|
DOWNLOAD BY CLICKING ON THE LINK BELOW
DOWNLOAD THE NORMS MUSIC VISUALIZER FREE MUSICAL-PERCEPTION IMMERSION COMPONENT HERE. (A Permanent-Use Copy of the current version is free.) |
|
OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS (CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW)
OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS NOTE: The software has no built in help. You have to use the operating instructions from the above link. |
Screenshot 1 (above) and General Description: The Norm's Music Visualizer is built on a MIDI display that looks similar to a standard MIDI sequencer or player program in the "Piano Roll" display. However, though the program will play a midi file, or loop through a section of a midi file, it is mainly intended to be used to explore music by having the user guide his mouse-pointer "interactively" through the music (all notes in score or individual notes, as desired). To support further understanding of the music, the program's middle-panel piano roll overlays all notes independent of octave, and also highlights the bass note with a hatch pattern. This supports one form of easy chordal/harmony examination. (In the screenshot, the first chord in the first measure is I-root position, the second in that measure is I64, the second measure has a IV root position chord, etc.)
The program is designed to be used usually with the key of the section of music selected, and displays the notes at their position within that key. This is, of course, to support development of understanding of the sound of the music in key context.
Further, the program makes aural key orientation feedback available from simple mouse commands and computer-keyboard presses, to further allow the user to explore and understand the sound of the music in key/tonal context. These sounds include the key reference tones (tonic, cadence, I-IV-V-I progression, chords, scales, individual notes, etc), all from choosable instruments. (Picking up on the ideas and teaching CDs of teacher Bruce Arnold, I have tried to make the key-orienting I-IV-V-I chord sequence particularly available, from the middle mouse button.)
Further, using the built-in interface to my (free) Spectratune software, the user can overlay the detected pitch from the user singing or humming along with the MIDI file. (In the screenshot, which is for a piece of well-known folk-pop from the 1960s, the key is A major, the melody track is shown in yellow, the pitch overlay of my humming along -- inputted to the Spectratune using my webcam mic as a second sound card, is that chromatic-tuner-meter-form mark on the E in both piano rolls,, showing I am about a sixth of a half-step below dead center of the E. I am actually humming one octave below the melody in the MIDI file, but have set the Music Visualizer to transpose the hummed pitch one octave up. (The one octave transpostion is actually indicated by the button with "1=SpPiTrOct" on it.) I also show (screenshot (1b), below) the Spectratune exactly as it was running, set to show both single-pitch and spectrum of the singer only. (The Spectratune could also show the spectrum of the MIDI file sounds in a different color, but that wasn't needed for what I was doing. You would want it if you wanted to probe into why sour-disharmony-sound cues or beating were present or absent in your sing-along attempts, or if you wanted to study harmony/disharmony itself in the music. These depend on nearness of the fundamental and overtones between instruments -- as explained on this part of my Spectrogram page.
NOTE: In a recent version, I added an additional simple function to allow the user to explore disharmony sounds via clash in overtones without reference to the spectrogram on the Spectratune. See screenshot 5 below.)
The thing on the panel below the 2nd piano roll is a (chord based) key-determination/tonal-center-feel guidance feature (tonal-center "perceptogram" of the chordal type), for when key is unclear and/or changing, and which I actually used to determine that the key for this song was E. [This tonal center feature, which contains a line for each of the 24 potential keys, is explained in more detail below. Note that when used for key determination or tonal center in music with rapidly changing tonal center like Brahms' music, you usually set the Music Visualizer to omit the top Piano Roll, thus making this key help display taller and easier to read (as in screenshot 2b below). Also, note that once a key is identified, this feature can be set to display its information for for the identified key only, making it bigger (as in screenshot 2a below), in which forms its information is some chord analysis. This is also explained below.]
In addition to allowing spectral and pitch feedback of any singing along you do in musical context via the Spectratune pitch output, the program allows you to generate continuously varying pitches in any MIDI instrument timbre, either during the MIDI score sound, or non-simultaneously. The idea here is that if you want to experiment with the sound of harmony and near harmony, or test or refine your pitch-matching, without using your voice or a fretless instrument. For example, if you have a sore throat, or you don't want to wake or disturb the neighbors.
[NOTE: Since I keep adding features, my screenshots tend not to show the latest set of control buttons. The best place to find that is my latest screenshot, screenshot 5, below.]
