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MusicPrinter Plus v3.2 Demo - Quick Start MIDI PREPARATION ---------------- If you intend to play back your scores or create scores using Real-Time Input, you must have a MIDI interface installed in your computer. If your MIDI interface is an IBM Music Feature, you must run MFDRIVER prior to the MusicPrinter Plus Demo. (At the DOS type MFDRIVER and press the ENTER key.) If you are running on a Yamaha C1 computer, you must run C1DRIVER prior to the MusicPrinter Plus Demo. The Roland MPU-401 and its compatibles require no special preparation unless you have changed the card's IRQ to a value other than 2. If you have done so, you must run the program IRQ.EXE prior to the Demo to register the new IRQ value for MusicPrinter Plus. ________________________________________________________________________ MusicPrinter Plus is a software program designed to make notation and performance of a musical composition quick and easy. Because you are currently working with a DEMO disk which has a limited session time, this tutorial is best used with a single- or double-staff composition. In this way, you can quickly become familiar with some of the basic operations that MusicPrinter Plus provides. Please note, however, that the program is designed to score, transpose, perform and print out parts for full orchestral, choral, or band compositions as well. ________________________ TO BEGIN _______________________ (You may copy all demo disks to your hard drive if you have one.) Insert the DEMO PROGRAM disk (Disk 1). At the DOS prompt, type: MPDEMO (press enter) You will first see the demo's introductory screen. Please read it carefully. When you are finished, hit ENTER. The next screen requests two pieces of information. The first of these is the type of screen display the computer uses. If you have a Hercules display, MusicPrinter Plus will recognize it, and you can proceed with the program. Otherwise, you will have to specify your screen display type. The default is CGA (Color Graphics Adapter). This format is available on almost every type of video system. If a higher grade video adapter is installed in your computer, you should specify it by pressing F7. If you are not sure about your screen display, try the various options. If you select a wrong display, the screen will go blank after you have selected a file. You may then have to re-boot and try another option. The second piece of information you must provide is the name of a file you wish to edit. Two sample files are provided with the DEMO. These are named "1-STAFF" and "2-STAFF." type: 1-STAFF (for a single staff) or 2-STAFF (for a double staff piano score) When you have entered one of these names, a single or double staff will be called up from your MPDEMO disk and appear on the screen. MusicPrinter Plus v3.2 DEMO Quick Start page ii There are four major features of MusicPrinter Plus. 1) The Music Editor 2) Real-Time MIDI Input 3) MIDI Performance 4) Printing _______________________ THE MUSIC EDITOR ______________________ You have just entered the first of these, the Editor. Here, your computer keyboard functions as a kind of musical "typewriter". You can now use it to score and edit the "music paper" which shows on the screen. The blinking quarter note is your CURSOR. The cursor indicates the current position, and can be moved from one location to another using the ARROW keys as well as the HOME, END, PAGE UP and PAGE DOWN keys. It can also be controlled with a mouse. Try moving the cursor around using these keys: press: ARROW KEYS (left, right, up, down) HOME or END PAGE UP or PAGE DOWN Whenever you strike a letter, number or punctuation key on the computer keyboard the cursor becomes the musical symbol represented by that key. Some keys represent the first letter of the name of a musical symbol, while others resemble the musical symbol itself. Try experimenting with some of the following keys: type: Q quarter note : repeat sign E eighth note # sharps < crescendo I measure bar lines C clefs F forte Notice that most of the keys can be hit a second, third, or sometimes even fourth time to selected other characters of the same type. Try this with the "C" key, for example. Symbols may be placed into the score by hitting the SPACE BAR or by clicking the left mouse button. Try this with a series of quarter notes: type: Q Use the arrow keys or mouse to move the note to a different location and hit the SPACE BAR or left mouse button again. If you make a mistake, you can erase a symbol from the score by returning the cursor to the symbol and pressing the ESC key. (The