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Text File | 1992-07-16 | 26KB | 679 lines

======================== Nimble Musician ======================== Version 2.0 Ni Min ( Frank ) July 17, 1992 Developed at Indiana University, Bloomington,IN nimin@copper.ucs.indiana.edu This program is developed to fill the needs of computer music fans like me, who like music but don't want to get into the details of music notation. Five years ago, as I still remember, on a evening after dinner in Shanghai, I came to the idea of writing a computer music program, so I told my parents, but they laughed, as if without much music knowledge one can not write a useful program. However I didn't give up this idea, little by little I used my spare time to realize this dream, and now I can proudly say : " Here it is, I have made it ! " This program is called : " NM ". It's born exactly 26 years after I was born (July,7,1966). NM uses X window as its base, so it works on the Sparcs and its compatibles. Users can edit music in the five line style. Inputs may go through both mouse and keyboard. Outputs may go through screen, printer and the Next machine's sound system. Since the Sparcs doesn't have a satisfactory sound function, the NM package offers a translate function so that users can translate the Textfile output by NM to a Scorefile which can be played back on a Next machine. The sampling rate is 22050 ( or 44100 ) samples per second, which is about CD quality. NM also offers the ability to have words go with the melody. The most important is to remember : move your mouse around to find out which buttons on the menu are active, only the active buttons will respond when you click on them. Secondly, when you start the program, if you don't see anything show up on the screen after 30 seconds, click the right most mouse button to reflash the window, it will do no harm. There are 36 different sorts of music you can input, it's up to you to name them, but the first and last kinds are fixed. The first kind represents tempos used by drums, the last kind represents tempo sets, in which a set of tempos are grouped together as one unit. Because of the unique data structure, these two are not compatible with other 34 kinds. All the 36 kinds can have whatever names you choose, but remember : the first and the last kinds are different from others, names don't change their structures. The capacity for each kind is 1,000. Totally NM may handle 34,000 melodies + 1,000 tempos + 1,000 tempo-sets. So enjoy yourself and the NM . I have a suggestion at the bottom of this file, see if you like it ! ******************************************************************************** NM Usuage Overview ******************************************************************************** From now on the underlined parts meaning you need to type them in. In the NM directory type > make nm to compile the program --------- ( do the above when "nm" is not yet in your Dir_NM directory. ) The executable file " nm " will be created ( if it wasn't there already ). To run the program just type > nm ---- In the main menu, there are dozens of choice buttons, and on the top middle is a text table. In the lower part of the menu are the host buttons. <1> List Click on the "List" button on the menu to see how many melodies you have and what are they. If you want to see a particular melody, click the left button on "Output/Bk" and then click on that melody in the list table. Once you are in that melody, hit the "Esc" or click the right mouse button on the page number, at the top of the screen, to get back to the menu. In many case if you click the mouse on the classification names like: Waltz, you will start from the beginning ( in Output mode ) or input a new melody ( in Input mode ). Otherwise, if you click on a particular melody name in the list table, you will work on that particular one. Since the screen is not large enough for displaying all 36 kinds, NM offers the ability to move the list table around. For instance, if I want to see the 30th kind which is outside the screen, I may use the middle mouse button to move the list table, so that the part I want to see may show up on the screen. To do this, first move the mouse pointer into the text table, press down the middle button, and drag the mouse to the left just a little bit, then release the button, see what happens. When you drag, don't let the mouse pointer move out of the text table ! By the same means, you may drag the mouse up and down. <2> Input Use mouse to click on the "Input" button of the menu, and then click on the kind of melody you want to input, when you are asked for some info like : name, time, measure, just type in or simply hit return to take the default values. Example of info needed to be typed in: Input new one (Y/N) ? Y --- Melody name : 1001. march-1 ------- Timer = 3 Measure = 4 --- --- The above example means 3/4 in music notation. The default is 4/4. The default name is "IM?". To edit an existing melody, you may do either of the following: [1] Click on "List", and click on "Input", then click on an existing melody and answer the following questions: Change name ? Y ( or N to use old name ) --- --- Melody name: 1002.my-new-one ---------- Timer = 2 Measure = 4 --- --- or [2] Click on "Input", and click on a classification name,such as "African" and answer the following questions: Input new one (Y/N) ? N --- Melody number : 2 (assume it exists) --- Change name ? Y ( or N to use old name ) --- --- Melody name: 1002.my-new-one ---------- Timer = 2 Measure = 4 --- --- Now you can use the "z", "x", "c" keys to choose the note at the bottom of the screen, and use : left,right,up,down arrow keys to get to the right position in the staff ( five line ). Hit the Return key , when decided, to enter a note. To switch to the lower part of the score, use the mouse to click on the "High" button at the bottom of the screen, it's a toggle button, click on it again to get back to the higher part. To delete a note, move the cursor to that note and hit the "Del" key ( or click the rightmost button of the mouse on that note which will give you a blank space). Also, if you intend to input a blank space on the score, use "z", "x", "c" keys to move to the "Bar" position at the right, then hit Return key. To insert a note, kit the "Ins" key, you will notice the "Insert On" info at the bottom, move the cursor to the position and then insert the note. Hit the "Ins" key again to turn it off. When you have more than one page, you can use the "PgUp", "PgDn" keys to move around in the melody. The "Home" key is used as a lock, when it is on you can use the four arror keys for the purpose of changing Speed and Percent of the melody. The Speed is used to control how many beats per minute. The Percent is used to control the relative time length of the each beat. When the "Lock" is "On", you can also use "<" and ">" keys to change Timbre value. You don't need to use Shift key to get "<" and ">" working. To be on the safe side, press "V" during input to save the melody. Use "Esc" to exit without saving. Click the rightmost button on the page number at the top middle of the screen to save and exit. When you finish a melody choose the finish sign " || " at the bottom and hit the Return key, the melody will automatically be saved when you finish. When you use it for the first time, input a dummy melody just to get accustomed to the NM conventions, just as the saying goes : practice makes perfect ! There are eight parts: four higher parts and four lower parts. In either case , higher or lower, after you have used keys to input one part of the score, you can use mouse to input the other parts. Use the leftmost button to add. Use the middle button to delete --- just point on an existing note and click the middle button on it. The single line " | " at the bottom of the choosing board is used for the first section line on the score --- in case of irregular first section, other section lines are drawn automatically. The "/" sign is used to input sound unit, for future use, after you hit the return key on the "/" sign, input a number represents that sound unit id, the sound unit can be input in the Sound function in the main menu. To input words, click the left button of the mouse on the " ** " button on the right of the choosing board. A text table will appear at the bottom, use the left button to input small letter, middle button for capital letter and the right button for space. When you are inputing words, you may reposition the text cursor as you want, to do this, just move the mouse pointer up to the words, use the left button to click on the words ( not the text table ), and use the middle button to add space, right button to delete. To get back to score mode, just click on the "Text" button at the buttom of the screen. To input sharp/flat/natural signs, you first use 'z','x','c' to move the cursor on that sign, hit return and move the cursor to the appropriate position to choose the note you want to be associated with that sign (sharp/flat/natural). If you already have a note in a chord, and you want to mark a sharp/flat/natural sign on another note in the same chord, first you move the cursor to that sign, then click the left mouse button on that note to input the sign. Note: all flat signs will be expressed as equavalent sharp signs. <3> Output/Bk Click the left button on the "Output/Bk" on the menu, and choose the kind the melody you want to see. If you click the "List" button you may then click on the particular melody you want to check out. Use "PgUp" and "PgDn" keys to move around in the melody. Click the middle mouse button on "Output/Bk" will make a backup copy of all melodies in the Dir_Text directory in *.text mode, and creat a Dir_Text.tar.Z in the Dir_NM_Bank directory for you --- when you do "Load" this package will be unpacked and loaded into the category you specify. If you have some tempo goes with the melody, you will find the tempo # and instrument # in the tempo table at the lower left and lower right side of the screen, and if you want to see the tempo click the left button on the tempo table to take a tour, if you want to finish the tempo tour and get back to the melody, click the same place again. <4> Re_Name To re-name an existing melody, you can do either of the following: [1] Input it again, when you are asked : "Change name (Y/N) ? " answer Y and then type the --- new name. or [2] Click on "List" in the menu, click on "Re-Name". then click on the melody you want to change name, now the old name will be replaced by " ? ". from now on you may use the mouse button to click on the text table in the middle of the menu, the left button will give you small letter, the middle one is for capital letter. <5> Move-To Click the "List" first, then click on "Move To" to move one melody from one place to another. To do this just click on the melody name and its destination in the list table. For instance, I have the following two kinds of melodies: Aferican March Afer-1 March-1 Af---2 Mar---2 A----3 M-----3 After I click on "Move To", I click on "Af---2", then click on "Mar---2", the result will be like the following: Aferican March Afer-1 March-1 A----3 Af---2 Mar---2 M-----3 <6> Delete To delete melodies, click the "List" first, then click on "Delete", you may delete a bounch of songs at a time, but they must belong to the same category. For instance, I want to delete 4 marches from #4 to #7, and suppose march is the third kind, then those four marches should have these numbers: 2004,2005,2006,2007, so you click on the first one: 2004 and then click on the last one: 2007. You may also click on the last one: 2007 first and the first one second. < Before > < After > March March 2001.March-1 2001.March-1 2002.March-2 2002.March-2 2003.March-3 2003.March-3 * 2004.March-4 2004.March-8 2005.March-5 2005.March-9 2006.March-6 * 2007.March-7 2008.March-8 2009.March-9 <7> Value There are some space in each melody researved for its values, such as : Happy, Fast, Year, Bright, Famous, Smooth, etc, which will be used for future sorting purpose, they doesn't affect the melody. If you want to input those values, click on "Value", and click on a particular melody in the list. You will see a value table show up, move the mouse around in the table and use the three buttons to change the values. Press "q" to quit. <8> Check_Tmp This function is use to update the tempo, some times you receive a new melody, which will bring you some new tempos, when you click this button, the new tempos will be included in the tempo library you have --- the first kind of all the 36. On the other hand if you type in a new melody and want to use some none existing tempos, and enter the tempos later, you can also click on "Check_Tmp" after you input the tempos. To input tempo when you are in the "Input" mode, just press the "Home" key, and one of the Following : F1, F2, .. F6. So you can accompany one melody with 6 different tempos, and they will be performed at the same time. Here tempo refers to the patterns used by drums. For instance you press "Home" , and press "F1", you will find a little cursor at the bottom left of the screen in the tempo table. Then you may input any number and hit return , then input a instrument number, if you don't have tempos or instruments in your lib, it will not cause any problem, they will be used when you do have them in your lib later. F1..F6 are equally treated, so you don't have to worry about the order. <9> Switch Click the "List" first, then click on "Switch" to switch the positions of two different kinds of melodies in the list table. Notice that the first and the last two kinds don't move when you try to switch them with other kinds of music, and you can only move them within their own category --- use <4>. <10> Combine You may want to cut some pieces from one melody and some pieces from other melody, if so the "Combine" function will meet your such requirement. Click the left button on "Combine" and then click the same button on any kind of melody ( you can only combine two melodies of the same sort, to combine different sorts, first move they into the same category, then combine, after combination, move they back.) Once you are in one melody, use left and right arrow keys to move the cursor to the place you want to cut, press the "F3" key to mark the beginning, "F4" key to mark the end, "F5" key to copy this piece to the new one you are making, use "F1","F2" keys to move around different melodies. When you finish the combination press "Esc" to get back to menu, the new melody you just created will be added to the end of that category. <10> Timbre Not fully developed yet, you may treat it as an instrument lib, so if your first instrument is "Drum-1", and in your tempo table, you have tempo #2 goes with instrument #1, that means you use "Drum-1", to perform tempo #2. Use the four arrow keys, Home, PgUp, and PgDn to adjust the timbre, but now it wouldn't do anything to your melody. <11> Tempo_Set For users' convinence, I designed "Tempo_Set" function, click on it and then click either on an existing tempo set or click on any of the 36 sort in the table, you may then input a set of tempos, so when you use this tempo set all the tempos and instruments in the tempos set will be used as a combination. Use mouse to change the values. If you click the left button on the tempo set number section (upper right) , you will be moving around from one tempo set to another, to save a tempo set, click the middle button on the tempo set number section. <12> Load To be on the safe side, you should click the middle button on "Output/Bk" in the menu, so that you may have a *.text back up copy of all the melodies you have, they would be stored in the Dir_Text directory. So you may want to do this once in a while. When you receive an updated version of NM_Update melodies--- Dir_Text.tar.Z, you may put it in to Dir_NM directory and unpack it. In Dir_NM directory, type: uncompress Dir_Text.tar.Z ------------------------- then type: tar -xvf Dir_Text.tar --------------------- Then run NM to load the new version, just click the "Load" on the menu and then click on an empty category, so that after you load the songs ( a mixture of all 34 sorts), you may distribute them to the different sorts you have. I thought of doing this automatically, but since evary user may change the category names, it would cause confusion, so it's better let user decide which category the melodies should go. <13> Piano It shows how NM representation crosponse to a piano board. No sound now, try out both left and middle button, use right button to get back to the menu. <14> Print_Out On IU's system it will send printout to Ps10. It take a long time, so better not use it or use it during the none peak hours. To print a melody or tempo, click on "Print_Out", click on a particular melody name, there will be a cross "+" appear on the screen to replace the mouse pointer, you click on the left