Home
Rehearsal dates
Choir Notice Board - Rehearsal Music
Music in “midi” format that can be played on the computer for rehearsing is available for Mendelssohn's "Elijah"
Using the Computer to Rehearse
What is Midi
Most Personal Computers can synthesise various instruments and play music. The synthesiser uses a language called “Midi” (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) to store music as it is written. Music stored in this form takes a minute fraction of the computer space that a recording takes. Midi cannot reproduce the human voice pronouncing words, but it can reproduce the choral “aah” or play the vocal lines with distinctive instruments.
Finding Midi Music
This points to a large number of sites, so add the composer’s surname to the search words to narrow it down. The most comprehensive sites for choral music are Cyberbass, The Silvis Woodshed at http://gasilvis.net/ and The Choral Public Domain Library. These give you an index to all the composers’ works available at that site. These tend to contain only the choral sections, often the accompaniment is only included for bars when there is no choral singing (for copyright reasons). Choral music files can also be found on the internet using www.google.com and searching for the words "choral midi" (without the double quotes).
Downloading Midi Music
On a PC using Internet Explorer right click on the work you want. This displays a menu, select “Save target as” then select the folder to store it in –
- If the file name ends “.mid” then choose the folder called My music in My Documents so that you can find it easily later. The file will then be copied to your computer
- If the file name ends “.zip” it is a
compressed file so choose to save it on the desktop. This allows you
to "unzip" the file so you can use it. When the file is downloaded
it will be shown as an icon on your desktop. Double click on the
icon; this will run your unzip program. Click on Extract and specify
the unzip location as the folder called My music in My
Documents. Once the files have been extracted the zip file is no
longer required, so click on the zip file icon and drag it to the
Recycle Bin.
(If you are not running Windows/XP and don’t already have an unzip program you will need a freeware program such as Ultimate Zip available from http://www.ultimatezip.com/download.htm, or a shareware program such as Winzip or Zipmagic)
On a Macintosh
- Just download the file by a long click on the link. The file is available on the "download folder" you defined in your browser's setup.
- If the file doesn't have the .mid extension but for example the .zip, .hqx,.sit extension, drag it on the StuffIt Icon to decode it.
Playing Midi Music
Windows Media Player will play the music for you and allows you to slow it down for rehearsing some of the trickier passages.
There are programs that display the musical notation while playing it. The best for its price is Melody Assistant available as shareware from http://www.myriad-online.com/melody.htm and it is free to try and costs about £10 if you decide to keep it. This also allows you to
- Play a number of bars repeatedly
- Select the bar to start from
- Use a metronome
- Vary the playing speed to practice the tricky bits
- Emphasise your vocal register by reducing the volume for the other registers
- Play an individual note to check the pitch
- Change the instrument used to play a vocal register
- Change the notes being played
For detailed instructions see “Using Melody Assistant To Rehearse Choral Music”.
The Window Media Player is free and also allows you to play, pause and resume by clicking on the play button using. But it does not have all the features shown above. You can drag the moving button on the Seek Bar backwards or forwards to different parts of the piece. To use this program
- locate the midi file using Windows Explorer and click on it, or
- click on Start/Programs/Accessories/Entertainment/WindowsMediaPlayer and then click on File/Open and locate the file you want in your “Music” folder
___________
Last revised 23 March 2008
Help WECS raise money by
accessing your retailers through
easyfundraising
.org.uk
Sponsor links
