[ale] finally a _good_ use of midi music

[JK]

It's important to understand that MIDI is not an audio protocol;
it's a performance protocol.  IOW, a MIDI message does not
contain audio data; rather it contains information like:
"Note A-flat was played with attack velocity x at time y" or
"Note A-flat was released at time y+n".  It's up to the rendering
instrument to turn that information into sound.  When the
rendering instrument is a software synth pumping a pure square
wave into a PC speaker, yeah, it sounds like sh*t.  When it's
a $10000 Kurzwiel studio piano, it sounds a lot better.

The sharpest criticism I'd offer for MIDI as a protocol is
that it's biased toward encoding of Western musical performance.
The idea of the 12-equal-tone-per-octave scale is pretty much
built into the protocol (or at least assumed by practically
every implementation).

-- JK

Jim Kinney wrote:
> Your understanding of the development background and details of the
> protocols of multimedia formats always astound me.
> 
> I have always associated midi music with cheesy game sounds. I did not
> know it was as capable as you just informed. It has always seemed to
> me to be a poor mans synthesizer format of music. Piano is not really
> piano, trumpet is not really trumpet.
> 
> But now that I understand the age of the protocol, it becomes far more
> impressive.
> 
> Thanks for the education. I am passing the tool around for schools to
> look at (for obvious reasons).
> 
> On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 11:04 PM, aaron <aaron at pd.org> wrote:
>> The over emphasis on "good" in the subject
>> line is way out of place. Channeling the voice
>> of Thurl Ravenscroft* here, most everything
>> about MIDI music is not just good, it's GRRREAT!
>>
>> MIDI is the singular case of a truly public,
>> openly published and royalty free protocol
>> standard that managed to evolve in an industry
>> consortium and then, amazingly, it escaped the
>> cesspool of corporate proprietary greed in tact
>> and uncorrupted without the intervention of a
>> commonwealth democracy.
>>
>> This simple, robust and flexible multi channel
>> serial protocol was born in the very early days
>> of the digital revolution and still continues to
>> serve as a flexible and functional tool for
>> inventive technologists and creative artists the
>> world over.  While it's contributions to the world
>> of music are profound, it now serves well beyond
>> it's initial role as an efficient music notation
>> and delivery tool, having been repurposed to
>> hundreds of innovative control and communication
>> applications in other areas, from stage lighting
>> to robotics.  The music education application you
>> reference** is just one among a thousand great
>> little innovations that MIDI has facilitated.
>>
>> While it may be a fair observation to claim that
>> MIDI has been used to record and deliver a lot of
>> mediocre musical composition, the fault is not
>> the format of the notation but the writers. MIDI
>> has made the enjoyment of music more accessible to
>> millions of people, both in offering an alternative
>> musical notation and interpretation mechanism and
>> in facilitating the creation of dozens of new
>> instruments and music delivery systems. However,
>> I expect that the actual proportions of mediocre
>> composers is no different now than in the days of
>> Mozart and Salieri, when the notation was pen and
>> ink and only accessible to the wealthy elites
>> of the era.
>>
>> peace
>> aaron
>>
>> *<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thurl_Ravenscroft>
>> **<http://pianobooster.sourceforge.net/index.html>
>>
>>
>> On 2009, Feb, 04, , at 5:48 PM, Jim Kinney wrote:
>>
>>> http://pianobooster.sourceforge.net/index.html
>>>
>>> Now to get a midi keyboard....
>>>
>>> This can be used in schools with out the need for a piano for each
>>> student.
>>>
>>> Awesome. Totally, fantastically awesome!
>>>
>>> --
>>> --
>>> James P. Kinney III
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Ale mailing list
>>> Ale at ale.org
>>> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
>> _______________________________________________
>> Ale mailing list
>> Ale at ale.org
>> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
>>
> 
> 
> 


-- 
I do not particularly want to go where the money is -
  it usually does not smell nice there. -- A. Stepanov