Chord Problem
 

Hi there
I am a newbee to this site and would be very thankful for some help on a problem that I am having with using Notation Composer. I will explain the situation.
I am a keyboard player and I download MIDI files from the internet from which I require a print out of a Lead Sheet which in turn contain two items, the main single notes of the melody and the appropriate chords for same. How I have been trying to do this up to now is by selecting whatever instrument is providing this in the MIDI and then selecting the "Fake Book Lead Sheet" option and completing the further selection options. Now this provides me with exactly what I want in the note section of the sheet, however, in the display of chords I am only getting about 20 percent of the correct chords being shown, the rest are in no way compatible to the music.
I have tried every combination of alternative selections from the menu to try and improve this but so far have had no luck in improving this. I can certainly understand that the selection of chords provided by the program may or can not be perfect and will need adjusted to some extent, however, I find that with the selection of chords that I am getting at the moment it is easier to remove them all and try and figure out the correct chords. Now not being a professional musician I find this most difficult and time consuming.
I feel that perhaps I am not going about this the correct way and perhaps am selecting the wrong options to achieve what I am looking for. Perhaps there is someone who knows or has discovered the best way to do this and I would be most thankful for any help in this area.

Re: Chord Problem
 

Hi,

One of the biggest challenges in getting good chords is to choose the appropriate staves that contribute to the "correct" base chord. Sometimes only using two or three staves (rather than all 9 or whatever) gives the best result. It can take a little experimentation. It's also somewhat a "taste" thing, too, as some folks prefer more basic chords (it helps to choose something like "Rock" or to check only the chord types you want in the dialog box) while others want all the nuances and variations (in which case, check all the boxes :) )

If there is a particular file that is just really giving you a hard time, please feel free to post it here and we can try to help you get what you're looking for.

ttfn,
Sherry

Re: Chord Problem
 

Hi Sherry
My sincere thanks for your prompt reply.
I understand all of what you have written regarding the choosing of the appropriate staves that contribute to the "correct" base chord. On this point I always choose a minimum of staffs or intruments that provide the melody, this is a lot of the time depending on the MIDI , ether one or two very seldom any more. On your advice about the selection of chord types, I bought Notation Musician before I bought Notation Composer and Musician had "Rock" as the preselected choice and Composer had "Default" so that I have tried both of these choices. I will now confine it to "Rock". As regards my personal choice of chords I am very happy with the basic chords and also very happy to play in keys with just one or two sharps or flats.
You asked if there was a particular file that was giving me a hard time. The answer here is that I have failed to find a file that was easy, some naturally are much more difficult than others and this seems to rely on the number of staffs which are necessary to provide the melody. If I can find a MIDI with the complete melody being provided by one instrument and am able just to select one staff then this is much easier than when you have say three staffs selected, in this instance I would have to remove all chords provided and try and choose as best as I can an alternative chord. In the case of the one staff selection I find that I only have to change about half of the chords provided.
I attach a recent MIDI file, which I used of the Blue Danube. In this file there are two instruments which intermittently provide the melody "Violin 1" and "Flutes". Now the only way that I could provide a sheet for this was to do two separate sheets and marry the two at the appropriate sections and then manually put in chords. I would be very appreciative if you could have a look at this and perhaps let me know the best way to achieve a complete sheet as I feel that I am making a mountain out of a molehill the way that I do it.
Thanks again for your help for I feel that once I get the hang of how to do it, Notation Composer will be fantastic software for me to use.

Kind regards
Toni

Re: Chord Problem
 

Hi Toni,

Sorry for the late reply here - this one slipped between a few other items going on.



You can also play around with the other default settings (eg. Country, Classical) in the drop list, or create your own set by using the check boxes.

Since you want to get this file into a usable piano fake sheet style score, I'd suggest using Staff/Merge Staves and put the violin 1 and flute staff into a single staff. This would then be the "melody line" staff for the fake sheet.

For the chord names, since this file contains a little bit of "slow-walking bass", you may want to try using the "Find slash chords..." option in the lower left of the Chord Analysis dialog, and select the "bass" staff for that determination. You can experiment with the different chord name styles (from the drop list) and see what gives you the best results.

