Several Piano-ology students have requested that I include Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) files with each lesson…
… for two valuable reasons.
- This allows the visually-impaired to “see” the score.
- This allows you to import a MIDI file into your music software to use as a play-along study aid that you can edit and play at any tempo you choose.
While I fully support both of the above in principle, I have two strong reservations:
- The MIDI rendition of any score is typically rhythmically rigid, dynamically flat, monotonously inarticulate, and totally devoid of feeling. In a word, a typical MIDI file is painfully unmusical.
- Some music is impossible to capture accurately using conventional music notation. The timing and rhythm for swinging Jazz or a rubato ballad, for example, can never be reduced to dots on a page or a MIDI note table.
And so, I have decided not to post MIDI files with each lesson. For one, I do not for a moment want anybody to hear a Piano-ology MIDI file and think that’s Frank Peter playing. But, more important, playing along with an unmusical MIDI file may instill some very unmusical listening and playing habits.
All that said, I still want to help.
If you are visually impaired or would like to use a particular MIDI file for your personal educational use, please contact me (frank@piano-ology.com). I would be happy to send it to you with the full understanding that such files are for your ears only.
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