SongTrellis
Music and Musical Know-how For You

Author:  David Luebbert Posted:  9/5/07; 2:35:18 PM Msg#:  5306 (top msg in thread) Prev/Next:  5305/5307 Reads:  59661

First, click on this music. I built this in 20 seconds.

You could do something similar...

using this

It's been hard to produce musical examples for webpages

 If you've ever tried to present music examples in web pages, as I've done for many postings on the SongTrellis site, you've discovered that preparing such examples is quite a time-consuming hassle. 

 If you're starting from scratch, you need access to a music editing or sequencing program that runs on your computer. And then you need to master a sufficent proportion of that program's user interface, in order to create your example scores.

Even with a good score production tool available, the creation of a single example is fairly arduous. If you are writing a music article for a general audience, most of your readers won't be able to read music notation. However, they can understand what you are writing about if they can hear a performance of your example.

Fortunately, web browsers are able to synthesize music recorded in MIDI format and can perform MP3 sequences. You can create your example score with your editor or sequencer, and use that to produce a MIDI s or MP3 rendering of your score. After that, you must copy this rendered performance file to your webserver and create the HTML code necessary to perform that rendering on your new example web page.

Many music editors and sequencers allow you to save a score in MIDI format. MIDI files for a small example might be less than 5 to 10 Kb in size.

If you want to present the example as an mp3 clip, you would have to run the MIDI file through a translator, which will result in a sample that is many times larger than the original MIDI sample.

If your readers are musicians, they'll appreciate a MIDI sequence, which they can load into an editor for their own projects, but they will also want to see a printed score for the the music, so they can understand what's going on in the music and evaluate how dificult it would be to perform. To satisfy this audience you'll want to render your score as a sequence of graphic images in a popular graphic format (JPG, GIF, TIFF, PDF, etc); And then you need to craft the HTML to display this graphic sequence, so that you can add this to your webpage. Unfortunately most music editors are set up to print a score on paper, and are not able to paginate a score into a sequence of graphics images suitable for display in a web browser.

If your editor suffers from this limitation, you may have to take screen shots of your music editor window to produce each graphical image and manually scroll the score to the boundary of the last music displayed so that you image the entire stream of notation recorded in your score. This process is very time consuming and error prone.

Using my old, best method, I could do the job in 7 or 8 minutes. Your time would probably be worse.

In my case, when I created chord progression scores for The Changes section of the SongTrellis site, I used the SongTrellis Music Editor for Macintosh to produce a MIDI sequence and a matching sequence of JPG or GIF format graphical images.

I can produce one small example in about 7 minute's tume, which depends upon the SongTrellis Editor's ability to create voicings for chords in a score that are specified only by a chord symbol which provides a chord's root pitch and type and upon the SongTrellis webserver's ability to create the proper HTML constructs to play music sequences and display score images for a webpage when a music article is requested by a visitor to the site.

 Using most other tools would likely lengthen the time to produce an example.

I've wanted to reduce the production time for music samples to a few second's time. SongTrellis Tunetext URLs make this posible.

Fast creation of music examples using SongTrellis Tunetext URLs

SongTrellis Tunetext is an extremely simple music description format that describes music scores in a way that allows web browsers to perform them.

I have developed a Tunetext service on the SongTrellis website, which interprets a tunetext specification of a score that is appended to the end of a URL that invokes the service.

When a tunetext URL is loaded into a web browser, the tunetext service running on the SongTrellis server prepares a MIDI performance of the score, which is performed as a background sound, and prepares a matching printable score, which is displayed within a window as the MIDI performance plays. Score preparation and display for a Tunetext URL is usually completed in the fraction of a second after the URL is launched in a web browser.

Tunetext URLs for several small examples:

1) Tunetext for a minor ii-V-i sequence in A minor: (Bmi7(b5),E7(b9),Ami(MA7),Ami6, The chords are played for half note duration. Their voicings are calculated by the service.

If you change the numeral 1 after the "inst:" in the URL to a new integer value between 1 and 127, you will be changing the instrument that will play your score. Resubmitting after making this change will let you hear it.

 2) The F mixolydian scale performed ascending from F to F using quarter notes rendered via Tunetext:

www.songtrellis.com/tunetext?bpm=120&text=show:2,voice1:(inst:41,/4,4,f,g,a,bb,5,c,d,eb,f)

If you change or reorder the note names listed in this URL, you change the URL to describe a different melody. Resubmit the URL to hear the change you've made. If you change the 120 after the "bpm=" in the URL to an integer between 1 and 999, you'll be changing the tempo at which your score is performed.

