Midi Music

"Midi" is an acronym for Musical Instrument Digital Interface and is a control process
for linking together various electronic instruments.

MIDI was primarily developed because keyboard musicians were buying synthesizers from
many different manufacturers in increasing numbers and they wanted to "sync" those
various keyboards together, plus "play" them under "computer control".
This would enable one musician to play one keyboard (for example) and also play (control)
as many other keyboards as he could connect to at the same time.

During the popularity growth of electronic instuments and computers (early 1980s) there was
even less standardization between manufacturers than there is today. What worked on Roland
equipment wouldn't work on Oberheim or Sequential Cards equipment,(popular brands at the time).

Over time, these companies discovered that they could all improve their market share by
standardizing input, processing and output specifications and ... MIDI was born. Consequently,
"Midi" files are essentially computer programs that tell your computer audio card (just another
device to your computer) what notes to play, at what time, at what duration, with what timbre ...
in other words, Midi defines each individual note and it's sound "shape".

Eventually, a standard for MIDI and for the MPU-401 was developed that enabled manufacturers
of sound cards and modems to develop computer peripherals capable of interchangability and to "play"
sounds from similar sources. This standard is managed by the MIDI Manufacturers Association,
a voluntary consortium, but has seen little change in the past decade.

A MIDI file is a data file. It stores information, just like a text (ie, ASCII) file may store the
text of a story or newspaper article, but a MIDI file contains musical information.

I look at a MIDI file in the same way I look at a piece of sheet music. The written score tells me
precisely how the composer wants me to play his music and a MIDI file tells the computer generated
instruments the very same thing. Specifically, a MIDI file stores MIDI data, ie, commands) that
electronic musical instruments transmit between each other to control events such as playing notes
and adjusting an instrument's sound (pitch, tempo, timing, timbre) in various ways.

I'm not going to go into any further theory or depth here. If you want to know more about MIDI
files any search engine will reveal hundreds of internet sources for you to visit and read.

On a practical level, however, there are two main ways to produce a MIDI file. One is to actually
write the commands for each instrument note sequence and compile it (very tedious work)
and the other is to play the notes into your computer on a MIDI capable instrument.

For years, every keyboard by every manufacturer has had a MIDI inteface port. This enables connection
from the keyboard to a sequencer and on to your computer. In recent years, MIDI guitars and drums sets
have also been produced, but any MIDI capable instrument is sufficient for getting the music into your
computer in MIDI format.

Once availble to your computer as MIDI data, a software synthesizer can be used to play the notes
or to modify them extensively. What goes in as a string of keyboard notes can be changed to sound
like a classical guitar, slap bass, string ensemble or any one of the defined MIDI "patches".
Whole lines of music can be manipulated in ways only limited by your imagination.

This, hopefully, has explained enough so that you can see why you can't just copy a MIDI file to another
medium and listen to it on your home stereo. There are ways to convert MIDI files to WAV and/or MP-3
format and those can be played on a variety of equipment ... but ... not MIDI files.