Assignment 5 Midi sequencing
Goal
To read a simple musical score and to create a MIDI rendition of it.
Tasks
- Look at the score of "New
York Blues", and
understand the main musical notations in use. The key signature is for C
major – no sharps or flats; the time signature is 6/4 which means 6 quarter
notes per measure. Note that the time signature only appears in the first
measure, but is in force for the whole piece. The tempo is dotted half
note = 72, which means that there are 72 of these per minute. You can
ignore the little numbers above and below the staff – they are piano
fingerings. The arcs are slurs, not ties, which means that the notes the
arc covers should be played legato, or with no break between the
notes. The only really tricky part is the second line where the bass staff
jumps
to the treble clef and back to the bass clef. This is because there would
be too many ledger lines above the bass staff which would collide with the
treble clef. Take note of the fermata on the last two chords and
the last note. This means that the tempo slows down to make a more
dramatic finish. You can insert tempo markings into the piece at this point
to reduce the number of beats per minute.
- Use the MIDI sequencer Rosegarden to create a MIDI rendition of the piece. You will need to get used to the methods of the sequencer
before you attempt to put anything in. Use this MIDI file of "Lucy
in the Sky With Diamonds" to help you.
- First of all, use two tracks: one for the treble staff,
and one for the bass staff. This means that eventually you can have each
played by different instruments. Then use the piano roll, or matrix
editor, to input the notes with the pencil tool. Before you put it in,
make sure you know how many quarter notes the duration is, although you
can extend or shorten them later. The piece only contains quarters, half
notes, dotted half notes, and dotted whole notes.
- Play the piece as you put the notes in, making sure it
sounds ‘right’ and no notes have incorrect pitches. It is useful to use a
simple piano sound for these purposes.
- When you are done, export the file in MIDI format (File/Export/Export
MIDI file).
- Then try playing each track with a different instrument.
Find a combination you like and export that file.
- Then add a simple percussion accompaniment by creating
drum hits using the editor on a new track which plays back through channel
10. The duration of these notes does not matter – just the start time is
important, so a short note like a 1/16th is fine. Save this third file and
submit the three MIDI files.
- Use the notation editor to get as close as possivble to
the look of the original. Try to add the slurs, the fermatas, and the clef
change in the correct place. If possible, add the dynamic markings (mp, f,
cresc. etc.) as text entries. Save your piece as a rosegarden file. Submit
this file.
Resources
The Rosegarden sequencer runs as is. The home page for it
is
www.rosegardenmusic.com, which
includes a useful tutorial as well as other goodies. It needs a soft
synthesizer, and it will run nicely with the GM sound font in FluidSynth. You
need to hook it all up before your start with the jack subsystem. Here's how: