Gary,

I also don't use a Dos/Windows platform either, so I can't use Barry's midi2txt. A posting from Alan seems to imply that the program soon won't be needed.

Here is what I do in the meantime.

Alan's program produces abc files as well as midi ones, and they usually apear under the text-ize midi ones.

I copy and paste the abc file into an editor and save it with a .abc extension. Being a pure text file, it causes no problems across platforms.

At the abc homepage

http://www.gre.ac.uk/~c.walshaw/abc/

You will find a program that plays abc files. The one for my platform is very small and simple and will work with the most modest machine. One for the mac is appropriately called abc4mac. Anther, given this thread, is appropriately called BarFly. I think both are free.

The only thing to be careful of is that when you paste it tnto your editor (teachtext?) you must remove all blank spaces on the left as this usually confuses abc players.

I use the equivalent of this program to play the abc file I copied over.

There are theoretical disadvantages to this. Abc files cannot carry the information that midi files do, but for our purposes, it is pretty good.

By the way, the abc4mac homepage is interesting in itself. It contains links to Cape Breton songs in this format that can be played with the software.

Contact me by email if you need help or more details.

(I should have started this posting with "But seriously folks....")

Murray