I wonder how you all play "cut time" or "alla breve" with the arranger. I can't find any styles created especially for this. I get around it by playing 2 bars of the music to 1 bar of the rhythmn backing. To give an example--For Hasta Manana, with "Romantic swing' from the Big Band on the KN 5000- I fit "where is the spring and the" into one bar of backing at tempo 88. This gives me almost the result I am after although the accent is not quite right. One advantage is that you can use the No 4 variation which is often too busy-- Its quite nice when its spread over 2 bars instead of one.Any other suggestions? This is a great site, I love it.Jean olivia.

Hi Jean
Well, I never knew what the musical terms for this were, but I do this, too. That is, I will play 2 measures of the song to each one measure of the style. I call it "forcing the song into the style". Sometimes it sounds very good. But fill-ins can sound inappropriate, though. I just play for fun at home - no real training, so I don't know if what I do is correct.
Tom G.
PS: Sometimes I take a fast tempo style (say 168) and play one measure of the song to 2 measures of the style. I slow the tempo down to half.

Tom. Maybe some one will tell us what we are doing, but I think we are changing 4/4 time to 2/2. I agree that the fills can be a problem but I only use half the fill- you just have to work out when to press the button, My Roland has a half bar fill which is an asset for this.Some of the latin styles are good treated this way.Songs that are good to play this way have a vertical line through the C in the key signature which means they are meant to be played 2/2 not4/4.Cheers, Jean.

Jean!

Is that what the line through the "C" means?!



Tom

Hi Tom. No-one is arguing with us so I guess we just keep on doing what we are doing.I think the answer is to do our own backing in the COMPOSER section of the keyboard. I haven't used this part of the K.N 5000 yet, but I will when I get a bit more time. What we need is a backing with 2 minims to a bar with the accent on the first beat of the bar. When we halve the 4/4 backing we don't get a strong accent on the 3rd beat, which becomes the first beat of the new 2nd bar. I use the Romantic Swing Variation 4 quite a lot as this does have a strong third beat. It just gives a different feel to the song . Maybe there are some 2/2 backings somewhere but where? I find as a vocalist I have much more flexability in my vocal arrangement if I haven't got 4 definite beats always in the backing- that is quite limiting. Maybe someone else has some ideas? Cheers. Jean.

You can't do this in a 5000, but in a 6/65 you could put your 4/4 into the sequencer, apc to smf convert, and copy back to a composer in 2/4 or whatever?

If the accents are not right, go into composer and just step edit the velocities higher on the 3rd beat, this could be done on a 5000.

If I think about it hard enough on the 6, there might even be a way of halving a fill using the sequencer?

This 'forcing a song into a style' does work well sometimes. Maybe the easiest examples are 8 and 16 beats?

[This message has been edited by technicsplayer (edited 02-03-2002).]

Thank you Alec for your reply. I will make a copy and keep it until I get my "update" but will try to master the Composer section on the 5000 next. Cheers Jean.

not too difficult on your 5000 Jean,

copy the style into the composer.

in the composer go to the variation.

select a track eg drums or bass.

stop it playing and go to step record.

go back and forth with the cursor seeing what is played on the first beat of the bar. This will be identified by notes (also identifying individual drum sounds). Each note or event will appear in turn if more than one event happens at the same time ie there are 2 or more drums played at the same time.

now cursor to the 3rd beat and see what the differences are.

Maybe the drums have a bass drum on beat 1, try putting a bass drum on beat 3 too, just by playing the correct note at the correct place. You can erase any mistakes, and change notes, velocities, lengths etc in this screen.

Maybe the bass has a higher velocity on beat 1, try upping the velocity of the bass note on beat 3 to give more 'oomph' to the style.

Ok any changes before leaving the edit point and moving on to the next track or edit point.

You should be able to achieve a closer result to your desired one with these methods

[This message has been edited by technicsplayer (edited 02-04-2002).]

Thank you for all your help, Alec. I am going to have time on the weekend to try to work all of this out as it is so important to me to be able to do this style of accompaniment.I hope Tom is also busy doing the same!! I will let you know in due course how I'm going.I can't believe the help I have received from both sites- May they both prosper. This is the main reason why I will be staying with Technics instruments.I hope you will continue to help us.Cheers.Jean,