Technical information
Chapter 12: Tutors and Wizards
214
The setting for “Allow Sus chords” determines if chords like Csus or Bbsus7 will be included. The “Allow 7th
chords” specifies if 7th chords like C7 or Bbm7 would be allowed. Simple Rock songs might not have 7th chords or
Sus chords. Allowing chords with no thirds should be set in a hard rock song, or similar song with “power chords”
that might not contain the 3rd of the chords.
Delay Lowest Bass Note
Usually a bass player plays the root of the chord at or near the time when the
chord changes. But in solo piano playing or some bass styles, the bass doesn't state the root until later on, and this
setting should be set to “delayed” in a solo piano style of this type.
Primary Style
Set the primary style of the song to Jazz or Pop using the Lead
Sheet Method combo box.
Using the Chord Options Presets to quickly make settings
For the song “Violet Song.MID,” we know that this is a Jazz Swing type of song, so we
press the Preset Called “Jazz Standard.” By doing this, we see that the chord options have
then been set to Chord Resolution of 2 beats, no slash chords, walking bass, sus chords, 7
th
chords, and Jazz lead
sheet. These settings look OK for our Jazz song, if we wanted to customize it (e.g., to allow slash chords) we could
do it at this point.
So, to recap, using the Chord Wizard is a 3-step process.
1.
We've loaded in the song “Violet Song.MID.”
2.
Pressing the preset button called [Jazz Standard], we then looked at the Chord Options
settings for the various channels and they looked OK, so we didn't make any changes.
3.
We then press [INTERPRET CHORDS NOW] – this gets the Chord Wizard to interpret the chords, and write them
onto the Chord Sheet.
Once we've pressed the Interpret Chords Now button, we can see the results, by looking at the chord sheet. Here are
the chords that were interpreted.
Chord Wizard Results – interpreting from “Violet Song.MID.”
So that we can see how well the Chord Wizard did, we can compare it to the “correct chords” of the song, input by a
musician listening to the song.