mouse button again to print that screen. Then the next page of the melody will appear and you need to click again to print it out. So do the above untill you finish a melody. Be patient, it will take 10 to 15 min. to print one page. Another way to print out the screen is to type the following lines into your .mwmrc file ( which can be found in your root directory by doing: ls -a ). Or maybe .twmrc file. ----- Buttons DefaultButtonBindings { ... Shift<Btn1Click> window !"xwd | xpr -device lw -rv | lpr -h -Pps4" ... } The above line means: send a screen copy to ps4 without printing the title page --- to save time. So you may change ps4 to whatever printer # you like. So after you open your X window, just hold down the Shift key and at the same time click the left button to print anything on your screen, don't forget to click one more time when you see a cross. This works beyound NM scope, it dumps any window to a printer. So if you want to print out a melody, run NM, click on "List", and click on "Print_Out", and click on that melody you want to print, then hold down Shift key and click left button, finally click the left button once more without Shift key. <15> NM is still under developing, but the main frame is there, and it can meet most people's need, to play the melodies back on a Next machine, you may use the "tts" file included in NM package ( in Dir_TTS directory ) to translate a *.text file into a *.score file, so the Next music player can play it back with CD quality. To do this , just make two directories in your Next account: Dir_Text, Dir_Score, as sub-directories, you run the "tts" in the main directory like the following: type : tts Dir_Text/a_melody_name.text ------------------------------- This will produce a new file : new.text.score in Dir_Text. Or you may mv the "tts" into Dir_Text directory and type : tts a_melody_name.text ---------------------- <16> Suggestions Since we all love music and we have the convinense of an efficient info passing method, it would be nice to broadcast the melodies I have on a regualr basis, and each of you may ask me to send you the latest version. But where would these melodies come from ? Each and every one of us is a single user, a single user's time and effort is limited, but if every one can input one or two at a time then we can share our energy as a group, and therefore maximize our effort, so that our melody library will grow rapidly. In order to benifit ourselves the following rules are required as a NM club member : [1] To join the NM club, just send me three melodies as a start, I will put your name on the list, and in addition you will get the latest NM library. After that, each time I receive a melody from you I will send you the updated NM lib. Which means if you e-mail me a new one, you may receive the updated library with ten or twenty more new melodies. [2] To keep the NM melody lib quality, each melody you send me should be at least one page long, which means the melody should extend on to at least page "1". Of course within the ten page extent that NM offers, the longer the better. [3] I will keep the right to examine every melody and decide if it's in good quality, if not --- doesn't sound like a melody --- I will not send you the latest lib. If this happens more than 3 times, your membership will be cancelled. By this way we can be sure our time is not wasted on garbage processing. [4] The most welcomed songs are those of traditional appreciation such as : On the Beautiful Blue Danube. To Alice. King ( Emperor ) Waltz. When Johnny comes marching home. Star spangled banner. Home sweet home. America, the beautiful. My bonney. Stars and stripes forever. ... Or those which appeared on the top charts, such as: Bad. Opposite track. Into the grove. Escapade. Man in the mirror. Papa don't preach. Let's have a holiday. Caribean Queen. Forever young. Eastend boys and westend girls. Rock around the clock. Bye-bye love. Rain drops keep falling on my head. Front-seat jazz Wait a minute Mr. postman. Achey breaky heart. Life is a highway. She is his only need. YMCA. Get out of my mind, get into my car. Who's that girl ? Suicide Blonde. Dance on the ceiling. Cold as ice. Can't touch this. You have to live and learn. ... Also, melodies by great masters are always welcomed, such as : Strauss. Bach. Schubert. Beethoven ... [5] This is an international network, therefore we can enjoy music from different nations with a wide range of color and flavor. This will help to broaden our music knowledge and improve our music taste. Each week or month I will update the NM lib, and put a list in my public directory. There will be two files, one is called : NM_Update --- it includes all melodies already in the NM lib. The other one will be called NM_Mark --- it will include those which someone has e-mailed me they will input, so that if you check both lists first before you input one, there will be less chance that you are re-making the wheel. So before you decide to input a melody, check out both NM_Update and NM_Mark. If you think it will take several days to finish inputing a melody, better inform me, so that I would instantly put it on the NM_Mark list, and no one else would do the same thing you are doing. When I receive a melody which was on the NM_Mark list , I will remove its name into NM_Update. If you think you can finish a melody within one or two hours, then you might not want to inform me first, because the chance of someone else is inputing the same melody at the same time is very small. So it's up to you. OK, folks, see if you like NM, as the next step, I considering output NM *.text files as MIDI files, and the other way around.