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SHAREWARE REGISTRATION FORM To register PIANOMAN, send this form with $25 to: Support Group Inc. P.O. Box 130 McHenry, MD 21541 You may also register using MasterCard or VISA by calling 800/USA-GROUP or 301/889-7893. NAME: __________________________________________________ ADDRESS: __________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ Where did you get your evaluation copy of PIANOMAN? __________________________________________________ Method of payment: __ Check or money order enclosed: |__| __ MasterCard |__| __ VISA |__| Card Number: ________________________ Expiration Date: ____________________ Signature: __________________________ TAX ID #226-82-5633 PIANOMAN and PLAYER PIANO Users' Guide version 4.01 copyright 1986, 1988 by Neil J. Rubenking _______ ____|__ | (tm) --| | |------------------- | ____|__ | Association of | | |_| Shareware |__| o | Professionals -----| | |--------------------- |___|___| MEMBER PIANOMAN is a Shareware product. It is available through Users Groups, Bulletin Boards, etc. You have the opportunity to try the program at no charge to see if it meets your needs. If you continue to use the program after evaluation, please complete the registration form at the beginning of this document and send it with registration fee of $25 to: Support Group, Inc. P.O. Box 130 McHenry, MD 21541 You can also register by calling 800/USA-GROUP (800/872-4768, or 301/889-7893) with your credit card ready. When you register, you get a copy of the very latest version of the program and another diskette of sample tunes. Your name will also be put into a database of regi- stered users so that I can inform you of upgrades. If you have suggestions to make about the program, please let me know. Neil J. Rubenking 86 Midcrest Way San Francisco, CA 94131 CompuServe ID: 72267,1531 MCImail: NRUBENKING Shareware will continue to exist only as long as you, the users, support it! PIANOMAN Users' Guide page ii ===================== TABLE OF CONTENTS: WHAT IS PIANOMAN? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Command line options . . . . . . . . . . . 2 PLAYING TUNES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 TUNE EDITING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Help windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Play commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Moving around the tune . . . . . . . . . . 4 Goto and Markers . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Single-note commands . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Block commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Global changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 File commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 TIPS ON CREATING TUNES . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Playing "by ear" . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Using sheet music . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Creating tunes for merging . . . . . . . . 8 Creating complicated tunes . . . . . . . . 9 Editing after a merge . . . . . . . . . . 9 WHAT IS PLAYER PIANO? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 MUZ file to EXE file . . . . . . . . . . . 10 EXE file to MUZ file . . . . . . . . . . . 10 MUS file to MUZ file . . . . . . . . . . . 11 MUZ file to MUS file . . . . . . . . . . . 11 MUZ file to SuperKey Macro . . . . . . . . 11 MUZ file to SPK file . . . . . . . . . . . 12 2-4 tunes into one . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Fugue style . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Harmony style . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 USING TUNES IN PROGRAMS . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 WHAT IS SHAREWARE? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 PIANOMAN QUICK REFERENCE CHART . . . . . . . . 16 PIANOMAN Users' Guide page 1 ===================== WHAT IS PIANOMAN? ================= PIANOMAN lets you play the keyboard of an IBM-PC (or close compatible) like an electronic piano. The keys sound a tone as long as you hold them down, and stop when you release them. You can record and edit music, insert and delete notes, adjust pitch and length, make global changes, and save/retrieve files. Requirements ------------ PIANOMAN runs on an IBM-PC/XT/AT or close compatible, running PC-DOS 2.x or higher, with at least 160K of RAM, one disk drive, and a color or monochrome monitor. PC-DOS, as opposed to generic MS-DOS, is a necessity -- if your compatible won't run PC-DOS, it's not compatible enough. Based on limited testing, PIANOMAN does not work consistently on the new PS/2 computers, though some PS/2 systems run it success- fully. If you use DesqView or any other system that runs programs from EMS, you may notice a slight hesitation in the middle of VERY long compiled tunes. This is due to DesqView swapping "pages" of memory and will only occur if the tune is over 64K -- that's more than 10,000 notes! The maximum number of notes PIANOMAN can keep in memory is 63,488 (64 kilonotes minus 2,048 notes). This maximum is available if you have over 