not so jolly...

[theladyrose]

Ha! I have conquered the music editing/sheet-music printing/recording software!

No, I haven't. But I am able to print out sheet music from MIDI files, and can selectively print out the music for certain instruments in a piece and such.

But I can't hear any MIDI files though I can hear my regular mp3s and such. Hmmm.

Ugh, this is being a bit more frustrating than expected. Maybe clicking on more random buttons will help...

Comments

[a-mire.livejournal.com]

If you can hear your regular MP3s with any clarity you probably have a sound card. Mine is a Creative Soundblaster card, so when I go to Programs/ Creative that's where all its extra stuff is like the recorder and the sound font bank.

On a PC, if you go to Start/ Control Panel/ Sounds Speech and Audio Devices/ Sounds and Audio Devices, it should show you exactly what card you have in the Volume tab with a little icon next to it.

I don't know what to do on a Mac as I haven't had one since 1996.

What software are you using? I have Midi Studio 6. I can program into it just fine, but I can't for my life get it to record anything I play on my piano keyboard. I finally just moved the PK across the room to get it out of the way. I am not as serious as you, so I gave up rather quickly, LOL.

[theladyrose.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your help! I'm pretty sure that I have a sound card as I can hear MP3s and such quite well; I'm guessing that the program is having difficulty locating it.

I have Cakewalk Music Creator 2. I also can program without any trouble, but as I mentioned it's impossible to actually hear what I'm tinkering around with. I don't have a MIDI keyboard but I could probably borrow one sometime in the future. Luckily I can print out music from the MIDI file which is the most important part. At the moment I'm trying to get a medley of classical music pieces that appeared in the Prisoner to be performed by the bell chime group that I lead. So far I've gotten the Radetsky March and the title theme :)

[a-mire.livejournal.com]

Have you ever done change ringing? I went to a convention once and learned the basics and got hooked on it for quite some time. It was a challenge. Very mathematic.

But quite beautiful, like church bells in the distance....

Some groups are so good it sounds like a waterfall.

[theladyrose.livejournal.com]

Sounds interesting, but I've never heard of it. We use basic bell chimes that were designed to be used by elementary school students, hee! They're pretty much indestructible and can never go out of tune unless you manage to move the striking hammer out of position or the hammer is too loose.

The nice thing about bell ringing is that you can't really practice on your own time; it's mostly group coordination that you need to get down.

[petserrano.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's what I liked, too. It was even better having someone in the group who couldn't read music and having to write out a count sheet with the right and left hands highlighted, lol. But no one could tell on the other side of the stand.

Change ringing starts with a scale, and then the notes switch according to a pre-established pattern. For the simplest one, you have 4 people play a scale, then you trade one bell with each person next to you and play up the line again, over and over until you get your bells back. But the professionals can make it sound like that without any music in front of them just by counting or using a chart of numbers. It's crazy!

That part was tough.

So was trading bells on the cheating version without hitting anyone else's bells, lol.

Anyway, here's an intro which is sorta cool:

http://www.nagcr.org/pamphlet.html

Ah! Here I am!

[a-mire.livejournal.com]

I think it sounds better on hand bell chimes than on the giant church bells, but that's just me. ;)