User Guide

Chapter 6: Making Songs in Band-in-a-Box
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begin + Enter
- sets the beginning of the chorus to the current bar
chorusend + Enter
- sets the end of the chorus to the current bar
end + Enter
- sets the end of the song to the current bar
Another option is to right-click a bar in the chordsheet to set it as the beginning or end of the chorus or the end of the
song from the settings in the context menu. For
example, these settings are available with a right-click
on bar 16.
For this song, bar one is the first bar of the chorus and bar 32 is the last bar of the chorus.
The chorus will play three times, jumping to the two bar ending the third time through.
With the “Loop” checkbox enabled the entire song will keep repeating until stopped.
(This is a different feature from the “LoopSec” checkbox, which loops a selected section of the song.) The “Fake”
checkbox is for a “fake sheet” style of chordsheet display with 1
st
and 2
nd
endings and repeats.
The [S] button opens the Song Settings dialog for additional settings such as endings, tags, style variations,
pushes, rests, and chord embellishments.
Chord Entry
Computer Keyboard Entry
The most common way of entering the chords for a song in Band-in-a-Box is by typing them in from the computer
keyboard. Up to 4 chords per bar may be entered.
Chords are commonly typed-in using standard chord symbols (like C or Fm7 or Bb7 or Bb13#9/E), but you can
enter them in any of the supported chord symbol display formats - Roman Numerals, Nashville Notation, Solfeggio,
and Fixed Do.
Tip: To view a list of chords recognized by Band-in-a-Box refer to the Chord List topic in the Help file.
To start typing in chords:
- Go to the top (Bar 1) of the chordsheet. The Home key will go directly there.
- Blank the Chordsheet (if necessary) by clicking on the [New] button.
This is the chord highlight cell. Chords will be entered wherever this is placed. You may
move this around by cursor keys, the Enter key, or a mouse pointer click.
The chord highlight bar moves 2 beats at a time (½ a bar). When you have the chord highlight cell over the area that
you want to enter a chord, you simply type the name of the chord you would like to see there.
For example, type c6 to get the C6 chord. Note that you should never have to use the Shift key, as Band-in-a-Box
will sort this out for you.
- Use b for a flat, e.g. Ab7.
- Use 3 for a sharp #, e.g. for F#7 type f37.
- Use / for slash chords with alternate roots, e.g. C7/E (C7 w/E bass). A chord like Gm7b5/Db will display
correctly using a Db instead of a Gm7b5/C#, since Band-in-a-Box bases it on a Gm scale.
- Use a comma to separate the ½ bar, enabling you to enter 2 chords in a cell. In the example below, we would
type Ab9,G9 to get the 2 chords in the cell on beat 3 and 4 of bar 2.
The sequence of keystrokes to enter all these chords above would be:
HOME c6>am7>dm7>ab9,g9>c6/e>>a739
Note: We're able to type A7#9 as “a739” because Band-in-a-Box knows to use the uppercase of the 3, which is #. The >
indicates a carriage return, or the Enter key.