Screenshot 1b (above).Spectratune at same exact time as Music Visualizer produced screenshot 1, producing a Spectrogram of the hum-along voice (peaks showing all tones and overtones of that humming along), as well as doing a single-pitch detection for that sing-along voice (hard to see the arrow representing that as it is kind of covered up by the spectrogram). The single-pitch detected is passed to the music visualizer in screenshot 1, which displays that sing-along pitch. For the screenshot, I did not turn on the Spectratune's capacity to do simultaneously a spectral analysis of the MIDI being played, which feature is useful when we want to investigate presence or absence of disharmony and beating sounds.
Screenshot 2a (above). Showing the harmonic function/harmonic fit "chordal" perceptogram (for a single key only in this case). Note that the perceptograms can be displayed for an identified key, or for all 24 potential keys -- with the latter being for when key is unidentified, or rapidly changing. (The key is C for this section of Haydn's op 17 string quartet mv. 1.)
What the colors represent is chordal function for the key. Green represents tonic function, red dominant function, yellow sub-dominant. The substitute chords are in the same color, but a little more washed out. Orange is III function. The height represents the number of chord notes (i.e. pitch-classes--same pitch different octave counts only once) present. Note red then green represents basically a V-I cadence, which in some musical styles is a reliable sign of intended tonal center.
There are also diagonal criss-crosses and slashes, which represent two forms of lack of fit. Recall the color goes up to a height representing the number of pitch classes of the best-fitting chord for the key. A diagonal criss-cross goes up any additional distance (up to the set plot maximum value MxNts) to the maximum number of pitch classes in the best fitting chord in any key, and further, a one-direction diagnonal takes you any further additional distance (up to MxNts) to the total number of pitch classes in the bit of music being analyzed. The diagonal criss-cross thus tends to indicate the chord is from a different key (either the given key is not the key, or it is a secondary dominant or borrowed or altered chord). The diagonal slash tends to point out non-harmonic tones for a chord in the key. (In this particular case, the two criss-crosses are V/IV and V/V secondary dominants, which is actually easy to determine using other rapid key-test hot-keys that I have in the program.) ( Also, note that, as stated, the settable parameter "MxNts" truncates the plots, so make sure it is set high enough -- depending on the density of the chords for best readability without loss of information.)
I also have an (optional) method of showing inversion within this perceptogram. This was added after I took the screenshot 2a (immediately below). Screenshot 4, farther below, includes this feature.
Screenshot 2b (above). This is actually the end of the same movement as in Screenshot 3a. The key is mis-set as, however. (I have also set the chordal perceptogram to show all 24 potential keys by unchecking "1", and also I have checked "NoTopProll" to remove the top (=non-class-overlaid) piano roll, in order to make more room.) Anyway, it is pretty clear that "C" is the wrong key for this part of the movement. This is because in the "C" line: (1) the abundance of tomato red/tomato-leaf green is too little, especially for a tonally stable part of the movement, and (2) there is a bit too much criss-cross and (3)we have the wrong cadence for this mainstream-period classical music. We see a nice fit at F major, the true key, where we also have that nice V-I cadence at the end. (The chromatic/non-chromatic overlay shown in the piano roll is thus incorrect, but will become correct if the key is set correctly to F.)
NOTE: People familiar with key classification algorithms such as Krumhansl key classification should note that those algorithms assign attempt to assign a definite key to a piece of music or segment of a piece of music. My goal here is slightly different: not to do a classification, but to make the tonal center, including degree of ambiguity, brief excursions, disruptions of tonal feeling as preparation for key-change, etc., apparent. I am trying to convert the musical perceptual (available to the musically highly experienced or gifted) to a more accessible visual perceptual.
Screenshot 3. Showing the tonal-center perceptogram of the "distributional" type plots (the reddish item in the bottom section). The "distributional" perceptogram focusses on what keys the notes fit, in terms of being non-chromatics and also rest-tones. This is as opposed to focussing on chords of the key, which the more colorful "chord" perceptograms address. The chord perceptograms (not these) are generally the more helpful of the two perceptogram types, (consistent with Schoenberg saying key is really about chords), but the "distributional" perceptograms sometimes are helpful. The music in view is the start of Bach's Well-Tempered-Klavier book 1 D major.
Screenshot 4. : Chord position (root, 1st inversion, etc.) is shown in the bottom panel. (On the left is the scale for both inversion and number of pitch classes involved. Inversion number of the chord corresponds to the black horizontal mark within the chord-color, and there is no horizontal mark for root position.) The algorithm, as with all the chordal recognition stuff, is not perfect, but is pretty good. Sometimes it is over-literal, etc., and less standard chords are missed.
