Amiga ISO Collection/AmigaDemoCD2.iso/ASCII/TEXTE/c.s.a.reviews/software/audio/JazzThroughMIDI

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Subject: REVIEW: Jazz Through MIDI
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Keywords: jazz, MIDI, music, sequence, commercial
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Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1992 17:20:37 GMT


PRODUCT NAME

    JAZZ: Introducing Jazz Through MIDI
    Volume 1, version 2.0

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

    New Sound Music bills "Jazz Through MIDI" (JTM) as "A New Approach
    to Learning Jazz Improvisation Using Your MIDI Sequencer!"  It is
    actually a series of 60 sequences of jazz solos with rhythm
    accompaniment.  The JTM manual, in addition to providing "lead
    sheets" of all the solos and chord progressions, provides several
    pages of jazz improvisation hints and guidelines.  The manual states
    that it is usable by beginners through advanced jazz improvisers.
    It is, but I'll add my thoughts on that topic later.

AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION

    Name:        New Sound Music
    Address:    P.O.Box 37363
            Oak Park MI  48237
    Telephone:    [phone]

LIST PRICE

    US $45.95

SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

    HARDWARE

    A multi-timbral synthesizer setup is required, as this software
    relies upon piano, bass, and drum sounds.  I suppose it is possible,
    with considerable effort, to use this software with your Amiga's
    internal sounds (this would entail editing the sequence to re-map
    sounds, especially the drum sounds).  A drum machine and hardware
    sequencer are not necessary (as long as your synth can play the drum
    sounds and you have a software sequencer), but can be used.  All
    told, you'll probably need at least 10-voice polyphony and 4 timbres
    (4 voices for drums, 4 for piano, 1 for bass, and 1 for lead).  More
    polyphony wouldn't hurt.

    SOFTWARE

    It is necessary to have a sequencer that understands Type 1 Standard
    MIDI Files.  JTM is delivered in other formats, however, such as Mac,
    IBM, Atari and selected hardware sequencer formats.  Call New Sound
    Music for details.

COPY PROTECTION

    The disk is not copy-protected, and the files are easily copied to a
    hard disk.

REVIEW

    As stated above, JTM is a series of 60 jazz solos with rhythm
    accompaniment, organized into MIDI sequences.  JTM comes in a
    variety of formats, but my version is a set of Type 1 Standard MIDI
    Files on an Amiga disk.  I have an Amiga 2000 (soon to be an A3000)
    and Dr. T's Tiger Cub.  My synth is a Korg M1.

    It is easier for me to refer to the 60 solos as separate sequences,
    each 4, 8, 12, or 16 bars long, even though they are delivered
    concatenated into four Standard MIDI files.  In each file, the
    sequences are separated by 8 beats (two bars of bass drum thumps).
    Each MIDI file, or each sequence, is four tracks: drums are assigned
    to track/channel 1, piano to track/channel 2, bass to track/channel
    3, and the lead voice to track/channel 4.  Your sequencer will
    probably let you change track and MIDI channel assignments.

    From there, your sequencer takes over:  load one of the Standard
    MIDI Files into your sequencer, figure out which sequence you want
    to play, and delete the parts of the file that come before and after
    that particular sequence.  All of this was pretty straightforward in
    my copy of Tiger Cub, but your mileage may vary.  Set it to loop,
    and hit "play", and listen to a jazz quartet jam non-stop.

    The 60 sequences come as many different styles and progressions:
    ii-V-I in a swing style, ii-V-I swing with turnarounds, ii-V-I
    latin, 12-bar blues, and over 20 sequences in the style of such
    folks as McCoy Tyner, Oscar Peterson, Herbie Hancock, Dizzy
    Gillespie, John Coltrane, Bird, and others.  Those sequences can be
    best described as fragments of jazz standards.  For example, one of
    the John Coltrane sequences is like an excerpt of him playing "Giant
    Steps" (I don't think the sequence is the complete chorus, and I
    don't know if it is a transcription of his solo from the original
    recording).

