dgkenney wroteAll I want is a notation sheet that has the chords noted by bar. Is there anyway to export the chord track from SO to Notion. If there can be slash marks based upon timing that would be fine also.

I did a few simple experiments in Studio One Professional 4, and I think the Chord Track in Studio One is a type of Arranger Track . . .

THOUGHTS

With the caveat that my entire experience with the Chord Track in Studio One spans upwards of 10 minutes, I think it's not something you can send or even import to NOTION . . .

What the Chord Track appears to do looks to be interesting in some respects, but I see no reason at present to use it or to attempt to make sense of what it does, which is the case for several reasons, perhaps most significant is that I have Reason 10 and a custom Rack Extension that does all sorts of amazing things with chords . . .



The second reason is that I can add chord symbols and play the chords on the NOTION guitar, which I do occasionally--mostly when I am working on a rhythm guitar chord pattern and don't want to forget it, with the idea being to use NOTION as a type of composer's notebook . . .

I might do a few more experiments in Studio One to get a better understanding of the way the Chord Track works, but overall I think it applies either to everything or perhaps only to selected instruments, and then only when they are on Audio Tracks for which audio already has been recorded . . .

In other words, if I play the chords for "Sleep Walk" (Santo & Johnny) on a real electric guitar and record it to an Audio Track, then if the guitar is tuned properly to the standard reference tuning pitch called "Concert A" (440-Hz), I think I can use the Chord Track to change the key signature so that instead of being C-Am-F-G, it becomes D-Bm-G-A . . .



The problem is that there are no chord symbols for the electric guitar Audio Track in this scenario . . .

BETTER STRATEGY

Studio One Professional and NOTION work interactively in amazing ways that are not possible at present with other Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) applications and Music Notation Sequencers (MNS) like NOTION, in part because there is nothing like NOTION in every respect . . .

If you are using the Studio One Chord Track to determine the chords, which appears to be possible, then I don't see a solution for getting the chords into NOTION automagically as chord symbols with slash marks . . .

There might be a solution, but if there is then it doesn't come to mind intuitively . . .

If you know the chords or if Studio One examines the chords played on an Audio Track and then writes the chord names to the Chord Track, then the most straightforward way to use the information is to switch for a while to NOTION and input the chords manually using chord symbols and slash marks, where "slash marks" begin as notes and then are changed to slashes once you have the rhythm strumming pattern established via notes . . .

If you are not so proficient in music notation, then now is an excellent time to start exploring and learning music notation--an activity which can take several years but is well worth the effort, especially if you play an instrument . . .

My primary instruments are electric guitar and electric bass, and refining my knowledge of music notation and music theory in general is making me a better electric guitar player . . .

It doesn't do much for electric bass, but I have been playing electric bass for over half a century and beginning a few years ago I started playing what I call "textures", which is something one does after making sense of everything else, where for example playing "textures" includes playing the notes between frets and not needing to know the key signature of a song or much of anything else . . .

Another way to describe playing "textures" is that you "just know" which notes or in-between notes sound good . . .

It's mostly an unconscious type of thing where instead of being guided by the conscious mind, you suspend conscious thinking and judging ("ego" and "superego" in Freudian terms, respectively) and let your unconscious mind do the driving . . .

It's not so difficult to do once you get over the total terror and find a way to avoid excessive drooling, with the latter being necessary because along with suspending nearly all conscious thought, it tends to include suspending the part of the brain that tells you to swallow to avoid drooling . . .

This is one of my experiments that I started about 10 years ago based on an audio engineer in the 1970s telling me that Paul McCartney "did everything on the first or second take" when recording the "R.A.M." album . . .

Jump forward about four decades, and I was doing some reading about the way the "R.A.M." album was recorded, where I discovered that McCartney tended to do the same thing George Harrison did, which was to record tracks over and over and over, perhaps 25 to 50 times until it was "perfect" . . .

Connecting a few dots, I realized that the audio engineer actually was telling me about the way McCartney recorded some harmony vocal tracks--not everything--but so what . . .