Screenshot 5 (below).: Showing MIDI plus sung overtones. While a MIDI file is being played through manually (i.e. left-clicking the mouse over sections of music while pointed on the bottom piano roll or lower), the Spectratune (not shown in screenshot) is also running and feeding a sung-along harmony pitch.
The lines on the top piano roll to the right of the "position at" in blue represent the first 3 octaves of overtones of all the MIDI notes being sounded, while the ones in black are of the note being sung. Both lines get shorter as the represented overtone gets higher.The purpose of this is to help understanding of the sound of harmony/disharmony. (Disharmony is where any substantial-magnitude overtones differ in pitch non-negligibly but by a small amount--less than the "critical distance".)
Another reason for doing this is it may indicate an explanation where you sing a harmony that sounds best when a bit off note-center: because the overtones match up best.
Technical note: the overtones shown are not actually measured, but are the first 15 overtones by frequency. [If you want to actually measure the overtones of the MIDI output and/or sung output, of course, you can do it with the Spectratune's Spectrogram. But this approach is better for the purpose at hand.]
(This screenshot is complete to the latest version except it is missing little "v" and "^" buttons just to the right of the "Ovs" button, which control access to tracks beyond 14. Also, it is missing a little "v" arrow right next to the SpPiTrOct putton, which is to more conveniently lower the Octaves Transposed of the from-Spectratune Pitch Display):
The software, along with the companion Spectratune, was written initially for me (Norm Spier
)
and my own miscellaneous personal musical-perception / music-analysis needs.
It is oriented towards the Piano Roll representation of music, as opposed to the standard staff representation. By doing this, I am trying to make tonal and harmonic happenings more directly visible than in staff representation. Users of this software should at least understand staff-based music notation (to be able to access music theory and analysis books), and may optionally be fluent in it. Those who are fluent in music notation will be able to translate back and forth to piano-roll easily, especially because it's just like a piano, and thus will not be impeded by my choice of piano roll. However, the use of Piano Roll is intended to open up deeper musical understanding to those of us who love to listen to music, but have not developed the ability to rapidly go back and forth between staff notation and the sound represented by the combinations of those on-staff notes.
Besides the music-analysis and understanding applications, my hope is that for non-musically-trained/gifted folks, my pair of programs will give them a tool to improve sense of intonation by immersing them in various forms of visual feedback.
Frankly, for the less musically fortunate, I'm hoping the pair of programs can somewhat repair, when used over time in older (post-childhood) people, lack of skilled aural musical guidance in the environment during early childhood. This guidance would be regarding sense of harmony, scales, pitch-match, tonality, position in key, etc. Based on my experience so far, my belief is that it does do this, slowly, with repeated use across the various possible configurations (sing harmony against MIDI, sing melody against MIDI, scales, listen to MIDI and analyze, hum against CD, etc.). Of course, this is much slower and less perfect learning than that in early childhood, as the critical period has indeed been missed.
EXPLANATION/INSTRUCTIONS
|
Norm's Music Visualizer OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS |
.
|
Oooh! |
|
About me, Norm Spier: 
I am a free-lance mathematical statistician and computer programmer, living near Binghamton, New York, U.S. |
I have, have built up my aural perception from, and recommend, EarMaster ear training software. These links, through Amazon, seem to be for the same product that I have: EarMaster 5. The prices are different: one through Amazon direct, one through a sub-vendor.
MIDI Files are here, at Kunst der Fuge. Follow the link on the page to Digital Sheet Music, where sheet music is available for free with a low-cost membership. (For MIDI files, you need a membership to get more than 5 files per day.)
APPLE USERS:
Unfortunately, my software does not run on Apple. A user reported to me the existence of this RONDO software for MAC, which seems to have at least some of the same goals as my software. It has a free demo mode. (I have not tested it. No MAC.)
Singing Along Intonation:
People trying to sing along with MIDI popular music, and have their intonation corrected may be able to use my Music Visualizer with the Spectratune feeding it. There is some other software geared toward this goal, called Singing Coach by a company called Carry a Tune. It makes its own recording of your singing automatically, which mine doesn't. It probably has a more young-person-friendly interface. If you are interested, here is the Carry-a-Tune link. Here are some links to their products at a discount:
|
OTHER RELATED SITES AND BOOKS: |
|
NORMS MUSIC VISUALIZER OPERATING INSTRUCTIONS |