    The sequences are written in different keys (for example, not all of
    the ii-V-I sequences are Dm7-G7-CMaj7), but you can always use your
    sequencer to transpose the non-drum tracks.

    The manual (40 pages, spiral-bound) provides a few details for
    specific setups, such as loading certain formats into hardware
    sequencers or timing problems with A1000 (relating to older Dr. T
    sequencers), and also provides the specifics for MIDI program
    mapping.  The manual also provides drum note mappings, which happens
    to conform to Roland's standard.  A quick note on this drum mapping
    stuff:  you need to have a drum machine which knows these mappings,
    be able to configure your drums to meet those mappings, or edit the
    note values in the sequence.  Since all the drum sounds are on one
    track, you'll probably want to avoid this latter choice.

    The manual has a supposed "lead sheet" of every solo, that has the
    solo and chord progressions notated, the style, a suggested tempo,
    and a suggested lead voice (mostly vibes or alto sax).

    The manual also contains about 15 pages of guidelines on topics such
    as practice suggestions, scales, chord/scale mappings and
    substitutions, ii-V-I progressions, turnarounds, voicings, walking
    bass, modal tunes, and comping.  With all of that covered in 15
    pages, you can imagine that none of it is covered in any great
    detail.

    So, how is JTM meant to be used?  Well, you can use it for practicing
    jazz stuff.  Keyboardists can mute the piano part and practice
    comping, or perhaps practice their left-hand walking bass.  Bass
    players could work on their lines.  A horn player can mute the solo
    line, and practice over the progression.  You could also use these
    sequences to create larger works.  Since I wouldn't even know how to
    begin to create an interesting drum groove, I suspect that I'll start
    out by modifying the groove in these sequences.  You could work on
    analyzing the solos.  Maybe you could try something really tedious
    like transcribing these lead lines (your sequencer will slow things
    down without changing pitch... an advantage over tape decks).  There
    are probably lots of other ideas as well.

LIKES AND DISLIKES

    Any time I listen to sequenced jazz, I think the same thing:
    swing quantization sometimes feels unnatural.  That's mostly
    because swing eighths aren't really dotted-eighth/sixteenth or
    quarter/eighth triplets.  Sometimes it can be either, sometimes
    it's neither.  It depends on a few different factors, including
    style and tempo.  For example, some of the extremely fast Charlie
    Parker solos, e.g. Ko-Ko, approach even eighths.  Find some early
    swing from the 1920's and you'll probably find exaggerated
    dotted-eighth/sixteenths.

    Where all this is leading is that "swing" is not easily quantized
    into a sequence, and will tend to sound unnatural when the tempos
    of a sequence are varied too much.  JTM, it appears, quantizes the
    "swing eighths" into a triplet feel, which is OK, but it won't
    always do.  The user can always tweak the sequences for a better
    feel.  The other styles that are supplied, such as the latin, don't
    necessarily fall into this quantization trap, and feel quite natural.

    Another dislike... the manual.  I'm a firm believer that a manual can
    make or break a program, and I think the manual supplied with this
    program is a little weak.  Not so much on content, but rather
    presentation.  It is a little amateurish:  it looks as if the author
    dashed off a copy on a NLQ dot-matrix printer, and then photocopied
    it to make multiple copies of the manual.  Also, there are
    transcriptions of all the solos in the sequences, with chord changes
    noted, but these are all crammed together in the manual, and it is
    difficult to see where one solo stops, and the next starts.  I would
    have liked to see some white space in between staves.

    The jazz improvisation guidelines provided in the manual can be
    pretty useful, especially if the user has not studied jazz theory.
    Most experienced musicians, however, will know this information:  it
    is reminiscent of the information provided in Jamey Aebersold's "Jazz
    Aids" giveaway.  If you don't have one of those, drop a note to
    Aebersold... the information is pretty useful for reference.  I go to
    the "scale syllabus" all the time, since I can never remember the
    differences between all those diminished, half-diminished, and
    diminished whole-tone scales, and stuff like that.  Between the JTM
    manual and "Jazz Aids", you should be pretty set for reference
    material.  For more in-depth jazz theory information, Aebersold's
    catalog has a wealth of stuff that he would love for you to buy.  A
    college bookstore might help too.

COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS

    Hot and Cool Jazz:
    I don't know how many Amiga users will remember the products
    "Hot and Cool Jazz" and "It's Only Rock and Roll", but JTM
    is actually a very similar concept.  "Hot and Cool Jazz" is/was
    a series of original jazz tunes, in many different styles, delivered
    as SMUS files.  They could, for example, be loaded into a
    a program like Deluxe Music Construction Set.  With considerable
    effort, those SMUS files could be adapted to files usable in a
    MIDI setup.  JTM, of course, approaches from the opposite
    direction (MIDI files which you could change to SMUS).

    Hot/Cool Jazz provided many sample tunes in many styles (such
    as swing, bebop, blues, modal, etc.), but from what I remember,
    each tune sounded fragmented.  Almost as if, for example, you
    were listening to 16 bars out of a 32 bar form.  Looping the
    tune would sound awkward.

    JTM's sequences don't sound in the least bit awkward.  Most
    sequences are full phrases, and full chord progressions.  Looping
    a sequence sounds natural.  A perpetual "play along".

    Band-In-A-Box and Super Jam:
    I have been waiting for years for a product similar to
    Band-In-A-Box (BIAB) (which is available for PCs, Ataris,
    and Macs).  Super Jam, which was released last year, comes
    very close, but since it has a limited number of jazz/latin
    styles, requires that the user program new styles.

    This product, JTM, provides quite a few different jazz styles, and
    the sequences are editable, of course.  But it is not really the
    same type of product as BIAB or Super Jam, which could arguably be
    called algorithmic compositional tools (you provide input such as
    style and chord progressions, and the software provides you tunes).

BUGS, SUPPORT, and WARRANTY

    I've listened to all the sequences, and there are no obvious faults
    in them (such as wrong notes/chords, or missing beats).

    I have not called the company, but I can't imagine under what kind
    of circumstances I would need to call them for software support.
    There is no warranty printed in the manual.

CONCLUSIONS

    New Sound Music bills this product as being appropriate for
    beginning through advanced jazz improvisers.  I agree, but with some
    reservations that I'll explain.  Certainly, JTM is good for
    beginners.  Not beginning musicians, though, but beginning
    improvisers.  On the other hand, when I was a beginner trombonist,
    had I been taught with improvisation in mind, such as drilling with
    play along records, playing simple melodies, I think I would be a
    completely different musician now.  The JTM material pretty much
    starts at a level where the musician should be ready for the basic
    blues progression and basic ii-V-I progressions.  From there, the
    material advances, such as ii-V-I with turnarounds.

    Certainly, JTM is appropriate for intermediate players, but only if
    the player is into the "play along" concept.  I think Aebersold's
    materials are great, but sometimes I get bored by working with the
    play-along records.  For example, I think it's an important step to
    jam for hours in one key, especially unfamiliar keys.  I doubt I'd
    ever be able to get a self-respecting rhythm section that would be
    willing to jam for hours on a Db blues, so instead I work with a
    record.  I  gets kind of boring though... one tempo, one comping
    style.  JTM, at least, because you are using sequenced material,
    lets you vary tempo and key.  With some editing, you can vary the
    comping.  In my own playing, I find that I'm at the point where I
    need to slow down some things, such as turnarounds, and really work
    on them.

    The advanced player: well, some of the sequences I would consider
    pretty advanced.  Then again, an advanced player may not need
    to drill with a play-along, or need to analyze the solos provided
    in the sequences.  In fact, most advanced players probably could
    work up one of these sequences for themselves in a few minutes:
    lay down bass and drums tracks, and then comp a piano part.  I
    doubt they really need to buy a set of pre-arranged sequences.
    They could, of course, to save time.

    To wrap this all up, I'd have to say the value of this product
    depends on your ability and your level, and your needs.  Considering
    it's price and quality, I think it's a pretty good value.  These are
    pretty high quality sequences.

Copyright 1992 Guy F. Klose.  All rights reserved.

---

   Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews
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