Sorry not to catch the original post, but .. My short answer: I disagree with what you think would be great. I think it would be great if *you* could play these changes over an over again. Practice comping to the changes and record it into any sequencer that actually works on Linux. If you're learning how to solo, wouldn't it be helpfull to learn how to comp as well? Why not play the changes live for as many repeats you want, and then solo over that? I'll leave this up to other who use Linux sequencers. I would expect that all of them can loop though. Of course, rather then have the loop be one 4 or 8 bars (one cycle of your progression), try just comping for a few minutes and repeat the whole x number of bars - it will sound a lot more natural. I'm really not sure what you're getting at here. When you say "the timing can change wildly", do you mean that you would like to practice this progression at a variety of tempos? If that is the case, just record your comp to a number of different files, at different tempos. It is starting to seem like your questions are not about Linux and/or sequencers at all, but instead, how to learn jazz improvisation. Since this is OT, please email me at lt(a)westnet.com and I can tell you a couple of good books to get on this subject. I can sort of see what you're getting at - you would like some band-in-the-box type software that helps you learn how to improvise. I get it I think - maybe a cymbal crash on beat four that signals a chord change? Is that what you mean? I could see that as sort of a beginners crutch, but I doubt it would be very usefull, as eventually you need to learn how to count rhythms and hear chord changes. Do you have difficulty counting beats and measures when, for example, you are listening to a solo? If so, this is really a matter of practice and experience, and I'm not sure that artificial percussion clues will help you in the long run. Of course, I could be wrong. Maybe something like that would be helpfull if you are just starting out. I honestly think that if you want to learn jazz, you need to get with a group of like-minded people and go through some exercises that are found in jazz improvisation books. The things that you want your software to do to help you learn, I think in the long run, are just crutches. Jazz improvisation is, like it or not, an interactive human endeavor. Of course you can do a solo over a computer generated track, and that is not always a bad thing. But IMO the results would be shallow unless you first spent a bit of effort the old fashioned way - getting a group together that is dedicated to learning jazz improvisation. Then, you can always ask the drummer to start banging on beat four if he thinks you're getting lost! Believe me you can customise a drummer's behaviour much more easilly than that of software (drummer jokes elided). If you first record some comping to the chord progression, for some number of cycles, you can learn to make the comping sound good as well. Of course this doesn't come close to the interaction and learning you would have with a live rhythm section, but would at least it's *you* stabbing out the changes. Larry Troxler

First of all, Peter, I am really sorry for that post of mine yesterday. It was a bit undeserved and did not even address your question. On Sat, 7 Dec 2002, Peter Jay Salzman wrote: Ah no. I meant that you could do this using a sequencer. Yes, look into Muse, Jazz, and maybe Rosegarden. Sorry again and good luck! Larry Troxler

On Sun, 8 Dec 2002 11:59:04 +0400 Guy Daniel CLOTILDE <guy.clotilde(a)wanadoo.fr> wrote / a écrit: I mean since years My english is quite bad sometimes. Guy CLO~ ------------------------------------- http://perso.wanadoo.fr/guy.clotilde/ -------------------------------------

begin Larry Troxler <lt(a)westnet.com> question - i searched for "bbox" on freshmeat and sourceforge and came up with nada. it also appears to not be packaged by debian. can you give me an url for it? thanks! pete -- Fingerprint: B9F1 6CF3 47C4 7CD8 D33E 70A9 A3B9 1945 67EA 951D