|
Improving your performance! |
||
|
Impress your Music Director Why wait until your conductor goes ape because you haven’t done any singing for three months? There is lots you can do at home to get your voice in trim for the new season. You don’t need a piano, just your original instrument; your voice. There are some very instructive and helpful sites. Notation and scanning software I have copies of Sibelius 5, Photoscore, OMER, Harmony Assistant and the free version of Anvil Studio and my favourite player, MidiPlay. Some of this software I find very tedious to use, particulary when producing midi files for learning.. Most often I key in the notes manually. However, I have recently discovered SharpEye which makes a very accurate scan of sheet music and interprets it as a midi file. It is very quick and has saved me hours of keying in. You can download an evaluation copy here. Kay and Peter Bates are registered users of Music Publisher. This software comprises Notation and Music Character Recognition. The method of entering notes is as easy as ABC - literally! If you want the note A, just type A on your keyboard and it will appear on the stave. Thank you both. Try it here. Here is another program which has been recommended. Noteworthy Composer Scriptorium. The contributor told me that he has used this package for many years to prepare electronic versions for fellow choristers. There is a free reader, also a browser plug-in. He has no hesitation in recommending the full version at $39. Give them a try and let me know what you think. Other aids For sheet music, try To develop music theory and Isn’t it wonderful when you arrive at rehearsal to find that everybody is note-perfect? Equally, have you wasted time while the other sections (not yours, of course) do their note-bashing? Click here how to learn them. Learning the notes As a Junior, I was told ,”There’s no point in coming to see me to do your practice”. I discovered that if you didn’t know your notes before the concert, you certainly wouldn’t find them on the day. So learning the notes is fundamental before you can start to make the music. Learning is sometimes very difficult. Almost the worst situation is having to perform a programme comprising perhaps ten works, all from different composers, styles and centuries. Learning a Mass or an Oratorio is helped because you know the format; a Kyrie, Gloria, Benedictus, Agnus Dei and so on. However, your Webmaster has sometimes found it difficult to learn Early Music owing to the lack of ‘geography’. Thomas Tallis’ Spem in Alium is typical. See opposite. A modern way to learn is by listening to midi files (.mid) which can be downloaded from the Internet. Double-clicking on the file will make it play in your default player, usually Microsoft Media Player.
|
Choose your media player
However, there are better ways to control what you hear and to see the score at the same time. Consider these. |
Midi sources (continued) If you would like me, the Webmaster to send you selected files in a zip (to save you having to download), tell me the work you require and which voice part you sing. Click here There are lots of classical midi files if you know where to look. Now you do! Here are some.
Want to learn Vittoria’s O Magnum Mysterium? Take a look at this experimental page and tell me what you think? Is it worth doing this for other compositions? Thomas Tallis’ Spem in Alium One of the best sources of midi files for Tallis is Alternatively go to www.brightonconsort.org.uk. I suggest that you use the “Spem in alium in 40 parts” file because I didn’t find that the individual choirs worked very well. If you sit down to consider what Tallis is doing in Spem, you will discover the narrative which moves the whole work along and cements the sections together. Spem is probably his Masterwork. He accepted the challenge of showing how an English composer was more than a match for his Continental rivals. You will find counterpoint, harmony, syncopation all in Spem. If you stand back, you can see the form and why he needed eight choirs and forty voices! There are six elements to the work but there is no break between them. There are Key Points which help tell you where you are, so listen for them.
Counting the timing is probably the most important thing in Spem; it is not the notes which are difficult. You might not be able to hear clearly, choirs other than your own. If you have a metronome or use that in the AnvilStudio program, you might find dividing each bar into 8 beats will help a lot. Once you’ve learned the notes you should be able to hear the music. I hope you will find this helpful and not just pretentious crap from an amateur musician. Who knows, had I done my practise regularly, I might have made professional. Any queries or comments, please contact Webmaster |
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
Links to midi sources. One of the best sources of midi files is Classical Archives. These links might take you to where the files are located
Unfortunately, Cyberbass now charges for midi files. Hitherto, you were able to right-click and save but all you can do now is double-click and they will play in a window. |
||
 "MIDIPLAY10-40")
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |