Students will learn basic MIDI (Music Instrument Digital Interface) configurations and applications. Students will demonstrate a fundamental understanding of MIDI through applications of sequencing, music notation, and editing as learned in class and applied in studio sessions. Students will learn basic principles of digital audio and signal processing. Open to all students. No Pre-requisites.
1. Students will understand and be able to draw schematics of simple MIDI and Sound configurations in connecting instruments, interfaces, and computers and studio equipment.
2. Students will understand basic concepts of sound synthesis and sound sampling through the use of preset voices or instruments on synthesizers and sound modules..
3. Students will understand the basics of a computer operating system and will demonstrate use of the sequencing soft ware through the creation of multi-timbral computer music works.
4. Students will understand the basics of a computer operating system and will demonstrate use of the music notation software through the creation of score types such as: (1) leadsheet, (2) piano/vocal, (3) choral, and (4) instrumental ensemble.
5. Students will understand digital audio and will be able to use the computer to record. edit, and modify sound files in a multi-track environment.
6. Students will learn how to put music on the web, including the use of compression formats such as MP3.
This is an undergraduate course intended for students who are not majoring in music technology but who wish to use MIDI in music applications in making, composing, and arranging music. This course will examine various applications of MIDI. You come to the course with certain expectations, and there are also important expectations and responsibilities that are incumbent upon you as a student.
This is a Studio course, and as such your attendance is expected without exception. Please read the distinctions of studio and lab courses under "Studio." In addition, you are expected to spend two hours per week in the Studio. You should also spend one to two hours per week using the World Wide Web as a resource for MIDI and reading the material on this course website.
Establishing Your Internet Account
It is important for you to secure an NYU Internet Account. This account provides e-mail, World Wide Web and other internet services. It also gives you a personal webpage which you can develop. You should secure the NYU account even if you have another -email service such as AOL, Prodigy, etc. You need to be able to send and receive e-mail from the studios, and this will be easier with the NYU account. Both e-mail addresses (NYU and outside service) can be used to receive e-mail asignments, but you must have the NYU account. The NYU Home Account enables you to check your e-mail from anywhere in the world as well as edit your website.
The moment you have your NYU account, send me (gilbert@is2.nyu.edu) an e-mail from that account. If you have an outside service, also send me an e-mail from that service if you wish for it to be included in the general class mailings.
We will be using e-mail as a means of communication, and I will be expecting questions and responses in the form of e-mail to me. You can also use e-mail to report problems that you may find in the studio.
E-mail afford the opportunity for us to establish a dialogue on a more personal basis than is possible in class. You can clarify things that may not be clear, and we can use the time to discuss concepts and ideas related to the course. You can also use it as a means of letting me know if you have to miss class. The beauty of e-mail is that you can communicate more detail and that the asynchronous nature of the medium does not require that we connect in the same time and space in order to exchange ideas and communicate.
This course utilizes Studio E as a resource for demonstrations and for students to develop hands-on skills through application of course lectures and demonstrations. This is not a "lab course" where there are one or two students at a number of computers. This is a Studio Course where students are introduced to the studio, the technology available in the studio, and specific applications. This is not a production course which emphasizes the development of a product or products at the end of the course. The focus of the course is on the process of working with applications. The "products" you develop will demonstrate your grasp of the processes involved. The course is also focused on how technology can extend the potential of our efforts as professionals in music and especially as music educators.
Your Studio Time
When you check into Studio E, you will present your ID card to the Studio Monitor at the front desk of the Eighth Floor. If you do not show up within 15 minutes of your scheduled lab time, another student can use your time and you lose your time for that week. If you consistently miss your lab time, you will lose the lab time slot and will have to negotiate for another time. In other words, be sure to be prompt in arriving for your lab or studio session and do not miss your sessions.
