Fun with Midi

Today I want to talk about Midi, and my first complete composition. One of the tools for non-musicians or aspiring musicians (and for actual professional ones too) is called a midi sequencer.

Musical Instrument Digital Interface is a basically a standard for interfacing computers with instruments. You can check out the wiki link if you want a full explanation. By using this tool, some creativity and some patience, you can create some pretty cool stuff. The sequencer is a computer or digital tool used for making midi files, which you can also do by recording from a midi instrument. But we will cover that in another blog. I am talking about the sequencer or computer side today.

The sequencer I used is part of mixcraft. A quick tutorial on YouTube will give you a better idea how it works than I can do with a few pictures or words. What I want to talk about isn't how to use the specific tool, but (as usual) the reasons for it and my theory behind the music that made it happen.

So why use a midi sequencer? Well, I use one because I can do it anywhere I have a computer, and I never disturb anyone. Also, it allows you to use virtually any instrument you can think of, virtually. It can be a great tool for putting an idea into music which can then be converted to sheet music (easily). It is also very good for people whose minds work better than their fingers. I like to use my keyboard to work out songs, but I am not practiced enough to play an entire one yet and certainly not reliably. The sequencer puts my notes exactly where I want them. It allows me to move and copy them as well as other useful things. It also allows me to apply different instruments to the same notes, to get just the sound you want, or to easily create complimentary tracks.

So, this piece of music 1CC which stands for 1st complete composition, or as it says in the file, 1 crazy circus. Which is a name based on the brass parts, and an organ tone (which I removed - but the name stuck anyway). This was written, sequenced, arranged, and recorded entirely by me. There are no loops used that I did not personally create. It was all done with a midi sequencer. There are several instruments, Piano, French Horns, Trombone, Tuba, Bass Guitar, and Drums.

The method for doing this, like anything, starts with an idea. I am spending a lot of time on the keyboard for the basic reason it is easiest for me to physically play. So this leads me to thinking about piano music. Pianos are special in that you can play from two different octaves at the same time. There are other instruments that can do this, but they are in the minority. Because of the left hand, right hand thing you can play things in a way other instruments can't, like notes on one hand and an accompanying chord with the other. You'll notice I take advantage of that in the sequences in 1CC.

The choice of piano as the main voice was an important choice. The next choices are what key, I went with C Major for simplicity sake (as the piano is naturally C maj), and the tempo which is 69 BPM. You notice that I start slowly and pick up the pace, so it sounds like I am playing more than 69 BPM but I am really not, I just altered the back beat from every other note to every note. You can play downtempo or uptempo with pretty much any BPM by altering your beats and note pacing. I am not using any 32nd notes here, so you can see even at this tempo, you can make a fast sounding song.

C Major is CDEFGABC. The I, IV, V, chord progression for C Major with no modes is C (root) F (Major 4th) and G (Perfect 5th). This gives you the entire scale to work with and uses no flats or sharps. So the building blocks I used were the chords C maj, F maj, G maj, and all of the individual notes in the scale as they are contained in those three chords. You might remember this trick from an earlier post. Harmonically, if I stick to these building blocks, I really can't make something that has sour notes in it. Maybe they sound funny being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but they won't be sour. I know most people just want to play something that sounds good. As funny as this may seem, if it sounds good, you are almost certainly following the rules even if you don't know that you are, which is one of the cool things about music. I am writing this stuff because I am composing music, so I am starting with a theory and then writing something, not starting with something and translating it. By all means, if you can play, just play and be happy. You don't need to know how this all went together.

Now there may be music grognars among you, who may notice I mess up on one or more of these technical details on occasion, which is fine, I am new at it, and I already wrote something in A Major Transposed Ionian Mode when I was shooting for A minor.. Live and learn right?

A little music humor there, I know, very little.. ;)

Thanks for playing along.