Dear
Musicians,
This is
issue #33 of the Pizzicato musical newsletter. It is intended to
help you to better know and use Pizzicato. You will find in it
various articles about Pizzicato, its use and aspects, but also
references to the music course and links to other music related
sites.
You may
send us any information to publish about music (performances,
festivals, exhibitions, CD publications, music training sessions,
Internet links,...). You may also tell us any difficulty you have
with Pizzicato so that we can explain the solutions in the next
issue. This letter is for you.
We hope
you will enjoy reading it.
Musically,
Dominique
Vandenneucker,
ARPEGE-Music
29, rue de l'Enseignement
B-4800 Verviers
Belgium
Phone/Fax ++32 - 87.26.80.10
info@arpegemusic.com
Visit our site: http://www.arpegemusic.com
Copyright
2004, Arpege Sprl, all rights reserved.
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Editorial
We
have seen last month the various possibilities offered by a
sound card, as well as the methods used to generate sounds.
While
working with a MIDI software (like Pizzicato), it is useful
to select, collect, handle and play instruments sounds with
which you want your scores and composition played. How ?
I
suggest the use of the SoundFont standard, created by the
Creative Labs and Emu companies. It is a well known sound
format and you can find lots of sound libraries, some free
and some to buy. Let's see the practical steps to select your
sounds, create a bank and assign them so that Pizzicato can
play your scores with your sound selection.
The
first phase is to select your sounds. This needs to steps :
find sounds and listen to them. To find sounds, use your
prefered Internet research tool (Google, Yahoo, Msn,...) and
enter keywords "Free SoundFont". You will rapidly
find numerous sites with SoundFont instruments and effects.
Some are good, some are bad. You must then listen to them and
test them.
For
this, you can use the Virtual Sampler 3 software. You can
download its demo version at http://www.maz-sound.com/index.php?show=product&id=2 Once installed, you may open a
SoundFont file and listen to the sounds with a musical
keyboard displayed on the screen. When installing the
software, specify that you want the "Speedsoft Midi
Cables" installed. With them, Pizzicato will be able to
send the notes of your score to Virtual Sampler 3. These
"virtual cables" may then be selected in the
Pizzicato Option menu, Midi Setup... and set in the MIDI
output.
You may proceed as
follows to select your sounds :
- Add a directory
in your hard disk for the sound files you download,
for instance C:\SoundFonts\Download
- Use a search
engine to find sites offering SoundFont files
- Download a sound
in your directory. SoundFont files have the
".sf2" extension
- Start Virtual
Sampler 3 and click the "sf2" button in the
middle of the screen.
- Using the opening
dialog, select the downloaded file
- The sounds
contained in the file appear in the main part of the
screen. By clicking a sound, you may then listen to
it by using the musical keyboard displayed on the
screen.
- If the sound
looks good for you, move the file to another
directory, for instance C:\SoundFonts\My Sounds
- Continue to
select your prefered sounds for each instrument
family you use,...
The next step is to
assemble those sounds into a personal sound bank that can be
used by Pizzicato (or by any MIDI software). The idea is to
take each sound you have individually selected and create a
unique SoundFont file (.sf2) that contains them all.
For this purpose, you
may download the free software "Vienna SoundFont Studio
2" on the Creative Labs site at (http://www.soundfont.com/downloads.html ). This software lets you
create a sound bank and fill it with sounds from various
other banks and then save them in one unique file.
The main problem is
the correspondance between MIDI and the created SoundFont
file. The Vienna software lets you assign a Preset number (0
to 127) and a bank number (0 to 127). First assign all sounds
to bank 0 and for the preset, respect the General Midi
numbering (you can find the list at http://www.bluemax.net/techtips/Midi/Midipatchnum.htm but be aware that some user
interfaces use a number from 1 to 128 and some others between
0 and 127; subtract or add 1 accordingly). For instance, if
you find a good violin sound, assign it bank 0 and preset 40
(41 minus 1 for the violin, see the list). In this way, you
stay compatible with General Midi and the MIDI files you
create or open stay standard on the sounds used.
If you create an
extensive sound bank, for instance by adding 10 different
violin sounds, keep the same preset but use other values than
0 for the bank number, while keeping the 0 bank for the
default violin.
While doing this,
write carefully on paper the sound table (preset, bank and
instrument name), because you will need it to create a
compatible synthesizer for Pizzicato.
To use the Vienna
software, read the help section of the help menu. This
program also helps you to create Sound Font files starting
from any Wav or mp3 file.
Once your SoundFont
file has been created, you need to play it with Pizzicato or
a MIDI software. If you have a recent SoundBlaster card (from
AWE 64 up), you may use the utility program of the card to
load your sound library into the card, because the card has
an integrated SoundFont player. For details, see the
documentation and the online help of the card (Start,
Program, Creative) to know how to load a file into your card.
If you do not have a
SoundFont compatible card, you may use a SoundFont player
software. Virtual Sampler 3 does this, but there are others
too. Search for them on the Web with expressions like
"SoundFont player, SoundFont reader". In any case,
the software must give a direct MIDI link, i.e. adding a MIDI
output port in Windows so that it can be used by Pizzicato or
any MIDI software.
In Pizzicato, the last
step is to select the MIDI output (Option menu, Midi
Setup...) which corresponds to the SoundFont compatible card
or to the MIDI output going to the SoundFont player software.
For the Pizzicato
Light and Beginner versions, the only possible synthesizer is
the General Midi, so you need to respect the General Midi
preset numbering as exposed here above.
Fot the Professional
Pizzicato version, you may create a new synthesizer which
answers to the various sounds assigned to the non zero bank
instruments. Refer to the lesson on synthesizers on the
screen help or on our site at page http://www.arpegemusic.com/manual/EN630.htm Use the list you have prepared
while selecting your sounds in Vienna.
The use of the various
softwares renders the task more complex and what we described
here is not a simple procedure. We envision tools to create
your personal SoundFont files so that Pizzicato may handle
itself this sometimes complicated task of assigning presets
and banks. This article was designed only to give you the
main steps of the process so that you can personalize your
sounds and use them with Pizzicato.
Concerning sound
banks, if your needs are high regarding the orchestral
instruments quality, you may orient yourself to the EW
Symphonic Orchestra software which contains an impressive
quantity of orchestral recorded samples. The software exists
in various versions between 300 and 3000 $US. You may find
information at http://www.soundsonline.com/sophtml/details.phtml?sku=EW-161 The demo files show the
quality of the sound result. It seems that the software uses
a personalized sample player and needs a powerful machine.
Dominique
Vandenneucker
Designer
of Pizzicato.
Aspects
and applications of Pizzicato...
Discover
the various aspects and applications of Pizzicato
Musical
dictation with Pizzicato
Did
you know that you can exercise yourself to musical dictation
with Pizzicato Light ? The principle of the musical dictation
is to listen to 1 or 2 measures without seing the notes and
transcribe them in musical notation. The practical
application is the little melody you sing and you want to
write down on paper correctly.
Pizzicato
has an exercise generator to help learning the reading of
notes on a musical keyboard connected to the computer. But
this function may also be used to generate musical dictation,
exactly as in a music course class. You may adjust the
difficulty level for notes and rhythms. Here is how to do it:
- Start
Pizzicato and open the "Keyboard learning
44.piz" file in the "Libraries"
folder.
- Double
click "Exercise" and the score window
appears.
- The
lower view contains 16 melodic items "Melodies 1
to 15 and chromatic melodies") and 20 rhythmic
items (1 to 20). To create a new exercise, drag a
rhythm item and a melody item into the first score
measure. A new exercise is created and appears on the
score.
- By
dragging again the same item, a new exercise is
generated because these items represent difficulty
levels and rhythm sets that the computer may then
combine in a thousand ways.
- In
the "Window" menu, select
"Sequencer...". Zoom this window so that it
hides the score view. The sequencer window contains
the same 12 measures, but visible as 12 little blocks
so that you can not see the notes value.
- You
may drag a rhythm and a melody into the first block.
Pizzicato creates an exercise.
- In
the "Window" menu, open the Recorder
window.
- Check
the "Mtr" (metronome) box. By pushing the
START key (yellow arrow), Pizzicato plays starting
from the first measure. You may stop it with the STOP
key (blue button) and then try to write what you
heared on paper. Listen to it several times if
needed.
- To
start from a given measure, click this measure (which
then becomes highlighted) and click START.
- You
may print music paper by printing the page that
appears when launching the program.
Once
done with the dictation, close or move the sequencer Window
and the correct notes are displayed on the score window. You
may then correct and start again. With the same or another
difficulty level. Have a nice time !
