SC 740 Presentation Review

By

Deborah Dent

Dr. Garraway presented a very interesting and entertaining presentation centered on MIDI, which stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface and represents a breakthrough in the way that music could be transferred from one device to another. He began the presentation by presenting the history of electronic music. We can credit Leon Theremin for building the first electronic instrument in 1919 call the theremin. Since then many have studied electronic music devices. In 1968 the synthesizer, which is an electronic device for making musical sounds, was invented.

 During the last 6 years, MIDI has been the rage among electronic musicians. It is an industry-wide standardized communication protocol that allows notes and scores to be converted to basic binary sequences which can be re-interpreted by a computer, and vice versa. This hardware/software protocol was created in the early 1980's by a group of synthesizer manufacturers to provide a common language for connecting multiple synthesizers. It was originally intended as a means of controlling one keyboard from another by remote control. However, MIDI has developed into the industry-standard system to connect computers to synthesizers. A PC equipped with a MIDI interface can control anything with a MIDI IN port. This can include synthesizers, lighting controllers, tape decks, sound effects processors, and other MIDI devices. A "virtual orchestra" can be created - all of it controlled via MIDI.

 Dr. Garraway demonstrated his MIDI equipped personal computer, music software and application tool and synthesizer and was able to produce professional sounding music that sounded like a band. He demonstrated how the computer's MIDI interface provides a means of recording MIDI data. The MIDI performance represented by this data was stored as Standard MIDI Files - an industry-standard format for saving MIDI-created music. He was able to create music that is virtually indistinguishable from real instruments. Music recorded with MIDI sequencing software can be edited in an almost unlimited fashion. You can easily change the key, the tempo, and the length - even change timing and pitches. He could easily cut a CD and the public would never know he did it all along.

 Dr. Garraway entertained us with a rendition from his acoustic tone generator, his synthesizer and his flute. He was able to record, edit, and even add in solos to some of his selections. Even though the MIDI equipped personal computer is powerful, it still requires a musically gifted person like Dr. Garraway to pull it all together.