Well, we will begin with music notation software. There are basically three ways in which you can get the information into the music notation software. Almost all music notation software have a human interface. This is similar to a word processor. Think of Microsoft Word. You have a keyboard and you type information in. Then you see the words on the screen that can then be manipulated. With music notation software the input could be by a keyboard that is a music keyboard like a piano, only it is plugged in through wires (MIDI); or the input could be through music notes with click drag and drop; or encoded through the computer keyboard. A second method that is more recent is that there is music software in which you can put printed music on a scanner bed and scan that music into the music notation program. When it comes into the program it is not a graphics file, but it is actually encoded into the music that then can be manipulated in that program. This is not always 100% [accuarate] and so actually I input my music by hand because I find it often takes me too long to fix the scan. But improvements are certainly being made in that area. The last area that is really quite interesting is that there are programs in which the audio files, that is a .wav file or the sounds of music, can be recognized by the music program and then input into notation. One program that does this is Band-in-a-Box, where it is able to recognize the harmonies or chords that are part of music.
OK, so at this point let’s go to a few examples in the music notation program that I regularly use. This is called “Finale.”
Here we are using a music notation software called “Finale.” I have entered here the melody and in another file you will see the harmony. Sophomore music majors—part of their training is to listen to melodies and then enter into notation that melody, and also harmony—this is something that a Sophomore music major could certainly do with enough time. So here is the melody from “Viva la Vida.” It is in what we call music notation. I will play a little bit of this for you.
<music: opening melody of “Viva la Vida”>
OK. The sound isn’t great. I can certainly in this program change the sound. If I go to the Studio View I can change the instrument. These are MIDI instruments. I had an alto saxophone. What if I wanted to have electric piano? Let’s see how that sounds with electric piano.
<music: opening melody of “Viva la Vida” played by electric piano>
OK. So once I have the notation in one of these programs, I can change to all sorts of different instruments. This is really quite helpful. Here is a choir. Let’s do “choir oohs.” Here we go.
<music: opening melody of “Viva la Vida” played by choir oohs>
That really doesn’t sound like a choir. OK, let me go back to the view of the score. Let’s take a look now at the harmony that I have entered. Many programs allow for harmony to be entered by chord names as I have done here. I have chords named D flat, E flat, A flat, and F minor. I have this played on a string instrument.
<music: opening chords of “Viva la Vida”>
So that is the harmony that would be going on at the time of that melody being sung. So within this notation software I could then recreate that melody. I could add words. I could add chords. I could notate it for all different types of instruments and sounds in that music software.
There are many programs that notate music. Finale is the one I have just been detailing. They have various versions of this software including one that is available for free. The free program is called “Finale Notepad.” Sibelius is another very popular program. Band-in-a-Box I have mentioned before. Band-in-a-Box is more of a song writing program than a rigorous music notation program such as Finale and Sibelius. And there are of course many other programs available.
The one feature you will find with many of these music notation programs is that they will export printed music (they will print music). They will export MIDI. And in addition they will create audio files. Obviously not the vocal parts [words] but the instrumental parts to audio files.
OK, let’s move on to our second type of music software—MIDI software. MIDI is interesting because it is the one medium that can be imported and exported from all three types of software: music notation software, MIDI editing software, and Digital Audio Workstations. MIDI programs will import MIDI as well as export MIDI. MIDI programs will edit MIDI files. Often you will have the choice of creating sound files or audio from the MIDI files.
Here we have a YouTube file that is illustrating how a MIDI editor might work. This is produced by Synthesia MIDI . Typically in a MIDI editor you will have a keyboard and you will have the instructions. Again, MIDI is not music it is instructions. You will have the instructions graphically shown. Here we have a note that starts. There is a command in MIDI to start the note and to stop the note. We see different shades of orange here. That may represent dynamics, which is how loud the note is. Sometimes in a MIDI editor you will see different colors, which represent different instruments. Here is the piano keyboard. The lower you get on the piano keyboard, the more to the left. Higher is more to the right. So let’s watch this a little bit.
<music: opening to “Viva la Vida”>
OK, you get the idea. It is interesting. This MIDI file I found in several locations on the Internet. One person created this MIDI file and then it has bounced around and been used by all sorts of people.
OK, let’s return to our list. Here is the reference for that MIDI file.
Now we move on the third and final grouping of software in which music is manipulated and shared: that is the Digital Audio Workstation. Audio workstations—this would be in the 70s, 80s, and 90s—used to be large collections of mechanical [better: electronic] devices, microphones, amps, pre-amps, recording equipment, and editing equipment that would cost thousands of dollars and in professional settings hundreds of thousands of dollars. Nowadays we see with the advent of the computer and its great increase in power that a lot of the physical machinery can be replaced by algorithms and computer programs. So it is now quite possible for someone to have a computer and produce wonderful results just out of their garage. They get some good microphones, they work with some software that is available on a computer, and they can really have marvelous results.
Here we see the three different ways in which you can import materials into your Digital Audio Workstation. We have MIDI, which we have talked about before. You can import sounds. This would be sound files such as those available on the Internet. You can also record the audio. All of those can be inside of the workstation, which are then manipulated, mixed, balanced, etc.
So we are going to take a look at a Digital Audio Workstation that I use quite frequently, which is called Reaper. We are going to look at a MIDI file and then a recording.
So here we are looking in Reaper. We have the different tracks here. I am obviously not going to have time to explain all of this. On this top track, I am going to “solo” it so we only hear that track, I recorded material off of the video on YouTube. This is the sound in the opening of “Viva la Vida.” Here we go.
<music: opening to “Viva la Vida”>
OK, so that is obviously familiar to all of us. You have probably heard that by now. I am going to mute that top track so I can hear the others. In addition, I took the MIDI file that is available (ColdPlay “Viva la Vida”) and I have imported it into Reaper. You see here a MIDI file with those instructions—the start and stop instructions—and then we have many other tracks here with the different MIDI instruments playing along. So let’s hear what that MIDI sounds like.
<music: opening to “Viva la Vida” from MIDI file>
OK, so you get the idea. In a Digital Audio Workstation I can mix these two together. What I have done is something pretty tricky. These two are in the same key so it is going to sound OK. I had to change the rate here. The recorded version went a little bit faster than the MIDI version. I tried to put them in sync. I didn’t get it quite perfect, but let’s see how it sounds when I have both the MIDI and the recorded version together.
<music: Opening of “Viva la Vida” with combined files>
OK, so you can see that I had a little bit of fun with that. This gives you an idea that somebody could take MIDI, they could take sound files, they could slice it up, mix it up, create all sorts of new remixes of the songs. All of this is possible within a Digital Audio Workstation.
Here is a list of some different popular Digital Audio Workstations that are available. Audacity is a Creative Commons software that is available for free. Mac computers come with GarageBand. I use Reaper. Pro Tools is the industry standard. And of course there are many, many others as well.
Well, I hope that this has given you an overview of what is possible with music nowadays. I think it is absolutely incredible that I able to do here with just a computer, with just a few hundred dollars’ worth of software, I am able to broadcast to you via video and sound. If I had tried to do this twenty years ago I may have needed $100,000 to do so. Even then you wouldn’t be able to see it because it would need to be broadcast at a certain time on a television. So it is really quite fantastic that we live in an age where I can be my own radio station, my own TV station, my own educational station, and do all of this. What a wonderful age we live in. I hope that you realize all of the possibilities that are available now. Thank you.