3) An C7 arpeggio played twice in eighth notes with an accompanying C7 whole note chord:

www.songtrellis.com/tunetext?bpm=120&text=show:2, chords:(C7,r),voice1:(/8,4,c,e,g,bb,c,e,g,bb,*8,r)

Now one that tips the Toldeos

 Here's a gigantic URL that plays a two voice score with a melody voices and a chord accompaniment voice, a much larger project.

www.songtrellis.com/tunetext?bpm=120&title=As Viewed By Eagles&fShowTitle=1&text=show:2, chords:(inst:1,C7sus,E7sus,Ab7sus,Db7sus,D7sus,F%237sus, Bb7sus,Eb7sus,C7sus,E7sus,Ab7sus,Db7sus,D7sus,F%237sus, Bb7sus,Eb7sus,/2,G%23mi7(b5),Db7sus,G%23mi7(b5),Db7sus, F%237,F%23mi7,*2,Bmi7,/2,Ab7(b5),G7(b5),F%237(b5), Eb7(b5),*2,Bb7(%235),Db7sus,C7sus,E7sus,Ab7sus,Db7sus, D7sus,F%237sus,Bb7sus,Eb7sus),voice1:(inst:41,/4,4, eb,d,c,/3,f,bb,5,c,d,a,*2,r,g,b,f,eb,/2,db,4,eb,gb, ab,bb,b,5,db,4,b,5,gb,db,4,bb,ab,gb,r,r,*3,3,b,/2, 4,db,e,*2,gb,/2,a,5,d,*2,r,/2,4,a,*2,g,/2,a,*2,b,r, /2,3,b,4,db,*2,b,/3,ab,g,f,*3,g,/3,c,3,bb,4,eb,*3, f,/2,ab,5,eb,f,ab,bb,*2,bb,/2,ab,*2,4,eb,d,c,/3,f, bb,5,c,d,a,*2,r,g,b,f,eb,/2,db,4,eb,gb,ab,bb,b,5,db, 4,b,5,gb,db,4,bb,ab,gb,r,r,*3,3,b,/2,4,db,e,*2,gb, /2,a,5,d,*2,r,/2,4,a,*2,g,/2,a,*2,b,r,/2,3,b,4,db, *2,b,*2,/3,bb,ab,g,/2,f,*2,g,f,/2,eb,*2,db,r,*4,r, /4,r,/2,3,b,*2,4,d,e,/2,gb,*2,ab,b,5,gb,/2,d,*2,4, b,ab,/2,db,*2,gb,ab,5,e,/2,db,*2,4,bb,/2,r,*6,r,/3, a,/2,5,d,*2,4,b,/2,r,*6,r,/3,r,/2,5,c,*2,d,gb,/2,f, *2,g,b,6,c,/2,5,bb,*2,gb,/2,r,f,/2,eb,g,*2,f,eb,/2, db,4,a,*2,5,db,4,bb,*2,r,eb,f,/2,g,*2,a,bb,5,ab,/2, b,*2,gb,/2,r,*6,r,/2,4,eb,d,c,/3,f,bb,5,c,d,a,r,r, *2,g,b,f,eb,/2,db,4,eb,gb,ab,bb,b,5,db,4,b,5,gb,db, 4,bb,ab,gb,*2,r,*3,/2,3,b,/2,4,db,e,*2,gb,/2,a,5,d, *2,r,/2,4,a,*2,g,/2,a,*2,b,r,/2,3,b,4,db,*2,b,*2,/3, bb,ab,g,/2,f,*2,g,f,/2,eb,*2,db,r,*4,r)

The TinyURL service boils huge URLs down to something manageable

Enormous URLs are mishandled by a number of email programs although most web browsers will open them correctly.

To package such a URL so that it can easily be transmitted via email, I used the TinyUrl service (http://tinyurl.com), which creates a small URL which can redirect to a much larger URL.

Clicking on this tiny URL causes the entire large tunetext URL to loaded into your web browser and tells the browser to interpret it.: http://tinyurl.com/2e483r

This preview URL (http://preview.tinyurl.com/2e483r ) lets you see what a TinyURL will expand into if you decide to execute it.

Edit the Tunetext URL and you've changed the score

 Because the score is entirely described by a list of parameters encoded as string of alphanumeric symbols, once the syntax of Tuntext URLs is understood, it is possible to quickly change the peformance (tempo, instrumentation, volume) and display of the score (type of staff, the selection of voices displayed in the score, score coloring by melodic interval, harmonic interval and pitch class).

 The pitches and durations of each note, rest, and chord are visible in a tunetext URL and may be changed by editing their description within the URL.

A tunetext page is a factory for building complex HTML for music examples

Links are also presented within this window which can produce HTML directives, which when copied into a webpage can cause the score to be performed in various ways. Links are provided to produce HTML for four different types of score presentations.

The first presentation plays the score as a background sound as the viewable image of the score is shown as the containing web page is loaded.

The second presentation provides a controller below the score iamge which allows the user to play the score from beginning to end when the controller's play button is pressed.

The third presentation provides a controller below the score image which loops the entire score when the controller's play button is pressed.

The fourth presentation displays the the score image as a button. When the user clicks on the score image, a tunetext panel is launched which performs the score, This presentation allows for a musical idea to be transmitted easily around the web via web pages and via email.

Demonstration links are provided next to each HTML production link to show how each presentation format operates within a webpage.

Email links are also provided to allow a user to email the MIDI sequence, printable score and example HTML to their mailbox, so that the score can be installed on their own webpages.

It can feed music into your Workscore on the SongTrellis site

 A link is also included on the bottom Tunetext page, which allows you to copy the generated music to the end of a SongTrellis user's Workscore. SongTrellis Workscore's provide registered users of the SongTrellis site with an environment to compose music using editing controls provided by a Workscore Composer webpage on the site.

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