Tech: Tiny Piano programs, fun & useful

Subject: Tech: Tiny Piano programs, fun & useful
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Feb 03 - 03:39 PM

for those who play piano and use it to learn tunes, here are two programs which can be helpful in different ways..

MidiColors will play midi tunes, showing you what is happening as a set of colored piano keyboards.

TinyPiano allows YOU to play tunes on your computer keyboard..it is 'almost' intuitive. I don't play piano, and I can pick out tunes. You can record and replay also.

hope it helps someone.

Subject: RE: Tech: Tiny Piano programs, fun & useful
From: Mark Clark
Date: 23 Feb 03 - 05:59 PM

Thanks, Bill. I'll give them a look.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Tech: Tiny Piano programs, fun & useful
From: Bill D
Date: 23 Feb 03 - 06:48 PM

forgot to note these are FREE...I almost always look for freeware, and find that unless you have some very complex tasks, there is usually a free program.

Subject: RE: Tech: Tiny Piano programs, fun & useful
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Feb 03 - 11:15 AM

and, just this morning I discovered another little program called Aldo's Pianito which allows playing tunes on the keyboard, or with the mouse...and the keys are labeled. Says you can record and play back 8 different tunes. Has a slightly dufferent idea of WHICH keys it uses than TinyPiano...but....

Subject: RE: Tech: Tiny Piano programs, fun & useful
From: *daylia*
Date: 24 Feb 03 - 09:32 PM

Thanks Bill! The Midicolors is great fun, and I'll check out the others too.

daylia

Subject: RE: Tech: Tiny Piano programs, fun & useful
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Feb 03 - 10:16 PM

yer welcome!...it is fun....and my wife says she will use the others to work out tunes when working with Noteworthy Composer....

Subject: RE: Tech: Tiny Piano programs, fun & useful
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 25 Feb 03 - 11:30 AM

Bill D -

I think I posted a link to MidiColors in a couple of threads when it first appeared in PC Magazine, because it includes the ability to 1.)mute individual "parts" in a midi, so that you can pick out where the "melody" is coming from, and 2.) you can change the playback speed "on the fly" to make it easier to follow.

These two features alone make it a really handy utility for converting complex midi to simple notation and/or for just learning a tune.

Many of the great sounding midis produce very complex multi-stave scores when you open them in a notation program; and the "melody" and other good parts often jump back and forth from one staff to another unpredictably. While good notation programs will let you playback one staff at a time, it usually requires opening windows, making selections, and restarting. MidiColors lets you "one-click" the changes on the fly, which is a big help in sorting out the parts you want.

You can also vary the tempo in a notation program - but with the same relatively cumbersome processes. MidiColors has a little "roller" at the top of the screen that goes from .1 to x10 tempo - on the fly.

Really handy.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Tiny Piano programs, fun & useful
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Feb 03 - 11:31 AM

refresh once because, as John says, it/they ARE handy.

Subject: RE: Tech: Tiny Piano programs, fun & useful
From: *daylia*
Date: 26 Feb 03 - 12:37 PM

Thanks again, BillD. I've just installed Windows XP and a new firewall on this computer and I was having trouble with downloading the files. Seems the new firewall doesn't like free downloads much - I have to disable it temporarily to get the files.

Playing the keyboards on Midicolors is frustratingly slow using the mouse. I need to figure out how to connect my Roland digital piano (MIDI compatible) with the soundcard on my PC. There doesn't seem to be a port on the PC to connect a cable - maybe that's additional hardware???

Hmmmmmmm how come everytime I 'connect' with you it makes my brain work harder, Bill?

:-)   daylia

Subject: RE: Tech: Tiny Piano programs, fun & useful
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 26 Feb 03 - 02:47 PM

*daylia*

If you got a new computer with XP and a DVD player/burner, they probably left the midi connector off in order to make room for the "digital video" and "surround sound" playtoy connections. Unfortunately, the mfrs don't see midi as "important," so they don't tell you before you buy.

If that's your case, about the only way easy I've figured out to get a midi connector is to add a "full feature" soundcard. I'll note in passing that if they didn't give you a midi connector, you probably also have no place to plug in a "conventional joystick" for games, but you can get USB "game controllers" fairly easily now.

In principle, there's probably enough "versatility" in XP, with all the "multimedia" gadgets they've stuffed into it to allow you to input midi information through a USB or serial port, but I don't know of any external "midi port converter boxes/cables" that let you connect through one of the other ports so I haven't looked at what kind of "source-flops" you'd have to setup inside to do it.

There is at least one true "external soundcard" that connects thru a USB port, but it's a relatively "high-end" setup, so it's a little more expensive than some options. ( Soundblaster Extigy $149 US List.) Not a recommendation, but to let you know what's available. Note that you can probably find significantly lower prices on the web.

There are two kinds of "standard" midi connectors. One looks like a serial port connector (ovalish, with pins in two rows), except the "computer side" of a serial connector has pins that stick out at you while the computer side of the midi/joystick connector has holes for pins to stick into. The second kind is the same size and shape as the round connectors you probably have for mouse and keyboard, but has a different number of pins. Hopefully you'll find one of these.

Most new "integrated soundcard" OEM systems don't have a midi port, unless you bought one of the "musicmaker special" configurations, and even then it's "iffy."