Usually, you will find all of the electrical power already on, but the computer may not be booted up. In the event that the power is not on, you should turn on the switches to the power strips which power the MAC or the IBM, the printer, the hard drives, the mixer, and the peripherals mounted in the rack (VCR, MIDI interface, Korg Wave Station (sound module), Proteus 1 (sound module), the cassette player, the CD player, and the amplifier (in general, we use the amplifier in the AUX position on the selection knob).
The Mixer is labelled (each unit has two slide levers for controlling the volume for the left and right channels) for the MAC and the sound peripherals. The Master Volume levers at the far right of the MIXER control the final volume that goes to the amplifier. You will get sound from the external speakers and the internal speakers when using the MAC.
You will find a technical description of Studio E in Music Technology's The Goodbook.
This is an important reference for anyone using the music technology studios at New York University. You will find information about equipment, trouble shooting, and many other things. Definitely explore this resource!
Much of the software for MIDI emulates the traditional recording functions that most of us are familiar with through analog cassette recording. These functions are "(R) Record, Play, (P) Pause, (FF) Fast Forward, (RW) Rewind, Stop/Eject." Most of these commands are generally used in most digital audio recording programs as well as in most sequencers (which are actually MIDI recorders (in that they simply record the MIDI signals rather than actual sound).
Analog recording means that sounds are converted to voltages that are stored magnetically on the tape. These voltages capture every moment of real time thus creating an electrical analog to the music.
In digital recording, sound is sampled at so-many-frequencies per second. For example, CD recordings are sampled at 44.100 kHz per second, and DAT (Digital Audio Tape) Recorders sample at 48.000 kHz per second. Samples are "slices or quick recordings" of continuous sound, thus with a DAT recorder we are taking pictures of continuous sound 48,000 times per second. These samples are converted to binary code (Analog to Digital Converters) and stored as numbers on the tape. When played back, Dat or CD players have Digital to Analog convertors that translate the numbers back into sound. Presumably the human ear cannot detect the difference of "real-time continuous" sound from so many discrete samples of sound. But some argue that the ear (at least, some individuals) can detect these differences.
The debate over analog vs. digital seems to be settled, at least in terms of the marketplace. Yet, the debate rages on, and we are starting to see the re-emergence of analog equipment and analog synthesizers.
Computers have been helping composers and musicians since the 1950s. The low-cost availability of computers for the general population has created a technological explosion which gives most people much more computing power in their homes than computer centers had in their studios during the 1950s and 1960s. The personal computer has revoultioned the way we assemble words, the way we track our finances, and the way we create or "assemble" music.
There are a number of computer platforms (i.e., types of computers) involved in making music. Most of these differences are contributed to the Operating System of the computer. The two most popular computer platforms are the IBM compatible computers and the Apple MacIntosh (and their compatibles) computers. The Apple compatible computer has been short-lived and is not longer being produuced.
IBM with the Windows Operating System and Macintosh with its operating system are very similar. Clearly, there are many more IBMs in the world than Macs, and MIDI and music software being produced now favor the Windows environment. This same bias is now prevalent on the World Wide Web where there appear to be many more products available for the Windows environment. There are still some music programs that are exclusive to the Mac platform. The Mac platform once was the leader in Desktop Publishing and Music applications. This is no longer the case.
The Windows environment and the Mac operating system are similar and once one has worked with either operating system, it is fairly easy to transfer this knowledge to the other platform. That is because the operating systems are "object oriented" software which enable the user to point and click on icons to launch programs and initiate commands. Recent developments in voice recognition now make it possible to launch programs and initiate commands through spoken language.
We will be using the IBM Platform and the Mac Platform for purposes of this course.
MIDI stands for Music Instrument Digital Interface. It was implemented in 1982/1983 as part of an agreement in the music industry to make electronic music instruments compatible with each other. MIDI can be used between or among electronic music instruments such as keyboards, sound modules, samplers, drum machines, etc. MIDI can also be used with computers to enable us to exercise even greater control over the music information. MIDI signals are sent to MIDI modules as a stream of data which controls parameters such as on and off, pitch, patch numbers, etc. The MIDI protocols have led to the development of application software for musicians which unleash the power of MIDI and the imaginations of composers and performers.
MIDI has two major types of formats. The Standard MIDI File (SMF) is generated by most software programs using MIDI. Standard MIDI was the first standard protocol in the industry. However, because manufacturers have different ways of numbering and identifying patches, and because there is a bewildering array of patches with almost no correlation among syhthesizers, General MIDI was created so that there would be a uniform standard for MIDI patch numbers and MIDI instruments. As might be expected, this is a much more narrowly defined protocol, and its major advantage is that MIDI files can be exchanged among people with some degree of assurance that the music will be played with the same "instruments" that were used in its creation. Uniformity has its advantages and disadvantages.
More recently, protocols have emerged for a MIDI file format that would be easy to use and consistent for applications on the World Wide Web. Plug-ins allow the sound cards of the computers to emulate a General MIDI synthesizer and playback the files once these helpers or plugins have been installed in the WWW Browser. SMF files need to be converted to these midi files, although there are special helpers and plug-ins designed to allow for the playback of Standard MIDI Files through external equipment.
Notation Software is primarily the equivalent of Desktop Publishing for musicians. Such software serves as a music notation processor much in the way that a word processor enables us to create documents such as letters, essays, brochures, catalogues, and books. With our music processor we will be creating songs, instrumental arrangements, choral works, sonatas, concertos, and symphonies. Most notation software share commonalities since they have as their objective to place notes and expressive markings onto a staff and ultimately to print the score as needed. Thus all notation software will have a means for inputting notes and durations using the mouse, for playing notes in from a MIDI device such as a keyboard or other MIDI instrument either in real time or in step mode (one note at a time). There are a number of software programs available today. Three leading programs are Finale, Nightingale, and Overture. This course will focus on the generic qualities of notation software so that your experience should be transferable as you focus on the process of a specific task. MIDI is working as the interface that allows you to "play" the notation on to the staff. But with most of the Notation Programs, MIDI is not central to the program and the programs can produce extremely sophisticated musical scores without MIDI. The focus of the high-end notation is great control over the visual layout of the score in every facet of score preparation.
Sequencers have made it possible to create sound scores which are intended as the final "product." Producing the musical score is not the major emphasis of sequencers. Sequencers are intended as master controllers of MIDI instruments and bring a great deal of flexibility into the way composers generate or create music. Sequencers are concerned with nuances of control over timbre, rhythm, pitch, texture, dynamics, articulations, etc. as they sound in time. In general, sequencers use windows or palettes to operate controls over these parameters.
Sequencers also emulate the controls of a tape recorder, because essentially a sequencer is simply a sophisticated MIDI recorder. All sequencers provide a means for playing in musical ideas from a keyboard or other MIDI instrument. In addition, sequencers use some sort of mouse input for putting sounds into a sequence and for editing. Most sequencers have several ways of displaying the sequences. Some use conventional notation, but most use a piano roll display which often includes color coding to identify different instruments. This graphic display will provide information on duration, timbre (instrument), and velocity (volume or loudness). All sequencers today provide a notational output, but the focus is on the control of sound as a final product rather than notation. With sequencers, the recording is the objective of the program and controlling the appearance of the score and editing a printed score are features that are usually extremely limited.
Sound Editors and Librarian programs enable you to make changes to the voice parameters of the synthesizer on the computer. Such programs are also geared to capture information such as patch names and system parameters directly from the synthsizer to display and access from the software notation or sequencing program. This tends to make the management of of voices and patches much more manageable.
Often you must make changes directly on the synthesizer or sound module (rack mounted synthesizer without keyboard). Thus you will need to learn how to move the cursor in the small readout window and how to change parameters.
Copyright by Prof. John V. Gilbert
Send feedback or questions to gilbert@is2.nyu.edu