Accompaniment music for flutes

[accordionstu]

I am sure this has been discussed on here many times over the years, I recall reading a rather aggressive response to a similar request on the session a few years back. So here goes;

Does anyone know someone who would be happy to put together an accompaniment (Guitar or Piano) for some sets of trad tunes?
I am happy to pay for this.

[MTGuru]

Would this be for a recording project for the public, or for your own personal practice and pleasure?

[Feadoggie]

Right. A little more info might be helpful. This may or may not be of interest to you.

Band in a Box (BiaB) is a tool used for composition, practice and creating backing tracks. Once you are familiar with the package it takes maybe ten minutes to generate a whole band playing a tune. BiaB has been around since the late 1980's. While it was based on MIDI synthesis for some time, in recent years it has embraced recorded loops performed by real musicians for generating the music. Basically you select a music style from the thousands of styles supported and then you type in the chords to be played measure by measure. The new technology is referred to as "Real Band" and the loop sets are called "Real Tracks". Real Tracks set 104 supports jigs and reels as example. BiaB now supports several Irish tune styles including jigs, reels, slip jigs and hornpipes as well as some air and slow waltz styles which can be useful. The musicians that recorded the loops are somewhat well know. Trevor Hutchinson is the bass player for the Irish styles as an example. The instruments include guitar, bouzouki, bodhran, bass and piano for these styles. The sound of the resulting tracks lean more toward a contemporary type of sound a la Lunasa but they are decent (depending on what you are trying to get at). If you are looking for an more traditional pure drop type of thing then I think BiaB ain't gonna be for you. I would suggest you stay away from the BiaB MIDI based styles for Irish types of tunes. Those are pretty terrible.

You can hear some Real Tracks demo audio here: http://www.pgmusic.com/realtracks.all.php?os=win#104 Play the video Real Tracks set 104 to run through the basics of what is in that set. There are more demos on that page you just have to search a bit. That'll give you an idea if it will work for you.

Here's an example I threw together as a demo for a whistle tour a while ago. Took about fifteen minutes to do start to completion. https://app.box.com/s/671pjyp856q6ujk254ri

The BiaB software package is immense. It is delivered on a portable hard drive. The Irish styles are spread out over a bunch of style sets so you pretty much have to buy the complete package to get started. Not cheap. Probably overkill just for the trad styles. I happen to write for a broad range of music styles. It works for me and seems to be a bargain and a real time saver versus playing in all the tracks myself or hiring other players to do the work.

I hope this is useful information for you.

Feadoggie

[accordionstu]

Would this be for a recording project for the public, or for your own personal practice and pleasure?

It would be more for my own practice MT, I am sure the pleasure part will evolve. I rarely get the time to attend the sessions due to work commitments and play along to le Ceoltóiri Cultúrlainne sets when I get a chance but I would like to play along to a simple accompaniment, record it and hear how it sounds, noting where I and others feel the fluting needs improvement.

Right. A little more info might be helpful. This may or may not be of interest to you.

Band in a Box (BiaB) is a tool used for composition, practice and creating backing tracks.

Cheers Feadoggie, it wasn't long after i posted this thread that I read down and saw a similar request and your fine response. I will gove it a go, It may take a while longer for me as I have no idea what the chords to the tunes are but will give it a try.

if all else fails I will still be looking for someone to knock one up for me which i am happy to pay for, surely someone is looking for extra shekels after the festive season.

[Feadoggie]

It may take a while longer for me as I have no idea what the chords to the tunes are but will give it a try.

It occurred to me last evening that mapping out chordal accompaniment in Band in a Box may present a significant hurdle for someone that has played a melody instrument their whole musical life. Having started out on piano, then guitar, the chords and the melody have always been intertwined for me. I've known more than one flute/whistle player that has never had to be concerned with the chords.

But it is not an insurmountable issue. I am not current with present array of available ABC tools but a decade ago I know it was an option on one or two of the ABC editors to generate chords for the tune based on the ABC melody. So something like that should still exist and probably be much more robust than the old ABC programs I used to use. Then it would just be a matter of looking up an ABC of the tune you want in the preferred key, importing it into the ABC editor and hitting the "chords" button on the ABC editor.

Perhaps someone else here can suggest a tool that will spit out suggested chords. Has to be one.

And some of the ABC repositories have archived versions of tunes with the chords noted in them. But that may be hit or miss.

BiaB does not have an ABC import function but it would be a hoot if it did. I'll try to suggest that on their forums.

BiaB does have a chord recognition function though. I don't use it much. It's a bit of a bear to reconcile what it hears sometimes. It allows one to import an audio file of a tune. Then it will interpret the file and write out the chord changes as it hears them. The tough part is that it assumes an constant tempo and measure arrangement. Much recorded music varies the beat and the time signature may change as well. So it can get pretty funky. But it does a good job of recognizing the chord changes. BiaB does not provide melodic recognition though.

There's hope in any case.

Feadoggie

[crookedtune]

If you opt for BIAB, (which I highly recommend), you can get hundreds of pre-programmed ITM tunes for free here: http://www.alfwarnock.info/alfs/biab.php I've spent many hours with them, and it got me up to session speed.

[MTGuru]

It would be more for my own practice MT, I am sure the pleasure part will evolve.

[Feadoggie]

If you opt for BIAB, (which I highly recommend), you can get hundreds of pre-programmed ITM tunes for free here: http://www.alfwarnock.info/alfs/biab.php I've spent many hours with them, and it got me up to session speed.

Ah, yes. Good suggestion. I had forgotten about those. Lots of tunes there actually. I have not looked at them in years.

So, yes, those zip files will have the chords already to go for Biab. Download the zip files. Windows will automatically unzip the contents. Then merely open any tune you want in BiaB. These files were done in the MIDI synthesis days of BiaB though. You would want to go through the tunes you want to practice and match them to the newer "Real Band" styles. Then save them again. That should do the trick, I'd think. I'll have a look at doing that to a few in the next day or so and I'll report back to you.

If you want to do tunes as sets there are at least two ways to do that.

In te first method Band in a Box can save the generated tune accompaniment as an audio file. You would do that for each tune in your set. Then import the audio files one after another into an audio editor, like Audacity or similar, then save that file. It would be a fixed set after that and could be played on any device you like.

The second method would be to edit the tunes in BiaB serially in the same song file. Copy and paste functions would help the work go quickly. Then save the song as one piece of music. BiaB will allow changes in style throughout a song. You should even be able go between jigs and reels in a set that way.

Crookedtune, have you had a chance to work with the Real Band styles?

Feadoggie

[crookedtune]

A bit, but it was a few years ago, and I didn't really pursue it. BIAB was always very secondary to my weekly live session. Even the old styles are very usable for practice purposes, though.

[Feadoggie]

A bit, but it was a few years ago, and I didn't really pursue it. BIAB was always very secondary to my weekly live session. Even the old styles are very usable for practice purposes, though.

Right, BiaB is certainly not front and center in my traditional music efforts either. I was just wondering how someone else may view the revised styles BiaB have offered since 2012. I see it as a positive step. I really don't know anyone else that uses BiaB for trad music. And yet most every Bluegrass player I know uses BiaB for backing/practice tracks. PGMusic probably put the effort into the genres where they feel they see the largest number of players among their customer base.

Feadoggie

[crookedtune]

Right. Really, really good for jazz, blues and rock players, too. Great for learning to improvise over changes.

[accordionstu]

Cheers folks, I have looked around the site and saw plenty of different versions, then I saw this on eBay, will this do what I need, it looks like the software can be rather pricey depending on which version I opt for.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-PG-Music- ... 5b04b2e044

[crookedtune]

That's the one. Run it through a decent stereo system, and you'll be very impressed. Your family may never see you again.

[Feadoggie]

I would suggest against that version personally. Let me elucidate a bit.

First, 2015 versions have already been released and are directly available from PGMusic. (I am waiting for the 2015 BiaB disk drive to arrive from them as we write this.) But the price you linked to is a decent price for that package.

Second, that version is the box-stock, bare-bones version and it does not contain the RealTracks irish styles.. On the plus side it should play the files from Al Warnock's site that Crookedtune gave the link to previously. The sound generated will depend on MIDI capabilities of your PC. That might be fine if you happen to have a few nice software synths lurking in your PC. You could buy that version and add the RealTracks style sets for the Irish styles. That's be about five style sets at $29 per set - so an additional $145 or so.

Third, that version does not even have all the MIDI based styles included. it has only 400 out of 2,300 available MIDI styles. I do not even know if the Irish styles are in there. Al Warnock's files depend on the user having the PGMusic Irish styles on their BiaB installation. He has in some cases provided his own styles, which are better than the PGMusic styles IMO. But it is no guarantee you could play all the archived tunes.

I'd still recommend that you look at the UltraPAK. It includes all the available styles and RealTracks sets. Here's a link to that package from the same eBay supplier: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-PG-Music- ... 566943a7a3 It'd probably be worth it if you were to decide to play Jazz, the Blues or Country music in the future. That tomato was directed at me.

I know I am not a fan of the BiaB MIDI styles. I confess to that. That may be a personal problem I have. If you can deal with the sound being like a 1990's video game sound track, that's cool. A good soft synth helps a lot but that's additional money.

The full version of BiaB is expensive to start off. I know that. But upgrades are quite modest (it's all relative, I know) and if you upgrade every other year you can still keep up with new additions. Granted I do not know what will be added from year to year. And that's an added risk. Who knows when they'll add more Irish trad tracks. This years updates seem to include tenor banjo tracks.

I said above that BiaB may be overkill for the trad user. There may not be enough value in the current BiaB pricing structure to make it worthwile for a musician that is solely a trad player.

Maybe we could talk about what tunes you'd like to have for practice. Just a suggestion. I could try to make a few BiaB samples for you in both MIDI and RealTracks so you can hear the difference. I'd base what I do on the contents of the files from Al Warnock's site. So it would be helpful to me if you picked tunes from what is available there. How'd that work for you?

I may be getting myself in too deep here but I guess I am the one that suggested BiaB in the first place. So here we go.

Feadoggie

[crookedtune]

I agree completely. You get what you pay for. You've taken it much further than I ever did. Really, I just used the bare-bones product to play Alf's files and work on getting my session tunes up to speed. The result sounded pretty much like cr*p at home, but prepared me well for session rhythms and speed, which was the real point.

I always meant to do more with BIAB, but unfortunately we only have so much time......