on... features, features, features. Something else for me to learn, but I think it will be fun.

I still can't get my mind around midi files, or any other electronically processed sounds really. My music and audio consists of good old Revox analouge 1/4" tape machines and amps. I even 'warm up' new CD's by putting them back to tape.

Thanks for the heads up about Biab... good one.

Ken.

lightbobarms · Apr 4, 2006

Band-in-a-Box is a great tool for learning any instrument. You need some decent MIDI sounds to run it, but really I would recommend it over any playalong record.
With it you can do things like: loop chord sequences over any number of bars, slow or speed them up at will, change styles, practice and transpose tunes or bits of tunes in any key, use it to write tunes, work out arrangements (it'll work out harmonies for you for example), practice your reading... it also comes with a set of basic ear training tools.
I use it a lot and really for the money you get a lot of use out of it.
The web site is www.pgmusic.com

I wonder if you could give me any idea of how much musical knowledge you need to work this product? I am a complete beginner musically.

Making some progress; after nearly six weeks I can produce recognisable sections of several well know (and very easy) tunes with almost 50% success rate. I think my wife is a bit bored with them though.

ken · Apr 4, 2006

Robert,

As you've quoted Philppe, I let him answer the bulk... I haven't played with it much yet anyway.

What I do find useful is if you find a decent midi file to download and pump it through BIAB it will print out the music for you, by individual instruments if you wish... no hold on, let me rephrase... I assume it does, I'm more familiar with Cakewalk which has this facility... Philippe?????

Ken.

soundzgood2 · Apr 9, 2006

At 14:36:04 24/03/06, Ken wrote:
Anyone help please... My tutor has suggested I install Band in the Box on my PC. Any ideas what this does for sax learning?

Ken.

Hi Ken - as a sax teacher I'd say BiaB does the following for a beginner:

- it let's you hear chord progressions entered by you, in a variety of pre-set styles you choose from
- you can record it and burn to CD, creating your own play alongs
- you can transpose these chord progressions easily to practise in a different key
- you can analyse individual parts from the Styles and learn alot about music in general
- 2006 version has some fun ear training and pitch awareness games

The learning curve is reasonably steep with BiaB - the interface hasn't really been updated since the 90s and many of the controls are duplicated in icons and drop down menus, which makes it bewildering for a newbie. However, the basic prog comes with a 300 page manual, pgmusic.com has a forum site and if you're in the UK then this guy at Jazzwise can help you out. We sell it.
Simon

ken · Apr 9, 2006

Hello Simon,

Thanks for the info.

I've put BIAB aside for a while. As you say it takes a bit of learning and getting used to, time I really need for actual practice at the moment. I will come back to it later because, as you say, it has a lot of good facilities once learnt.

What is 'Jazzwise', is that your retail shop?. I'm in Spain.

Ken.

soundzgood2 · Apr 18, 2006

At 11:27:20 09/04/06, Ken wrote:
Hello Simon,

Thanks for the info.

I've put BIAB aside for a while. As you say it takes a bit of learning and getting used to, time I really need for actual practice at the moment. I will come back to it later because, as you say, it has a lot of good facilities once learnt.

What is 'Jazzwise', is that your retail shop?. I'm in Spain.

Ken.

Yep - jazzwise - the No1 UK jazz mag, jazz book shop, Aebersold Summer School organiser in UK..

ken · Apr 18, 2006

At 11:49:17 AM 18/04/06, soundzgood2 wrote:
Yep -jazzwise - the No1 UK jazz mag, jazz book shop, Aebersold Summer School organiser in UK...

Sorry Simon, can't get that url to work 🙁

soundzgood2 · Apr 18, 2006

At 12:07:29 18/04/06, Ken wrote:
> At 11:49:17 AM 18/04/06, soundzgood2 wrote:
> Yep - jazzwise - the No1 UK jazz mag, jazz book shop, Aebersold Summer School organiser in UK...

Sorry Simon, can't get that url to work 🙁