cursor must be the same symbol as the character being erased.) MusicPrinter Plus v3.2 DEMO Quick Start page iii Another way to remove a symbol is with the BACKSPACE key. Position your cursor to the right of the symbol you want to erase and press: BACKSPACE (until the symbol disappears) Another set of keys you need to be familiar with are the FUNCTION keys, F1, F2, F3.....F10, and their variants, ALT-F9, ALT-F10, CTRL-F5 and so on. Instead of representing musical symbols, these keys are used to access various functions within MusicPrinter Plus. These functions are listed in the HELP menu. To access the HELP screens, type: F1 (a single function key) Now press F2 for a list of function keys. From here you can press any function key to learn more about the various options available with MusicPrinter Plus. When you are finished reading, type: ESC One of the most useful function keys is the F5 key. This key provides you with a pair of brackets. Areas within these brackets can be copied, deleted, moved, beamed, or even transposed. After hitting F5 you can get additional information by striking F1. ____________________ REAL-TIME MIDI INPUT __________________ The second feature we shall explore is REAL-TIME PLAY-IN. If you have a keyboard synthesizer connected to your computer, you will notice that when you strike a key on that keyboard the cursor moves to the appropriate line or space on the staff. If this does not happen, your synth keyboard and/or MIDI interface is not hooked up correctly, or you failed to run MFDRIVER or C1DRIVER prior to starting the MusicPrinter Plus DEMO. In REAL-TIME INPUT mode, MusicPrinter Plus notates music on the staff as you play it. We will begin this process by loading a "blank" music file. type: F10 (function key F10) type: L (for "LOAD") type: 1-STAFF (the file name) Now place the cursor to the right of the treble clef: press: ALT F9 (hold down the ALT key while pressing the F9 function key) MusicPrinter Plus v3.2 DEMO Quick Start page iv You are now in MIDI REAL-TIME ENTRY panel #1. Use the arrow keys to move the cursor up and down through the various options. We shall concern ourselves at this point with only six options: 1.) Number of beats in bar (Indicate using number keys) type: 4 2.) Lowest note value to be entered (use space bar to see the various options) press space bar until it reads: Eighth 3.) Number of bars to enter type: 8 4.) Staff entry mode press space bar until it reads: Single staff 5.) Automatic or user-controlled metronome press space bar until it reads: Automatic 6.) Notation mode press space bar until it reads: User-imposed rests: no overlapping notes You have just completed the preparation for a short, single-staff composition in 4/4. The lowest note value you can notate will be an eighth note. Now let's try playing some music. press: F10 (function key) You should now see the staff and hear the computer speaker clicking 4/4 meter. Notice that these clicks subdivide the beat into eighth notes, and that they correspond to the moving arrows at the base of the screen. Next to the arrows is the tempo marking. You can use the + and - (or < and >) keys to speed up or slow down this tempo. When you are ready to begin real-time entry, you must press the SPACEBAR. The metronome will then provide you with one measure countdown, and entry will begin on the next downbeat. When you begin playing, try to stay as close as you can to the beat. Let's begin. press: SPACEBAR (you will have one introductory measure) When you have completed eight measures, the input process will automatically stop. You now have two options. You can keep what you just played or you can get rid of it and try it again. MusicPrinter Plus v3.2 DEMO Quick Start page v 1.) If you liked what you did: press: ENTER (you then return to EDIT mode) 2.) If you did not like it: press: ESC to exit, or R for replay. (Esc will delete the material you just played and put you back in EDIT mode.) (R will tell the program to reset itself to the place where you last were. There it will wait for you to hit the SPACEBAR and begin again.) Remember, once you hit ENTER you are back in EDIT mode. Here you can manipulate the music using the editing functions described in the first part of this tutorial. (This includes adding lyrics, dynamics and so forth.) You may also opt to execute the REFORMAT function by pressing ALT-F7. When you have finished, we can move on to the third feature of the MusicPrinter Plus program. _______________________ MIDI PERFORMANCE _____________________ MusicPrinter Plus allows you to perform the score you have just created, using the various