Most Personal Computers can
synthesise various instruments and play music. The synthesiser uses
a language called “Midi”, the Musical Instrument
Digital Interface, to identify the instrument, the note, its volume
and length. Music recorded in this form takes a minute fraction of
the computer space than an analogue recording takes. Midi cannot
reproduce the human voice pronouncing words, but it can reproduce
the choral “aah” or play the vocal lines with
distinctive instruments.Click on the following headings to go
directly to that section
Finding Choral Midi
Files
Choral music files can be found on
the internet using
www.google.com and searching for the
words "choral midi" (without the double quotes). This points to a
large number of sites, so add the composer’s surname to the
search words to narrow it down. The most comprehensive site is The
Silvis Woodshed at
www.channel1.com/users/gsilvis.
This gives you an index to all the composers’ works available
at that site. These tend to contain only the choral sections, often
the accompaniment is only included for bars when there is no choral
singing (for copyright reasons). Click on the work you want.
On Windows :
On Macintosh:
- Just download the file by a long click on the link. The file is
available on the "download folder" you defined in your browser's
setup.
- If the file doesn't have the .mid extension but for
example the .zip, .hqx,.sit extension, drag it on the StuffIt Icon
to decode it.
Playing a piece
- open the piece of music with Ctrl+O (command + O on Macintosh),
select the music folder, set the “Files of type” to
Midi and it will then display all the midi pieces in the folder.
Click on the piece required and press OK. You can also use
"File>Import>Midi"
- press the space bar to start from the beginning or to stop the
playback
- click on the pause button
instead of the
space bar if you want to resume playing later from that point.
Click on the pause button again to resume
To play a number of
bars repeatedly
to repeat just a few bars move the cursor to the bar number above
the staves, click on the bar you want to start from and drag the
cursor to the last bar number you want (this highlights the
selected bars), click on the “play only the selected
bars” button
and then press
the space bar to start/stop the playback
To start playing
from a specific bar
if the bar you want to start from is not displayed drag
the slider button with the bar number in at the bottom of the
screen 
until the bar
is displayed
right click on the bar heading for the bar you want to
start from 
at the top of
the window, click on “Set and reset play mark” and then
press the space bar to start playing from that point. You will need
to turn the play mark off to start right from bar 1
again
To vary the playing
speed
click on Score, click on General tempo this will
display the current tempo as the number of quarter notes per
minute. Make a note of the existing tempo before you change it so
that you can change it back later
change the number by either typing in a new number, or
by sliding the blue slider button left or right
To emphasise a voice
- if the “vol/pan” panel is not displayed then click
on Windows, Mixer and then either Small mixer or Complete mixer
(the small mixer takes up less space on the screen, the large one
is easier to use if you are not used to the using the mouse). If
the panel covers the line you are following it can be dragged to a
different part of the screen by clicking on the blue bar at the top
of its panel
- the Vol knobs
can be turned
by using the mouse to drag them round to increase or decrease the
volume for each stave. Hence you can increase the volume of your
own voice register to maximum and reduce the others to less than
half
- the Pan
knobs can be used to move your voice register to the right speaker
and other voices to the left speaker or vice versa
To show the notes
actually playing
click
on Configuration, Global setup, Play, and ensure that the
“Scroll music while playing” is checked and that
“Page after page” is checked and then click on OK
To listen to a
particular note
- click on the button
and the cursor
will then change to a hammer
- click on the note in the score
Saving your changes
if you
always make the same changes every time you play a piece then you
can save it by clicking on File and Save as and either replace the
original or add to the name if you want more than one version.
Replace the “.mus” with “.mid” at the end
of the name so that it is saved in midi format
To export your file in MIDI format you can also use
"File>Export>Midi"
Changing the
synthesiser voice for a stave
Usually choral music is computerised with a choral Aah for the
choral staves and with piano for the accompaniment. Sometimes all
the staves are recorded as piano; to change the choral staves to
choral aah
- left click on the
to the left of
the stave. This will display a menu of options
- click on the “Edit related instruments”
- In the “Set” column click on “Ensemble”
and then in the “name” column click on “Choir
Aahs”
- Click on “OK”
Metronome
To set the metronome on or off click
on the