450K of RAM. If you seriously need more notes, I'd like to hear about it. PIANOMAN version 4 works well on a wider range of computers than previous versions. Any computer that would run PIANOMAN 3.x or the alternate program PIANOALT should run PIANOMAN 4.0. Also, version 4 shares the keyboard with RAM resident programs (version 3 did not). If the program will not run on your computer, you can do one of two things: 1) Give it to a friend who has an IBM-PC and forget it, or 2) jot me a note describing exactly what kind of system you have and exactly what happened when you tried to run PIANOMAN. I can't promise to make it universally compatible, but if I get a good information base, I'll know where to start. Note that for PLAYER PIANO your CONFIG.SYS file MUST include the line "FILES=xx", where xx is a number greater than or equal to 10. In most cases, the maximum "FILES=20" will be appropriate. If you don't do this, you'll find that when you try to merge more than two voices into one, PLAYER PIANO reports a "Too many open files" error. The PINST installation program checks to be sure you have enough files available. PIANOMAN Users' Guide page 2 ===================== Installation ------------ You don't have to install PIANOMAN to run it. The installation program PINST serves only to change some default values within the program. These include the Black-and-White option, the default quarter-note length, and two keys that differ on different keyboards. PINST also makes an empirical test to be sure your system will allow PLAYER PIANO to open five files at once and warns you if there's any problem. The Black-and-White option de-colorizes all of PIANOMAN and PLAYER PIANO's screens. Everything will be white on black, grey on black, or black on white. If you use PIANOMAN with a color/graphics adaptor attached to a single-color composite monitor, you may want to invoke this option. Command line options -------------------- If you enter a filename on PIANOMAN's command line, it will automati- cally load that file. E.g. "PIANOMAN CONCERT". Also, you can select the Black-and-White options described above by including "/BW" on the command line. If you've installed PIANOMAN for that option, you can temporarily reverse it by putting "/CO" on the command line. You can also use the "/BW" and "/CO" options with PLAYER PIANO. PIANOMAN Users' Guide page 3 ===================== PLAYING TUNES ============= Playing a tune with PIANOMAN is simple. Type "PIANOMAN" at the DOS prompt. You'll see a picture of the keyboard on your monitor, with the NOTES written on the keytops. When you press a key, it lights up in the picture. There are three octaves available at a time, and you can shift those octaves up or down using the up and down arrows -- note that the current octave number shows right between the arrows. The A#, B, and C notes at the right of the lower row are the same notes as those at the left of the upper row. If the piece you want to play has flats instead of sharps, just remember that in an "even tempered" scale like PIANOMAN's, one note FLAT is the same as the note below it SHARP. Press <Scroll Lock> to turn "Legato mode" on and off. With legato ON, each note sounds until you press the next. With it OFF, notes stop when you release the key. <Home> turns recording on and off, <Ins> plays back the tune, and <Del> erases your recording. The notes you play always add to the END of the current tune unless you erase it and start fresh. PIANOMAN's keyboard layout matches that of the standard IBM PC keyboard. If your keyboard has a different layout, a few of the keys may be displaced -- usually the <Esc> and "\" keys. If just those two keys are wrong, PINST will install the correct keys for you. TUNE EDITING ============ When you press the "Record" key, the tune you play gets saved in memory, and you can play it back at will. Once you have recorded a tune, hit the <F1> key to edit. In this mode you see each note dis- played in detail, and you can change individual notes, blocks of notes, or the entire tune. The editing mode is much like a word processor. You can insert and delete notes, adjust pitch and length, make global changes, and save/ retrieve files. You can even mark blocks of notes to delete, copy, or move. Five small help screens and five larger, more detailed screens are always available to remind you of the editing commands. You may also want to print out the Quick Reference Chart at the end of this document. PIANOMAN Users' Guide page 4 ===================== =+======+= |G 6 | |3 320| =+======+= When you hit F1 from the keyboard display, you get quite a different view of your tune. Sixty notes at a time show on the screen, with the note, octave, duration, and "staccato value" shown. In the sample box above, the note is "G" in octave 6. Its duration is 320 milliseconds, and it has a stacatto value of 3. (The staccato value runs from 0 to 9. A value of 0 means that the note plays during its entire duration, a value of 9 means that it plays only 1/10 of its duration, and is silent the other 9/10.) The current note will be highlighted, and you will see a help window at the bottom of the screen. You control the PIANOMAN editor with command keys. There are no menus, and every command is always available. In general, plain unshifted keys control single-note commands; e.g. <T> (or <t>) makes the current note a Triplet. <Alt> key combinations (represented by putting a tilde ~ before the character) control global commands; e.g. ~T changes the Tempo of the piece. Help windows ------------ There are five small help windows -- pressing ~H (Alt plus H) or the <?