Band-in-a-Box

Band-in-a-Box is a remarkable, widely used music program that creates and plays music files. Load a tune and it plays it, shows the chord symbols, the notes being played (on a piano keyboard), the key, the tempo; click a button and a music sheet pops up showing the notes and chords in the file, and the notes being played are highlighted; you can print out the sheet. The key and tempo can be changed instantly. So the program is extremely useful for learning tunes and playing along, whether you are a musician or vocalist.

There are two main types of files:
1. Tune files--the individual tunes. Typically, they have the melody line and chords.
2. Style files--these are used by the tune files to provide the "band" behind the melody, and the variety of styles is infinite. The "band" consists of melody instrument, back up, and rhythm section. You can change styles on the fly, in order to find ones that suit what you are trying to play.

Now in its 12th version, BIAB has been around a long time, and many hundreds of files and styles have been created by its users. Many of these files can be downloaded from dozens of websites on the internet.

You can save tune files as MIDI (.mid) files and import them into music composition programs such as ENCORE and FINALE so you can work your own magic on them. BIAB will also import .mid files. (In both cases you will have to type in the chord symbols.)

One of these years I'm going to collect the files of basic tunes into .zip files for eMailing. Keep tuned.

Created 3/10/04