To
know more about those functions, read the lesson on learning
the keyboard ( http://www.arpegemusic.com/manual/EN720.htm )
Tips and
advices for Pizzicato...
Frequently asked questions about
Pizzicato
Using a
non MIDI instrument with Pizzicato ?
To encode notes in
Pizzicato without using the mouse or computer keyboard, the
only solution is MIDI. Usually, one thinks that we are
limited to a synthesizer keyboard, organ or MIDI compatible
electric piano and people not playing the keyboard find
themselves disappointed.
You must know that
various MIDI converter exist for acoustic instruments like
guitar, sax, bass, violin, brasses, battery,... and even the
human voice. Such a converter is often specific for an
instrument, but it provides a MIDI output that can be used
directly by Pizzicato to encode the notes of a score rapidly.
This type of converter
may be found in specialised music stores. A MIDI cable
connects it to the computer and from there, any MIDI musical
software may use the notes played on your guitar, violin,
sax,...
Truncated
dialogs on Windows XP
If you select big
fonts under Windows XP, it may happen that some Pizzicato
dialogs get truncated in their lower part. This problem will
be corrected in a future release. If this happens, do the
following :
- Go to the control
panels of Windows
- Double click the
display item
- Select the
Appearance tab
- Modofy the font
size to "Normal"
The
beginner's corner...
Musical
basics and access to the Pizzicato music course
Bar lines
and repeats
The various
bar lines
The bar lines seen
until now are vertical lines delimiting the measures on
the staff.
To terminate a
score, a thin bar followed by a thick one is placed on
the last measure:
To separate
several distinct parts of a score, a double thin bar may
be used:
It is often used
during a key signature change or between the various
sections or movements of a score.
In some types of
music (especially contemporary), one does not separate
the staves in measures. The staff is seen as a support
for notes, but the concept of time slicing in equal
durations is no more used. Performance is often much
freer or follows other criteria specified by the
composer.
Repeats
It is common to
play several times some sections of a music score, such
as for example a chorus or a theme which is played twice.
One could simply write the concerned measures twice, but
it would be a loss of space and useless work.
Let us take the
simplest case. A given number of measures must be played
twice. To specify that, a special bar line is placed on
the left of the first measure of the passage and on the
right of the last measure of it. They are repeat bar
lines. Here is a practical example:
The measures from
2 to 5 (i.e. the measures located between the two repeat
markings) must be played twice. The musician who reads
this score will thus play the measures in the following
order:
...To
read the full lesson, see the lesson
about bar lines and repeat on our site...
Music on
the Web...
Links
related to music
The
commercial page...
You have
Pizzicato Light...
To
discover music in an interactive way, Pizzicato
Light is quite enough. With it, you can write
exercises and little scores. The main limit of the program is
the way you can structure the score and also the number of
measures and staves you can use.
If you
want to create and print custom scores, you may update to the
Beginner and/or Professional versions. Consult the 5 pages
which describe the possibilities added by those versions: www.arpegemusic.com/partition1.htm
You will also find a
table with the differences between the various versions of
Pizzicato, on page www.arpegemusic.com/differences.htm
Have a look at our new
order page, with updates at low prices. Click here to find out...
You have Pizzicato
Beginner...
The
professional version could bring you the following
advantages:
- Printing
may be done in all sizes (page layout zoom)
- Symbols
(nuances, tempo, trills, effects,...) are performed
through the sound card or synthesizer
- You
may easily extract the parts of an orchestral
conductor score. The page layout of parts, including
multimeasure rests, is much easier.
- Tools
to write and hear percussion instruments
- The
possibility to modify and create new graphic and MIDI
symbols
- Chord
analysis and chord finding on a melody
- Tools
to help you compose music
- C
and percussion clefs
- ...
Consult
the 5 pages which describe the possibilities added by this
version: www.arpegemusic.com/partition1.htm
There is also an
electronic upgrade for a very interesting
price. Click here to find out...
You have
Pizzicato Professional...
You
just need to wait for the next version... In the
meantime, a lot of things are still to be discovered in this
version and this letter will help you to do so. Ask us any
question so we can answer in the next issue of this letter.
You may also suggest us new functions to add in the next
release of Pizzicato. We listen to the users as best as we
can.
We are
at your disposal.
Our
purpose is to place music in everybody's hands
and to
bring people to more musical creativity
Use
Pizzicato and make music!