I thought it was a great strategy, albeit at first a bit terrifying, so I made it all the more terrifying by imagining that Elvis Presley was doing a concert somewhere in outer space and I was "beamed" onto the stage, along with my Stratocaster, Marshall stack, and guitar pedals, at which time a spotlight shone on me and I heard Elvis saying, "Take it!", meaning that I was supposed to play a lead guitar solo for a song when I only had heard perhaps a few measures . . .

This was the most terrifying scenario I could devise, and it was sufficient to get me on the program . . .

For the first few months, when I composed and played lead guitar solos off the top of my head in real time on the fly, I would look around every so often because I imagined there might be FBI Special Agents or perhaps investigators from BMI and ASCAP who were checking to ensure that nobody ever played spontaneously composed lead guitar solos . . .

Was I breaking a federal or musical law?

After a few more months, I realized this was totally silly and that in fact nobody gives a hoot what I do, which is fine with me . . .

[NOTE: It's not so "terrifying" as it is a new and very different way of composing and playing, but if your focus has been on playing already composed songs as perfectly as possible, then it's not something which initially appears to be the least bit intuitive. You conscious mind (primarily the "supergo") tells you quite adamantly that you cannot play a lead guitar solo this way, because it will sound "bad" in a way that is not "good". The "terrifying" aspect is that you need to force yourself not to think and instead to play whatever appears in your mind without thinking about it, at all. At first, it goes against everything you have learned, and it's awkward in a somewhat "terrifying" way. Your conscious mind goes nearly completely negative and tries to convince you that it's not possible, but you power through the negativity and suspend judgment. After a while, it becomes intuitive; and in this respect it's like whammying, which initially is not intuitive, at all. It takes at least a year to learn how to whammy--not "nose dives" and all that nonsense, but tasty whammying like David Gilmour (Pink Floyd) does . . . ]



I continued doing everything on the first or second take and got good at it, with the reason being that the unconscious mind is like a library or data repository in the sense that for the most part it remembers everything, which is very different from the way the conscious mind works . . .

[NOTE: The electric bass is done the same way, but by this time I was playing "textures" so for the most part had no idea what the key signature or the chords were, even though I composed the chords and everything else, which is the way it works here in the sound isolation studio, where among other things the goal is to be unencumbered by knowledge, which means that I forget nearly everything soon after I do it. The lead guitar is composed and played in real-time on the fly, and there is no overdubbing. It sounds like a lot of guitars, because it's a custom-modded Stratocaster that has two independent output signals, which are run through two sets of stereo guitar pedals, which include echo units, wah-wah pedals, and two DigiTech Whammy pedals for octave jumps and harmonies. All the instruments are real, and the only thing I precomposed was the rhythm guitar chords (which took several weeks) . . . ]



The conscious mind needs to "stop and think", which doesn't work when you want to play as many as 10 notes every second (one note every 100 milliseconds) . . .

It's like having a team meeting before playing a note, and it's too slow . . .

In contrast, the unconscious mind says, "Play this!", and you play it without thinking whether it (a) makes any sense, (b) is good, (c) is bad, or whatever . . .

Curiously, it might appear to sound "bad" at the moment, but later when you listen to the recording you discover that it sounds "good", which is another reason not to overthink . . .

My current strategy for virtual music is to do the music notation in NOTION on ReWire MIDI staves that are connected to corresponding Instrument Tracks in Studio One Professional, so that NOTION handles the music notation and Studio One Professional handles the DAW activities, including hosting all the virtual instruments . . .

And as a general rule I don't use chord symbols--mostly because using chord symbols would require me to understand chord symbols . . .

I know music notation and music theory, but primarily I am a "by ear" musician and singer, although since I usually don't practice singing--remember the only once or twice ongoing experiment--I run my vocal tracks through the Melodyne Editor (Celemony) and pitch-correct everything, which usually includes manually moving a lot of notes upward or downward by one or two steps . . .

If I practiced singing melodies before I compose and sing them, I probably would sing more "on key", but that's a lot of extra work--more work than running my vocals through the Melodyne Editor or one of the flavors of Auto-Tune (Antares) . . .