> key cycles through them. These windows list all of the editing keys in related groups. In addition, pressing <F1> gets you a more detailed help window that further explains the commands in the current small help window. If you have trouble remembering a particular type of command, just cycle to the corresponding small help window and leave it on the screen. Play commands ------------- ~P will Play the tune, starting at the highlighted note. If you hit a key while it's playing, it stops and highlights the note that was playing. Thus, you can listen to a piece and hit a key if you hear a wrong note. If there is a marked block, it will play that block from the start. To "step thru" a tune note by note, use ~Note play. For your convenience, each time you hit ~N, the highlight advances to the next note. You can also use <F9> for Note play and <F10> for Play -- the single keys may be handier. Moving around the tune ---------------------- The keypad keys work as you might expect -- the four arrow keys move one square at a time, and <Home> and <End> go to the beginning and end of the line. <PgUp> and <PgDn> move by 60-note screens. <Ctrl><Home> and <Ctrl><End> move to the top and bottom of the current screen, and <Ctrl><PgUp> and <Ctrl><PgDn> go to the top and bottom of the tune. <Del> deletes the highlighted note -- unlike PIANOMAN 3, the highlight remains in the same position. <Ins> inserts a note before the high- PIANOMAN Users' Guide page 5 ===================== lighted note. The inserted note will always be a Rest, with a length equal to the current quarter-note length. Goto and Markers ---------------- Press ~A to Add a marker. You'll see a list of available markers, e.g. "(2456789)". If you choose a number NOT shown as available, you will remove the current marker of that number and establish a new one. A marker is like a non-playing note -- you can use them to mark areas of interest in your tune. You can delete them individually or in a block, or move them in a block move, but you can't copy them. If you copy a block that contains markers, the new copy of the block won't have the markers in it. Press ~G to Go to a particular note, jump forward or back by a certain number of notes, or go directly to a Marker. If you simply type a number, you'll go to that note. If you enter a <+> or <-> ahead of the number, you'll jump forward or back that many notes. If you press <M>, you'll see a list of markers you can go to. Press the number cor- responding to the marker you want, or <N> or <P> to jump to the next or previous marker. Single-note commands -------------------- Commands that act only on the highlighted note use single, unshifted keystrokes. These serve to adjust the pitch and duration of one note at a time. They are all mnemonics -- the first letter of the word they represent. Note lengths are <w>hole, <h>alf, <q>uarter, <e>ighth, <s>ixteenth, and <3>2nd. You can change these to <t>riplets (multiply duration by 2/3) or <.> dotted notes (multiply duration by 3/2). To get other note lengths, hit <a> for <a>djust length and simply type in the desired length. Sometimes you may want to work your way through a whole piece setting the length of every note. In that case you'll want to turn "adVance mode" on by pressing ~V. You'll notice an arrow appearing at the top right corner of the screen. When advance mode is on, pressing any of the note length keys (<w>, <h>, <q>, <e>, <s>, <3>) will advance the highlight. Also, pressing <.> or <t> will cause the PREVIOUS note to be dotted or triplet, but only if the last key you pressed was a length key. It sounds a bit complicated, but once you get used to it you'll find it MUCH faster to enter note lengths with adVance mode on. To turn it off, just press ~V again -- the arrow will disappear. <R>aise and <f>lat change the pitch one half-tone, and <u>p and <d>own by one octave. Whenever you use one of these four keys, you'll hear a brief >pip< at the new pitch, so you can adjust the tune "by ear". Raising a rest makes it a C in octave 5, flatting it gives a B in octave 4. To change the current note into a rest, hit the <-> key. Block commands PIANOMAN Users' Guide page 6 ===================== -------------- Like a word processor, PIANOMAN allows you to mark and manipulate blocks. Hit ~B (Alt-B) to Begin and ~E to End your block. SideKick fans will be pleased to see that F7 and F8 also serve to mark a block. To delete the marked block, use ~D. PIANOMAN will ask you to confirm the deletion. To replicate the marked block at the current cursor position, use ~C for Copy. To Move it to the current position, press ~M. Note that the Move is equivalent to copy and then delete -- if