Another Music / Midi Site

Automated Music

MIDI = Music Instruments Digital Interface

Automated Music is much older than Computer (Midi) Music. Especially here in The Netherlands, we have a great tradition in this respect.
Maybe the oldest examples of Automated music are the chimes. Chimes are already found in Europe in the 13th century. They are typically associated with church towers.
Another example of Automated Music is the music box. They come in two flavors: the music box with a cylinder and the music box with (iron) disks.
Music boxes of this kind were manufactured already at the end of the 18th century, by Swiss watch makers. But you can still find them inside toys for children.
At home, I have an old music box, with accompanying iron disks. These disks have been decoded, and their content converted to Midi, by a Delphi program. At last, it's worth mentioning that Holland is famous for its barrel-organs or draaiorgels (Dutch).
With the advent of computers, Midi seamless fits into this tradition of Automated Music.

For consumers: MIDI = keyboard strokes, stored in a file
For producers: MIDI = composing / music score rendering

Midi Compositions

What you need is a decent Midi (Karaoke) player in the first place:
Click here for a free download!
Get vanBasco's Karaoke Player NOW - totally FREE!

One of the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) is: How can I convert audible sound (WAV files) into Midi?
Well, isn't it kind of Amazing that such a thing is indeed possible nowadays!

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Of u houdt helemaal niet van computer-muziek en geeft de voorkeur aan bijvoorbeeld (klassieke) gitaar.
Interesseert het u dan: hoe en waarom de frets op een gitaar op deze specifieke wijze geplaatst zijn ?
Zo ja en als u het antwoord nog niet wist, dan heb ik hier een PDF document met bijbehorende bronnen.
Tenslotte een plaatje voor degenen die niet weten hoe de frets op een gitaar er precies uitzien.

Zelf heb ik een viertal artikelen gepubliceerd in de tijd toen er nog geen MIDI bestond.
Wie weet hebben ze een rol gespeeld bij de ontwikkeling.

  1. Een muzieksysteem in FORTH. Deel 1: MusiCode
  2. Een muzieksysteem in FORTH. Deel 2: KlavarSkribo
  3. FORTH Orgel. Deel 1: Hardware [ boven / onder ]
  4. FORTH Orgel. Deel 2: Software
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And the end result of this development is ..

So far so good for Automated Music. At one end of the spectrum, we find the modern keyboard instruments with Midi interfaces.
At the other end of the spectrum, we still find that (in)famous instrument where you must do almost everything yourself: the violin.
I'm in the process of being teached by Laura how to play the violin myself. Consequently, Midi rather has become a by-product
of LilyPond, IMO the best computer program in the world for producing Music Score (and made in the Netherlands as well).
So Midi now has become a tool for checking, by listening, that the score I've created for playing (together) is just good enough.

And oh, talking about LilyPond and Midi, guess who crossed my path again: John Sankey !
John has devised a decent Midi to LilyPond converter (midi2ly), which is included with the standard distribution.
The first time I "met" John on the Internet was in the (former) newsgroup on midi binaries, where he published his Scarlatti sonatas.
And talking about CopyRights, the Mutopia project guarantees there is some

Email <NL>naar mij</NL>: replace "oe" by "u" everywhere in "oemoemenoe@gmail.com". Nice to have some feedback!