[ale] finally a _good_ use of midi music

[Jim Kinney]

Your understanding of the development background and details of the
protocols of multimedia formats always astound me.

I have always associated midi music with cheesy game sounds. I did not
know it was as capable as you just informed. It has always seemed to
me to be a poor mans synthesizer format of music. Piano is not really
piano, trumpet is not really trumpet.

But now that I understand the age of the protocol, it becomes far more
impressive.

Thanks for the education. I am passing the tool around for schools to
look at (for obvious reasons).

On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 11:04 PM, aaron <aaron at pd.org> wrote:
> The over emphasis on "good" in the subject
> line is way out of place. Channeling the voice
> of Thurl Ravenscroft* here, most everything
> about MIDI music is not just good, it's GRRREAT!
>
> MIDI is the singular case of a truly public,
> openly published and royalty free protocol
> standard that managed to evolve in an industry
> consortium and then, amazingly, it escaped the
> cesspool of corporate proprietary greed in tact
> and uncorrupted without the intervention of a
> commonwealth democracy.
>
> This simple, robust and flexible multi channel
> serial protocol was born in the very early days
> of the digital revolution and still continues to
> serve as a flexible and functional tool for
> inventive technologists and creative artists the
> world over.  While it's contributions to the world
> of music are profound, it now serves well beyond
> it's initial role as an efficient music notation
> and delivery tool, having been repurposed to
> hundreds of innovative control and communication
> applications in other areas, from stage lighting
> to robotics.  The music education application you
> reference** is just one among a thousand great
> little innovations that MIDI has facilitated.
>
> While it may be a fair observation to claim that
> MIDI has been used to record and deliver a lot of
> mediocre musical composition, the fault is not
> the format of the notation but the writers. MIDI
> has made the enjoyment of music more accessible to
> millions of people, both in offering an alternative
> musical notation and interpretation mechanism and
> in facilitating the creation of dozens of new
> instruments and music delivery systems. However,
> I expect that the actual proportions of mediocre
> composers is no different now than in the days of
> Mozart and Salieri, when the notation was pen and
> ink and only accessible to the wealthy elites
> of the era.
>
> peace
> aaron
>
> *<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thurl_Ravenscroft>
> **<http://pianobooster.sourceforge.net/index.html>
>
>
> On 2009, Feb, 04, , at 5:48 PM, Jim Kinney wrote:
>
>> http://pianobooster.sourceforge.net/index.html
>>
>> Now to get a midi keyboard....
>>
>> This can be used in schools with out the need for a piano for each
>> student.
>>
>> Awesome. Totally, fantastically awesome!
>>
>> --
>> --
>> James P. Kinney III
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>
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-- 
-- 
James P. Kinney III