your tune is approaching the maximum number of notes, you may not have enough space to Move a block. You cannot Copy or Move if the highlight is INSIDE the block -- naturally! ~U for Un-mark toggles marking on and off. Most of the global commands act only on the block, if there is one, so it's important to turn block marking OFF when you're not using it. Even if the marked section isn't on-screen, you'll see a BLOCK indicator in the lower right portion of the screen. When you delete a block, any markers within that block get deleted also. When you move a block, the markers move with it. And when you copy a block, the markers stay with the original block. Global changes -------------- You can adjust the ~Tempo, ~Key, ~Octave, or ~Staccato value of your tune globally by pressing Alt plus the appropriate key. For example, you might want to make it 1.5 times as fast, and one octave higher. If you have a block marked, these operations affect only the marked block. Other global changes are ~Quarter-note length, ~Length round-off, ~Identicalize, ~Join, and ~Zap out rests. Resetting the quarter-note length has no immediate effect, but it controls what length you get when you hit one of the single-note command keys. Also, if you select ~Identicalize, all the notes get set to the length you select. If you hesitate a long time between the notes of a difficult piece, you may want to make all the lengths short before trying to edit it. ~Join may be handy after you merge several tunes using PLAYER PIANO -- it merges any two adjacent notes with identical pitch and octave. ~Zap rests removes all rests from the tune, adding the length of each rest to the preceding note. One more global command gives you information to help you write multi- ple voice tunes for PLAYER PIANO. This is the ~X command, for eXamine. When you press ~X, PIANOMAN analyzes the tune and reports the Greatest Common Divisor (GCD) of the notes. (The GCD is the largest number that divides evenly into the length of every note in the tune.) It also reports the total length of the tune. In order to merge several tunes with PLAYER PIANO, they all must have exactly the same total length, and they must have a mutual GCD of a certain minimum value. This value is 10 times the number of voices. In other words, the individual time slice can't be less than 10. PIANOMAN Users' Guide page 7 ===================== File commands ------------- You can save your PIANOMAN tunes to disk -- the files will always have the extension MUZ, for MUZic. Previous versions of PIANOMAN used the extension MUS, but PIANOMAN 4.0 uses a different file format. If you save a file with a name that already exists, you'll be asked whether you want to <O>verwrite the file, <A>dd to it, or <P>ick another name (the default is Overwrite). You can build up complicated tune files piece by piece using the <A>dd option. When you want to retrieve a file, you can enter its exact name and get it directly. If you don't quite know the name, or want to see all the MUZ files, you can enter a "wild-card" template. For example, if you entered "C:\PIANOMAN\TUNE\*.*", you'd get a list of all the files in that directory. "LO*.*" will get you a listing of all the MUZ files in the current directory that start with "LO", and so on. If you just hit <Return> at the "Filename:" prompt you'll get a file listing to choose from. The PIANOMAN file listing displays all matching MUZ files in the current directory plus any subdirectories. Subdirectories show up in a lower intensity color and have a "\" at the end. If you highlight a subdirectory and hit <Return>, you'll get a listing of that subdirec- tory. If the current directory is a subdirectory, you can choose "{parent}\" to switch to the parent directory. SideKick fans take note -- <F2> is an alternate key to save a file, and <F3> is an alternate for retrieve. Also, you can save and retrieve your files directly from the keyboard picture screen using the <F2> and <F3> keys. TIPS ON CREATING TUNES ====================== There are two basic methods you'll use to create tunes. You can simply play the tune on the keyboard by ear, or you can use sheet music. Also, you may enter several voices with the intention of using PLAYER PIANO to merge them. Here are some tips for each method. Playing "by ear" ---------------- Adjust the octave so that you can avoid playing a lot of notes at the low end of the top row and the high end of the bottom row. Crossing that break between the two rows of keys can be confusing. Play the tune as well as you can, ignoring wrong notes. If you turn LEGATO on, PIANOMAN will not generate rests between your notes. Hit the playback key <Ins>. If you played extremely well, with no wrong notes, you may be finished! However, most of us need to do a little work in the editing mode. Shift into that mode and try playing through the piece with ~P or <F10>. If you hear a sour note, tap any key to stop the playing and fix the wrong note. Of course you can delete extraneous notes or insert missing ones too. PIANOMAN Users' Guide page 8 ===================== Using sheet music ----------------- Unless you're an expert sight-reader, you'll find it easiest to just enter the notes first and fix their lengths later. Follow along in the sheet music, pressing the correct key for each note. Don't worry about length -- just find the next note and press it. When you're done, go into the editing mode. In the editing mode, use ~I to make all the notes short -- 60 to 80 will be good. Now tap through the piece (use <F9> -- it's easier) a note at a time, confirming that the notes match those on the sheet music. Finally, go back to the top of the piece and start entering the lengths. Stop after the first few lines and play them back. If the tempo sounds wrong, adjust the ~Quarter note length and redo those lines. Or, if you prefer, enter the lengths for the whole piece first and then adjust the global tempo with the ~T command. Sometimes you'll want to enter a note length that's not built in to PIANOMAN. For example, you may have a half-note tied to an eighth- note. Rather than try to calculate the appropriate length and enter it with Adjust, use Join. Enter both the notes, mark just the two notes as a block, and press ~J for Join. That will create a single note of the length you want. Creating tunes for merging -------------------------- You need to be very accurate if you want to merge several voices into one tune. Hence in most cases you will be copying the tunes from sheet music. Some tunes have 2 to 4 clear and distinct parts. For example, Bach's Two-Part Inventions have exactly two parts. Choral music often has four parts for Soprano, Alto, Tenor, and Bass. If the music you plan to merge is of this type, simply treat each part as described under "Using Sheet Music" above. As you finish each part, use the eXamine option to calculate the total length and GCD. Naturally all your parts must be exactly the same length. If you plan to use the Harmony style, they must also have an appropriate Greatest Common Divisor. See the discussion of the harmony style below for an explana- tion of the GCD. Remember that PLAYER PIANO can't take Staccato values into account when merging tunes. That would make calculating the "time slices" much more difficult! If you want to give an impression of short notes in a merged tune, simply insert rests between the notes. You will find pieces of music that simply don't fall easily into parts. My own technique in such cases is to make a Xerox of the sheet music and mark it with colored pencils. I use one color for each voice, and I draw a continuous line through the notes that I assign to that voice. A certain amount of musical training is helpful here! Having marked up the sheet music, you then enter the voices. Note that they may sound very odd individually, but if you've drawn your lines well the final merged tune will sound good. I entered the William Tell Overture into PIANOMAN using this method (the file WILLTELL.MUZ is on the extra tunes disk that you get when you register). PIANOMAN Users' Guide page 9 ===================== Creating complicated tunes -------------------------- Some tunes will change orchestration throughout, going from solo passages, to two voices, to three or four, and so on. To create such a tune in PIANOMAN, you may want to record it in sections and build the main tune out of those sections. One way to build the final tune from sections is to retrieve them into memory in order, using the <A>dd option. Then save the completed tune. Another way is to retrieve each section individually and save it to the main file using the <A>ppend option. A round such as "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" is a good example of this kind of tune. In the first measure, there's just one voice. Next a second voice joins in, then a third and fourth. Then each voice in turn drops out. Editing after a merge --------------------- After you use PLAYER PIANO to merge several voices into one, you may want to edit the resulting tune. Two PIANOMAN commands are especially handy here; ~Zap rests and ~Join identical notes. The former takes each rest and deletes it, adding its length to the note before it. The latter merges any adjacent identical notes. In some cases these commands will substantially reduce the size of your merged tune. However, you will definitely have to edit the merged tune by hand after using either of these commands. There are places where you really WANT a rest, or where two identical adjacent notes should NOT be merged. PLAYER PIANO Users' Guide page 10 ========================= WHAT IS PLAYER PIANO? ===================== PLAYER PIANO is a conversion utility to expand the horizons of your PIANOMAN tunes. It performs eight types of conversion: 1) Tune into self-running program (EXE file) 2) EXE file back into tune 3) Old MUS file into MUZ file 4) MUZ file back into MUS file 5) Tune into SuperKey macro 6) Tune into input for SPKR.SYS driver (see below) 7) 2 to 4 tunes into one polyphonic tune (Fugue style) 8) 2 to 4 tunes into one polyphonic tune (Harmony style) In each case you can either type in the name of the tune to convert, or pick it from a directory window identical to that of PIANOMAN. To start the program, type PLAYRPNO at the DOS prompt. MUZ file to EXE file ---------------------- Select this mode to create a program that will play your tune for anyone, regardless of whether they have PIANOMAN. You can fill in up to nine lines of title information, which will be boxed and centered on the screen when your tune-program plays. The resulting program file is yours to do with what you will. You may choose not to have a title screen, in which case the compiled tune will not affect the display at all. You also have a choice of whether the tune will repeat or not and whether a keystroke will stop it. It's possible to use a tune that stops with a keystroke as a kind of timed "wait" statement in a batch file. The tune will play, catching the user's attention, and the batch file will continue either when the user presses a key or when the tune ends. PLAYER PIANO 4.0 tunes are better than those created by older versions of PLAYER PIANO. They automatically adjust their speed to that of the computer they're running on. This improvement is due to the great help I received from lferris, "The Hunter's Helper"! EXE file to MUZ file ---------------------- Starting with version 4, you can convert compiled tunes back into MUZ files. If you have a compiled tune that someone else wrote, you can DEcompile it and change it to your satisfaction. Do note that the decompiled tune will not be identical to the original, because in the compiling process any series of rests gets converted into a single rest. That includes the "implied rest" at the end of a note with a non-zero Staccato value. PLAYER PIANO Users' Guide page 11 ========================= MUS file to MUZ file ---------------------- The tunes you created with earlier versions of PIANOMAN aren't wasted. You can convert them easily to the new format. Note that MUZ files are about 1/5 smaller than the old MUS files. MUZ file to MUS file ---------------------- You can even convert your MUZ files back into MUS files, in case you want to share them with a friend who has an older PIANOMAN. But why not share a copy of version 4 with them also?! MUZ file to SuperKey Macro --------------------------- Yes, it can be done. SuperKey has a "Beep" function that allows you to beep at any pitch and duration -- exactly like a PIANOMAN note. The macro generated by PLAYER PIANO is a text file with a place in it for you to add a descriptive screen. Load it, press the proper key, and wow! music for whatever you're doing. The keystroke to STOP a macro playing is <Ctrl><Esc>. The MAC file created by PLAYER PIANO is fairly large -- one line per note. If you want to create BIG tunes for SuperKey, you will either have to expand your macro memory space or compress the tune. How to compress it? There are several ways. First, you can find the most common notes and define them as single keys, e.g.: <BEGDEF><Alt1><CMD>FB1044 1044 4<CMD><ENDDEF> Now wherever that note appeared, substitute <Alt1>. To help you do this kind of compression, PLAYER PIANO appends a simple chart of the occurrences of different notes to the end of the .MAC file. It's beyond the final <ENDDEF>, so SuperKey ignores it. You can also represent repeated sections of the tune by a single key. Define a particular key to be the sequence of beeps that make up one section, and replace every occurrence of that section with the single key. If you have a moderately recent copy of SuperKey, you have an example of a HIGHLY compressed tune. On the SuperKey disk, see INVENTN4.MAC. It wasn't easy to get the whole two-part invention to fit in the default 8K macro space! PLAYER PIANO Users' Guide page 12 ========================= MUZ file to SPK file ---------------------- On your PIANOMAN disk you will find a file called SPKR.SYS and its documentation SPKR.DOC. These copyrighted files were written by Chris Dunford, owner of Cove Software. I present them here with his permis- sion as an enhancement to PIANOMAN. When you install SPKR, as ex- plained in SPKR.DOC, it becomes a device like PRN or CON. You can write notes to it and it will play them IN THE BACKGROUND while your computer does other things. SPKR can only hold 128 notes, and the lengths must be multiples of 55 for best results. After creating a SPK file, you can hear it by typing "COPY FILENAME.SPK SPK" at the DOS prompt. You can write to SPK from within a program by simply opening a text file called "SPK". E.g., in Turbo Pascal: Assign(TextFile,'SPK'); ReWrite(TextFile); 2-4 tunes into one ------------------ You will notice that many of the sample tunes sound like they have several different "voices" in them. This is not strictly true -- the PC plays ONE note at a time. But by switching rapidly between notes, PIANOMAN gives the illusion of polyphony. Before you can use PLAYER PIANO in this way, you have to carefully prepare the individual "voice" tunes. Fugue style ----------- This style requires that each of the 2 to 4 input files have exactly the same number of notes, and that every note be the same length. This is a reasonable requirement for many Bach fugues, and it also works fairly well for ragtime pieces. PLAYER PIANO will let you know if one of the input files has a problem. The output