Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Path: menudo.uh.edu!usenet From: milo@mvuxi.att.COM Subject: REVIEW: Jazz Through MIDI Message-ID: <1992Sep17.172037.6919@menudo.uh.edu> Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.audio Keywords: jazz, MIDI, music, sequence, commercial Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Nntp-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu Reply-To: milo@mvuxi.att.COM 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: (313)355-3643 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 Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu General discussion: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu