Piano Clues

This article explains how to convert MIDI files — music files with the extension .mid or .midi (or .kar for karaoke) — to MP3 and/or WAV.

The advantage of MIDI files is that they are very small — easily 1000 times as small as an MP3 of the same music — but the disadvantage is that they usually don’t sound very good. And you can’t put them on your iPod either.

So if you want to learn how to convert your MIDI files to MP3’s and how to make them sound good doing so, then read on.

NOTE: The article was written with Windows in mind. If you use another operating system such as Mac OS X, the directions are similar but the software will be different.

(For live playing with software instruments in real time, read how to use virtual instruments.)

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This article is for people who wish to learn how to accompany a singer, or their own singing.

When you play accompaniment, you just play the bass and the chords but not the melody of the song.

Of course, different styles have different requirements — in Jazz, you wouldn’t even play the bass, for example. The patterns I present here are suitable for pop and rock music.

The prerequisite is that you know how to do voice-leading. We’ll use voice-leading to go as smoothly as possible from one chord to the next (no big jumps).

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Suppose in a particular tune C chord is followed by F chord. Then you could play it like this:

However, that’s quite a big jump. As a result, the music sounds disconnected. Another way to play this chord progression:

Now only two tones change — the C remains in the same place — and they jump only a very small distance (a half-step and a whole-step, respectively).

The result is a much smoother sound. This principle is called voice-leading.

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You can’t. At least not without a lot of work.

The idea is seductive: it’s easy to convert MIDI to sheet music, so if it were possible to extract a MIDI file from an MP3, then you would have easy access to the sheet music of your favorite songs.

The problem is this: An MP3 — or WAV or any other type of audio file — is like an apple pie. It’s easy to make apple pie from apples: you cut them up and put them into the pie. But it’s impossible to get back the original apples once you have the pie!

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If you like to play computer games, and want to learn to play the piano at the same time, then check out Synthesia.

This game is similar to the popular game Guitar Hero. Notes come falling down from the screen and you have to press the right keys on the piano at the right time to score points.

The music comes from MIDI files, which means the number of songs you can play is virtually unlimited because for almost any song you can find one or more free MIDI files on the internet.

Download Synthesia for free at: www.synthesiagame.com

Even if you don’t like to play games, Synthesia still provides a good way to see what’s going on in the MIDI file.

It’s much nicer than the on-screen keyboard from VanBasco because you can see the notes ahead of time. This is quickly becoming my favorite tool to play back MIDI files.

Give it a try!

You can watch a nice video demo of Synthesia here.

Today’s tip is especially for pianists who play, or want to learn to play, classical repertoire.

A fine gentleman by the name of C. C. Chang has written a book called The Fundamentals of Piano Practice and he is kind enough to give it away for free on the web.

Chang claims that with the principles from his book you can learn piano up to 1000 times faster compared to other methods. The book not only teaches you how to play, but more importantly: how to practice!

You can download the book here as PDF or read it online here.

Worth checking out!

Here is a video I recorded that demonstrates the various sounds on the Yamaha CP33 digital stage piano.

The sound was captured directly into the computer and added to the video later, so what you hear is exactly what you get.

To be honest, I don’t know much about recording acoustic pianos other than that it is black magic.

You need at least one microphone — two is better because that gives you stereo sound — and a recording device. Of course, you can use your computer to record on, but that does mean you need to put it somewhere near the piano (or buy very long cables).

You will get the best recordings with a set of good condenser microphones, but they are expensive and you need other equipment as well to connect this all to your computer.

Not just the quality of the microphones matters: the acoustic quality of the room is at least as important.

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Red Dot Forever can only play what you just recorded, it cannot load existing MIDI files. To play MIDI files, use any of these programs:

• Windows Media Player (already on your computer)
• VanBasco’s Karaoke Player, a great program that also has an on-screen keyboard, can slow down or speed up the playback and transpose it. Click for detailed instructions
• MidiNotate Player, which shows the MIDI data as sheet music.

If you like to fiddle with sheet music notation, you’ll find that most notation programs can also import MIDI files and convert them to sheet music. However, unless you played perfectly in time, you’ll need to perform some manual cleanup to make your score look good.

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If everything is set up, you will need to get a program to record MIDI. There are many available, commercial and free, but I prefer to use Red Dot Forever.

This is my favorite program because:

1. it is very simple to use
2. it is free
3. and I wrote it myself

Click here to download the latest version of Red Dot Forever (1.04)

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