is a tune that simply takes a "slice" of each voice for each note. You can use the eXamine option in PIANOMAN to determine the length of each tune in advance. Harmony style ------------- If you need a more chord-like sound, or if it just doesn't make sense to divide up the voices into notes of equal length, use this mode. The requirements are: 1) all the input tunes must TOTAL the same length, and 2) the note lengths must all have a common divisor, greater than or equal to 10 times the number of voices. PLAYER PIANO needs this common divisor to figure out when the "slices" begin and end. You can use the eXamine option in PIANOMAN to find the Greatest Common Divisor (GCD) of each individual voice and its total length. If the divisor found is large -- say, over 100 -- you may want to use a smaller figure. Any large enough FACTOR of the divisor is allowed, and you will have a chance to select one. PLAYER PIANO Users' Guide page 13 ========================= The output of this operation is another MUZ file consisting of LOTS of notes, all the same length. You will probably want to send this file back to PIANOMAN for further editing, to smooth out the sound of it. The ~Zap and ~Join options can be helpful here, but if you use them you will almost certainly have to do some hand-editing. In order to avoid going back and forth between PIANOMAN and PLAYER PIANO, use the eXamine option in PIANOMAN to make sure your tunes are the same length before running PLAYER PIANO on them. PLAYER PIANO Users' Guide page 14 ========================= USING TUNES IN PROGRAMS ======================= There are several ways to incorporate PIANOMAN tunes in programs you write. First, if you are using an all-purpose language like Pascal, BASIC, or C, you can simply read the MUZ file and play the tune directly. On the PIANOMAN distribution disk the directory TP4 contains an example in Turbo Pascal 4.0. This example makes the file structure clear, so even if you use another language you should have no trouble. The other method, useful in BATch programming, dBASE, and other more specialized languages, is to create a EXE file using PLAYER PIANO and RUN the file. You can choose whether to have a title screen, whether to let the user stop the tune with a key, and so on. As long as your language has a RUN command or the equivalent, you can do this. Finally, if you want music but don't want it to stop the other workings of your program, consider installing SPKR.SYS. This device driver is described under the "MUZ to SPK" option of PLAYER PIANO. If your language allows you to write to DOS devices, you can send up to 128 notes to the SPK device. These notes will play while your program continues execution. WHAT IS SHAREWARE? ================== (Definition supplied by the Association of Shareware Professionals) Shareware distribution gives users a chance to try software before buying it. If you try a Shareware program and continue using it, you are expected to register. Individual programs differ on details -- some request registration while others require it, some specify a maximum trial period. With registration, you get anything from the simple right to continue using the software to an updated program with a printed manual. Copyright laws apply to both Shareware and commercial software, and the copyright holder retains all rights, with a few specific exceptions as stated below. Shareware authors are accomplished programmers, just like commercial authors, and the programs are of comparable quality. (In both cases, there are good programs and bad ones!) The main difference is in the method of distribution. The author specifically grants the right to copy and distribute the software, either to all and sundry or to a specific group. For example, some authors require written permission before a commercial disk vendor may copy their Shareware. SO, Shareware is a distribution method, not a type of software. You should find software that suits your needs and pocketbook, whether it's commercial or Shareware. The Shareware system makes fitting your needs easier, because you can try before you buy. And because the overhead is low, prices are low also. Shareware has the ultimate money-back guarantee -- if you don't use the product, you don't pay for it. PIANOMAN QUICK REFERENCE CHART Note lengths: <Ins>ert a note File commands: ============= <Del>ete a note ============== <w>hole <~F>ile save [F2] <h>alf Global changes: <~R>etrieve [F3] <q>uarter =============== <s>ixteenth <~K>ey change Various: <3>2nd <~O>ctave change ======== <.> dotted <~S>taccato change <~P>lay tune [F0] <t>riplet <~T>empo <~N>ote play [F9] <a>djust note length <~Q>uarter-note length <~H>elp [F1] <m>ore staccato <~Z>ap out rests <~A>dd marker <l>ess staccato <~L>ength round-off <~G>oto <~I>denticalize <~J>oin Note Pitch: e<~X>amine =========== Block commands: <r>aise =============== +--------------------+ <f>lat <~B>egin block [F7] |<k> means to just | <u>p octave <~C>opy block [F8] | press key "k" | <d>own octave <~D>elete block | | <-> make note a rest <~E>nd block |<~K> means press | <~U>N-mark block | "Alt" plus key "K"| +--------------------+