Lots of FUN!

@Dan: Edit: It appears to already do that when you export a lead sheet, place the chords from the chord track.



@SurfWhammy: I always enjoy your musings. Lots of FUN!

Lawrence wrote@Dan: Edit: It appears to already do that when you export a lead sheet, place the chords from the chord track.

chords.png

@SurfWhammy: I always enjoy your musings. Lots of FUN!

This works nicely . . .

THOUGHTS

This is the way I verified that it works . . .

(1) I started Studio One Professional and created a new "Singer Songwriter" song . . .

(2) I added some simple chords to the Chord Track (C-Am-F-G), where I used the cut or splice tool to separate measures so I could add more chords . . .

(3) I started NOTION as a ReWire slave and created a ReWire connection in Studio One Professional . . .

(4) I sent the song information to NOTION and checked the following options:



(5) Since I only opened NOTION but did not create a score, after the transfer there was a new NOTION score but it had no staves, hence was a blank but created score . . .

(6) Next I switched to NOTION Score Setup and added a basic staff, and the chords sent from Studio One Professional appeared on the staff, which I suppose is a "lead sheet" . . .

(6) There were no notes, so I added quarter notes to each measure (same pitch value) and then changed the quarter notes to slashes . . .

(7) Since this was in a ReWire session, in Step (3) I created a NOTION ReWire Instrument Track in Studio One Professional, which is necessary in a ReWire session because the ReWire host controller (Studio One Professional) is responsible for rendering the audio sent from NOTION . . .

(8) When I played the song, the chords were played on a piano according to the timing and duration of the notes (which by this time were changed to slashes) . . .

Afterward, I changed some of the quarter notes to eighth and sixteenth notes to create a more complex rhythm pattern for the chords, which is done by changing the notes from slashes back to notes and then editing the rhythm pattern, followed by changing the notes to slashes again . . .

This works, and to keep it as simple as possible I set the pitch of the notes to A above Middle C--all the same pitch value--since when the notes are changed to slashes, the result is strums of the chords based on the duration and timing of the notes and, if present, any rests . . .



SUMMARY

The chords from the Studio One Professional Chord Track are sent to NOTION, and once you create a staff in the new NOTION score, the chords appear . . .

You need to add notes when you want a chord to be played or strummed, and after adding the notes, you can select the notes and change them to slashes . . .

If there are notes for an Instrument Track (MIDI) in Studio One Professional, then it's possible the MIDI sequence will be mapped to notes in NOTION after you convert the MIDI in NOTION to notes, but I have not done this experiment, yet, so it's just a guess . . .

Regardless, the chords are sent to NOTION and appear on a lead sheet once you add a Basic Staff, and you can add notes and rests of various durations to play or to strum the chords in a rhythmic pattern . . .

It's not entirely automagical, but the chords are sent to NOTION in the scenario where the only thing populated in the Studio One Professional ".song" is the Chord Track . . .

Lots of FUN!

P. S. Thanks for the kind words, and glad you enjoyed my wandering thoughts . . .

It's based on a strategy my Calculus III professor used, which was for the first 75 minutes of each class to talk about something interesting which appeared to have nothing to do with mathematics . . .

My favorite example is his soliloquy on the behaviors of the common house fly, which was interesting and included observing that researchers put a sweaty human in a room with house flies and recorded the behaviors of the house flies with high-speed cameras from several angles to create a three-dimensional map of the way the house files located and then followed the human, all with uncanny precision in the sense that no matter how the human moved, the house flies tracked him in real-time . . .

The epiphany moment occurred when in the last few minutes of 90 minutes class the professor told us that the house flies were solving differential equations in real-time, which is the way they tracked the human . . .

You can run from a house fly, but you can't hide . . .

Totally amazing!

Thanks to both of you for the responses. As per usual I missed the forrest for the trees. Somehow I seem to have a need to over complicate things

Oh, well. Now we have a simple way to do chord charts fr practice. Thanks.