If you want the accompaniment as a two-hand part, you can use Staff/Merge to put the remaining staves into a single staff (excluding the "Melody" staff created above) and then use Staff/Split hands on that merged staff to give the accompaniment in a two-hand bracketed pair of staves.

Hope this is helpful!
Sherry

Re: Chord Problem
 

Hi Sherry,
Again my thanks for your help which I found most informative.
I tried all of your suggestions and the best way of letting you know how I got on would be the following. I used The Blue Danube MIDI as my example and came up with the following results. As I had used it before it provided the sheet with 31 chords and 16 of them were acceptable this would be 49%. After changing over to your directions it provided 34 chords with 21 of them acceptable which is 71%. Now this is an improvement of 22%, which I feel, is a very noticeable improvement. When I started with Composer I had it in my mind that it should automatically provide 100% correct chords but on thinking about it I feel that I was being far too optimistic. I realise now that there is only so much creativity you should expect from any computer program and adding the chords to a melody with limited information being fed in is asking a lot, I now see why the added human touch is necessary. It requires just to try and feed in as much additional help as possible in order for the program to provide the best result and this I accept.
If I may ask just one further question and then I won’t bother you for awhile!! I am using your Video on Metronome Recording to try and do some Real Time recording. (By the way your Video’s are great as you make it most easy to follow them, keep up your fantastic work). Now I follow everything exactly as you direct but when I get to actually recording that is when the Metronome starts off with its opening two starting beats and then I press the first note on the keyboard, about 50 or 60 new measures appear on the sheet (which I never asked) for and it then starts showing the recorded message for the notes way down on the last measure that has appeared and continues doing this as long as I keep pressing keys, if I stop it will go back to the to the beginning of the sheet wherever the Metronome was meant to be and then if I press more keys it will add more measures on to the sheet and record again further down the sheet !!! I might add that the Step Time works perfectly with the keyboard it is only when I try to use Real Time that this happens. I tried using Real Time without the Metronome but it behaves the same. I have tried dozens of times to correct this but without success. Where am I going wrong ?
Again sorry to bother you .
Kind regards
Toni

Re: Chord Problem
 

Hi Toni,

I'm glad to help :)


You're absolutely right - there are so many styles of music as well as so many personal interpretations of how it should sound, that the best we can do is offer the tools and tips for getting the chords the way you want them :)
That sounds suspiciously like a bug that was fixed some time ago. The problem at that time was that there were tempo changes within the file. Please try creating a new file and "live recording" into that. Does the problem show up there as well? If not, please send along a copy of the file that is showing up the problem (either here or to me at support@notation.com) and I'll take a look at it.

Thanks!
Sherry

Re: Chord Problem
 

Hi Sherry


I am a little confused when you refer to "the file".
QUOTE "The problem at that time was that there were tempo changes within the file."
As explained to you I am just creating a new file exactly the same as you direct in your Video so that there is nothing on that file except what is directed to be there.
Now when the problem occurs I just abandon my efforts with setting up a file and start again from scratch.
Where or what file did this bug regarding tempo changes that you refer to exist in ?
You say that this bug was fixed some time ago , do you mean a bug within Composer ? If that is the case I have only purchased Composer after christmas this year ( less than two weeks ago) so would that "Fix" not have been done in my download ?
I have attached a copy of what I get when I record as I explained to you. The 16 Measures with the two Piano clefs which were there on screen before before I recorded have now changed to two treble clefs and a bundle of extra measures where the recording is located at the end of same !!
Sorry for not understanding.
Kind regards
Toni

Re: Chord Problem
 

Hi Toni,

I'm sure you're not doing a thing wrong - I'm just trying to figure out exactly the conditions that make this bug show up because I'm not seeing it here. A bug where extra measures were added initially to a file while recording was present in an earlier version, and it was fixed as far as we know and tested. However, there may be something that is lurking and only shows up in specific settings. Digging around and figuring out the specific conditions allows me to write up a very specific report for fixing the problem. Composer should add measures to a file if you are recording and the recording goes longer than the number of measures initially set for the file, but it should not automatically add measures to start off with.