Having a separate soundcard isn't, by itself, enough to ensure that you have a midi port. Nearly all "new" soundcards have added the DVD (digital for your videocam) and "surround sound" speaker connectors to the soundcards, so there isn't room on the soundcard backplate for a midi connector. SoundBlaster, for example, puts a second backplate in an adjacent slot as an "option" if you want the midi connector. Even though the "piggyback" backplate doesn't make any connection to the adjacent PCI slot, it prevents you from using that slot, so many OEMs omit the second plate and the midi connection. (So far as I can determine, if they left it out you can't buy the "piggyback" plate as a separate item for most soundcards.)

Another situation where the "ignorant masses" who only listen to music dictate what the market will provide to those of who have lives.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Tiny Piano programs, fun & useful
From: Bill D
Date: 26 Feb 03 - 03:21 PM

interesting to read what is happening. I don't play a keyboard, so it is not a big issue for me, but wow! what a pain to get all the options set up! (not to mention just getting firewalls configured like you want..which one is it?

(I am thinking HARD about what to do if we get a 2nd PC and a network set up, so that my college kid and my wife & I can all work at the same time--I know a place that, for $20 extra, will load WIN98 or 2000, instead of XP...I don't like what I hear about XP..more stable or not!)

Subject: RE: Tech: Tiny Piano programs, fun & useful
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 26 Feb 03 - 06:30 PM

Bill D

We're down to Win 2000 on one machine and WinXP on another (and on a laptop) just through mechanical attrition. (We still have Win98 on an old "guest" machine.) The things do wear out.

We do like the stability on both a lot better than the older versions, although we didn't have a lot of problems with the older ones - simply by not using much other than commercial "work grade" programs.

On the whole, XP is probably a better choice than 2K for most typical users. although it's hard to be to "definitive" about how you come to that conclusion. Win 2K very much "wants to be" part of an "enterprise network," since quite a few "little detail" things come only with the server packages - which most of us don't want to mess with.

There is also the confusion of the "Home" and "Professional" versions of XP - and of the various Office Suites. Microsoft has not done a good job of letting people know what they're getting there, and to use the technical term - "Works SUCKS." Quite a few people who've expressed unfavorable opinions about XP to me are really talking about problems with "tiny-toy-Works," which is missing lots of the "goodies." Later versions are better, but still not the real thing.

On the sound card thing - everyone seems to be putting 3 speaker connectors and the digital (videocam) connectors on their soundcards, which leaves no room for a midi connector. Soundblaster's newest "standard" adds a front panel "connector plate" to give you the "missing" connectors - midi, mic, volume knob, and a firewire port. The problem is that with the proliferation of "dual optical drives," - a CD-ROM and a DVD/CDR/W or some such combination, many people won't have a front panel 5.25 bay available to install it. (And Soundblaster's web site specs only vaguely tell you you need one.)

With "hindsight in front of me" I'd have considered omitting the DVD-ROM on my new machine to leave room for something like the SoundBlaster Audigy 2 front panel hookups. Old USB wasn't fast enough for good external optical drives, but the new machines mostly have USB-2.1 ports (and usually at least 4 to 6 of them) and at least one firewire port, any of which are fast enough to use with remote CD-R/W or even DVD-R/W.

I can see a proliferation of little boxes stacked around our machines - remote drives and interfaces - until we give up and go back to full $ize tower ca$e$. Fortunately (he says, grudgingly) the little boxes are beginning to appear on the market.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Tiny Piano programs, fun & useful
From: *daylia*
Date: 26 Feb 03 - 06:32 PM

John thank you SO much for taking the time to explain all that! I'm copying your post out now (hope you don't mind!) so I have more of a clue what I'm looking for re ports on this tower, and a little more knowledge before I talk to the music store people re cables/soundcards (if I do need 'em - which I probably do). It's been quite the challenge just getting familiar with this new Windows program the last few days.

I have this dream of updating my piano studio with computer games/programs without going broke in the process - I know my students will love it, and I'll feel a little less like a dinosaur! Just looking through the programs above I can see how helpful they'd be for making theory lessons fun, and composing too.

Bill I've got the latest Norton anti-virus/internet security programs, and I'll check into re-configuring it so it stops blocking almost everything I try to download. My son set it up last week with a "medium" security setting (sheesh I wonder if anything would get through it on "high" security)!

daylia

Subject: RE: Tech: Tiny Piano programs, fun & useful
From: *daylia*
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 08:52 AM

BillD, just wanted to thank you again for posting these programs.

One of my 10yr old piano students just moved to Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates a couple weeks ago. She e-mailed me yesterday, very disappointed that because of the war she won't be getting her keyboard or the rest of her stuff till probably May - it's still on a boat waiting to leave Canada. She sounded very angry ... "I just hate Bush and Saddam. They are just soooooo stupid! I still have all my songs in my head but I can't play them ..."

So I sent her the MIDIColors program, and she was tickled pink! She's on holidays from school this week, and it's giving her something fun to explore and a way to make music for now.

Thank you so much again Bill, and thanks to Mudcat for helping one little girl find some relief and distraction from the insanity of this war.

daylia

Subject: RE: Tech: Tiny Piano programs, fun & useful
From: Bill D
Date: 24 Mar 03 - 10:49 AM

ohhh...wow...*great big smile*...THAT makes it all worth it!