Matthew Hiller wrote:
>
> Hmmm - I like the note-entry system that you've outlined. (I'm a
> bit unclear on precisely what you mean by using 0-7 for velocities - 3
> bits' worth of MIDI velocity information?) I don't think I'd be likely to
> implement it myself -- the default approach to note entry works pretty
> well for me, and will generally improve when Denemo acquires an interface
> for customizing keybindings, which'll be fairly soon -- but if I got a
> well-coded patch that implemented this as a separate editing mode I'd
> probably accept it. (Once the keybindings-customization stuff is done,
> implementing such a mode would require maybe a handful of further
> infrastructural changes.)
>
> In the meantime, have you perhaps thought about implementing an
> emacs mode that'll use this keybinding system to produce plain, vanilla
> mudela? It'd be a fairly good combination of smooth note entry and
> more-easily read output, IMHO.
>
> Matt
>
> --
>
> Matt Hiller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> http://home.pacbell.net/mhiller/
> Denemo - the GNU graphical music notation editor
> http://www.gnu.org/software/denemo/denemo.html
------------------yhs
It did occur to me that a few key bindings could get me started. I do
hope for more. I should also try d as d, although I am right handed.
I'm not sure everyone knows what velocity is. I have been on the wrong
end of people talking about velocity when I didn't have the slightest
idea what it was. A midi keyboard is a Musical Instrument Digital
Interface. If you tried to measure the volume or amplitude of sound by
measuring how hard the key hit bottom, you would beat the keyboard to
death in no time, so instead the speed of the key just before it hits
bottom is measured. This velocity is digitized, and it is intended to
express the volume or amplitude of the note. Today we could use fiber
optics to measure the speed more accurately and uniformly for all keys,
but then and now they probably use hysteresis, or even switches, I don't
know. A hash table is a list of equalities. It hasn't been long since I
learned even that. :-) Dynamics are loud and soft as printed by
lilypond, not what you would hear (velocities, volume) in playback.
I don't want to give the impression that I know any more than that about
velocities, but AFAIK there are only 8 levels to enter. I found at the
midi keyboard that I could gently depress a key and get a note with no
sound in Encore, so I *assumed* that there was such a thing as a midi
velocity of 0. 3 bits was a lot in the 1960's.
The Writers of lilypond have been in no hurry to implement anything so
straightforward ;-) as step entering the velocity of each note as you
go, although the stated intention is to further implement midi someday.
They are far more concerned with notation, and so am I, believe me. It
is not possible to step enter notes and velocities directly with a midi
keyboard unless you are a *very* skilled pianist, and even such a person
would probably find it a total bitch to learn to lie with his fingers in
that way. No music notation program that I know of makes it easy to step
enter midi. The assumption is that the music will be recorded and
then the notation mess cleaned up somehow. Isn't it better to work with
notation than those cursed piano roll editors for dummies? I think so.
Should they be the only game in town? I don't think so. Could lilypond
take over midi sequencing utterly and completely and *soon*? I hope so.
While it would be possible to link each velocity to a dynamic, e.g.:
0=(dummy)
1=pp
2=p
3=mp
4=(default)
5=mf
6=f
7=ff
or alternatives such as:
0=(dummy)
1=ppp
2=pp
3=mp
4=(default)=mf
5=f
6=ff
7=ffff
this would not satisfy most authors, who would simply want more. Since
midi isn't that subtle anyway, it would be rational to ratchet up or
down at appropriate points to try to gain effects such as the effect of
a very long crescendo, the way we guitar players do. (You will find that
most composers, including Bach and later, provide a repeated measure as
an opportunity to drop back (as from f to pp) to initiate a new
crescendo while giving the effect, one hopes, of contunuing the previous
one. WTC #1 is atypical in this regard. The prelude from the first lute
suite is a perfect example.) The best way, I think, would be to have the
first hash above as a default and then let the user hash the velocities
individually however he wants. The difference between f and ff may
be fairly clear to a composer or player but the difference between
velocity 6 and 7 will remain a judgement call forever. IMHO this is much
too ad hoc for configuration files. The only change for those
uninterested in midi except to check for mistakes could be something
like \velocities default = 7. or to do 7 on the first note of each part
or do nothing and get the default volume of 4.
It is also advantageous to be able to easily play back individual parts
or combinations of parts in a complex score. Or play one louder to see
if it's the guilty part.
In order to hash them, you first have to enter them. :-)
Forgive me, but I think that entering an f or mf after a note and then
trying later to figure out what it should mean in midi is doing things
backwards. As you all well know, doing things backwards has a tendency
to result in having to undo them before doing them again. I would
turn off dynamics during crescendi and decrescendi and do the midi by
hand, but otherwise a change in velocity should generate a mark for the
part if \dynamics were on for that part. A sforzando has to be done
differently since it involves multiple successive velocities on the same
note, but that can simply wait and remain a graphic for now. (A silent
(nonprinting) part provides the means of dividing a note and tying its
pieces or writing out ornaments, etc. using your good context
programming. It's as simple as hoompah x 2 already, if doable.)
0 should silence a
note, and that would be the best way for pianists doing unisons, since
they are used to that particular lie in the notation, and it is very
common.. An 8 or 9 could provide toggles to turn dynamic markings on and
off in specific parts, because otherwise a keyboard score or reduction
or guitar score or any doubled part could become very cluttered.
Obviously, the default for dynamic markings should be off. To toggle
dynamic marks: 95a4. To force a forte f: 85a4. Even fp for repeats:
53a4, 953a4, 853a4.
I think that the way to work it in a mudela file would be to place
the number before the note, since the time value comes after the note
and they are both numbers. Also, it is interesting that a midi keyboard
obtains the velocity *before* the note is switched on by the key hitting
bottom. Neat?
I don't really care a whole lot what the exact syntax is, but doesn't
there have to be one? That's why I went to lilypond first with this,
and why I am sending this there now also.
Thank you all. Bless you all. Work hard!
.daveA