Does this happen every time that you start recording into a new file? If so, then I'm really puzzled. If it only happens some times, please carefully note exactly the steps (if you can remember - I know that can be difficult when you just want to get something done!) Meanwhile I'll try to figure out what conditions might cause this to happen. Things to note: is there any part of the score that is selected when you start recording and see the problem? Are other song files open? How was the new song created (what steps)?

I know the above may seem a bit scattered, but I'm trying to figure out what specific conditions make this bug show up. Thanks for your help here, and I apologize for the inconvenience.

ttfn,
Sherry

Re: Chord Problem
 

Hi Sherry

Many thanks for your reply.

I now understand what you meant in your previous mail ,what confused me was your reference to a "File" and what you were refering to was Composer which I regard as the program.Sorry about that.

To answer your questions as best that I can as follows:

1. I am fortunate to have three monitors at my disposal and what I do is to run your Video on "Real Time Recording" which I have downloaded on one of these and run the Composer on another and copy exactly as you direct step by step without changing anything. This should tell you exactly the steps that I feed the program with and in what sequence. On the sample file that I sent you I used a simple "Three Blind Mice" as the tune in order to reduce any complications.

2. The extra measures are added the moment I press the keyboard. If I was to leave it start up and not press the keyboard it would perform the two bar intro and the metronome will continue across the 16 Measures perfectly normal as long as I make no input. It refuses at anytime to place the score at the start of the selected 16 Measures or any part of these measures.

3. It happens every time I start a new recording a new file. As I am sure you can see from the sample it will place the recording perfectly way down the sheet on the new measures which are introduced by the program.

4. There are no other files present when I start a recording. I always start from a clean start having switched of composer before I start a new one. As I have said above I sometimes run your video to make sure that I am following directions to the tee but I have also switched off your video and started a recording in case that it running at the same time had any effect, however , I got exactly the same reults.

5. On the question of what tune do I try and record , I try a different one at random and it is always at the start of any tune that it happens never at a later section. As pointed out above always at whatever measure the keyboard is pressed for the first time in the recording.

6. 16 Meaures are selected for the file as you know that is what you select in your video. Now I have tried varying this number to see if it would have any effect but no it remained just the same.

7. One thing that keeps sticking in my mind is that are there any presets in composer that may be set wrongly and is affecting the use of Real Time ? Is Real Time a facility that is totally independent of any other function and would not be effected by any other preset that really may have nothing to do with the operation of Real Time ? By this I mean that supposing you wanted to use Composer for nothing else only to record Real Time would you have to make sure that other settings for other facilities in Composer were not set that they would interfere with the operation of Real Time even if you set up all the relevent settings perfectly for this function ? As I have told you in a previous mail Step Time works perfectly for me with no problem so this should rule out any possability of any problem with communication between the keyboard and Composer. Another thing that confirms this is the fact that the Real Time is actually recording on the sheet but messing things up in the process.

Sherry I hope that the above info covers what you requested and may help somewhat to find out where the problem lies. Please dont hesitate to to tell me if you find that it is at my end as I would certainly not take it for granted that this is ruled out.

Kind regards
Toni

Re: Chord Problem
 

Hi Toni,

I'm still not able to figure this problem out. (By the way, by "file" I didn't mean Composer itself, I meant the song file, but I don't think that's the main problem here.) I don't think it has anything to do with the multiple monitors (I used to have two until I got a larger single one.)

Composer should not have any other settings (that I can think of, any way) that will affect recording the way it's happening for you. It almost sounds, though, as if your keyboard is sending out some other command when you start playing it since that is when the problem shows up. What kind of keyboard are you using? Perhaps I can do a bit of research to see if there is something "special" about it that we need to know.

Sorry for the problem here, but we'll try to get to the bottom of it.

ttfn,
Sherry

Re: Chord Problem
 

Hi Sherry

Many thanks for your reply

I am using a KORG nanoKEY2 which is a two octave small board which I use beside my PC purely for recording melody.

One thing that I am sure you have picked up from my mail is that I have no problem whatsoever recording Step Time where the notes go exactly to the measure they are selected to go to. Shoud this not rule out a problem in this area ?

Kind regards

Toni