I just posted a thread asking for a translation from the modern Greek. It occurred to me that some people may not be familiar with what I was doing, so I've decided to explain a few things in the hope that others will enjoy doing it and playing more music.

I went to a search engine and entered "Praetorius MIDI" to see who might have a nice piece by this Renaissance musician. (He is a favorite of ours.) the engine directed me to a page by the Phonolites, a chorus of Greek geologists. The Phonolites had kindly posted MIDIs, and I liked the one by Othmayr.

I right clicked on the link on their page and saved it to my documents. I noted the name they had given it as it was downloaded.

Then I minimized (or closed) the Net and opened Noteworthy. I opened my documents, made sure MIDI files were among the types being opened, and downloaded the MIDI. It takes about five steps to open a MIDI, none of which I understand. I just click away until the piece appears. I like to make a note in the Information where the song came from.

Once I got the MIDI, I removed the empty staff which always appears at the bottom of a piece. I raised the second line an octave so a recorder can play it. I added a text note that the second line is played down 8, so that the second line does not come out higher than the melody. I removed repeats and added repeat signs to save ink, paper and transparency stock. I will probably add chords symbols. If I had wanted to, I could have changed the key, staff by staff. Finally, I tinkered with the format, trying to get the largest notes I can onto one sheet of paper. (It didn't work this time.)

These old pieces often have a very simple and repetitive line which I call the brother-in-law's line. (Renaissance composers had relatives too, so why not fool the aristocrats into supporting them? They had more money than they could ever use.) I often delete the brother-in-law's line. When all the musical editing is done, I save it as an NWC file. Usually I give it a new, more meaningful name. If it fits on one sheet, I make a transparency, throw it on the wall of the living room, and away we go. See how simple?

For an event such as St Patricks' Day, I simply download the melody,add the chords and print it big. The rest is history.