sounds provided by your synthesizer. press: ALT F10 (hold down the ALT key while pressing the F10 function key) The MIDI PERFORMANCE MENU is a listing of available options. For the purpose of this tutorial we shall be concerned with only the first three steps. type: 1 (PERFORMANCE CONFIGURATION NUMBER 1) If your score consists of a single line of melody, only one voice is necessary to play it back. If, however, you played more than one note at the same time, you will need to tell the computer how many notes or "voices" you used in your music. When you have typed in that number, you are ready to go to the next panel. press: PgDn Notice that the top of this second panel is partitioned into three sections: SCORE, MIDI, and SYNTH. Each of these sections is in turn divided up into several parts. The first of these sections lists, from left to right, the number of voices (notes) you are using, what staff those voices are placed on, and in what direction the note stems are pointing. MusicPrinter Plus v3.2 DEMO Quick Start page vi If you are working with three voices on a single staff, for example, your configuration should read: SCORE STAFF STEM VOICE NUMBER DIRECTION 1 1 Up/Down 2 1 Up/Down 3 1 Up/Down a single voice would read: SCORE STAFF STEM VOICE NUMBER DIRECTION 1 1 Up/Down MIDI, the second section listed on the top of the panel, deals specifically with MIDI information. CHANNEL ASSIGNMENT refers to the MIDI channel over which you wish to send this voice's information. For the time being, keep everything on MIDI channel 1. DYNAMIC BALANCE indicates the relative loudness desired for this voice (127 is loudest, O is off), and STEREO POSITION has to do with sending the voice to the right or left side of a stereo synthesizer. The third part of this panel initializes the patches (sounds) on your MIDI synthesizer. Each of the patches on your instrument has a number. If you are unsure as to what those numbers are, look them up in your synthesizer manual. When you have found the sound you want, type in that number. The M-F BANK column represents bank numbers for the IBM MUSIC FEATURE card or Yamaha FB01. Ignore it if you are using other equipment. Having set your MIDI channel to 1 and your patch number to the sound of your choice, you are now ready to continue. press: ESC (this takes you back to the MIDI PERFORMANCE MENU) type: 2 then press the RETURN key After a moment, the MIDI PERFORMANCE MENU screen will reappear. The computer has now finished translating your notation into a MIDI performance sequence. It is important to remember that every time you alter your score you must repeat this procedure so that the MIDI performance sequence will contain your alterations. Now you are ready to play the music. type: 3 The score you created should now be playing. (Be sure that your synthesizer is set to receive on channel #1.) MusicPrinter Plus v3.2 DEMO Quick Start page vii You may use the following keys for control during playback: SPACEBAR will stop the music and allow you to play it back event-by-event R will let you repeat an event RETURN will start the music from the point at which you stopped it with the SPACEBAR BACKSPACE will step through the events backwards + or - will speed up or slow down the tempo during playback ESC will stop the music and take you back to EDIT mode. For other examples of MIDI PERFORMANCE, you may load one of our sample scores from the DOCUMENTATION/EXAMPLE DISK (Disk 2). These scores have MIDI CONFIGURATIONS and PERFORMANCE SEQUENCES already prepared and stored on the disk. Practice editing these files and performing them. ________________________ PRINTING ________________________ For this demo, scores that you create cannot be printed. You may instead send one of our sample scores to your printer by executing the command MPPRINT. You can find this command and its associated files on the SAMPLE PRINTOUT disk. (Although you may observe that the disk is full of executable (.EXE) files, do not try to run these programs.) The DEMO print procedure requires a WORK DISK with several hundred thousand bytes of free space. (The precise requirement depends on the printer you will select from the menu.) For example, to create a printout with drive C as your work disk, type: MPPRINT C: (press enter) If the DEMO print procedure requires more disk space than is available, it will tell you exactly how much is required. If you do not have a hard drive, you will need 2 floppy drives to run MPPRINT. Please note that the work disk is needed only for this demo. It is not a requirement of the commercial version of MusicPrinter Plus. (End of Document.)