Re: realtimeMIDI2LilyPond / realtimeMIDI2MusicXML

[Richard Shann]

On Wed, 2016-07-13 at 11:44 +0200, Jonathan Scholbach wrote:
> Hi!
> 
> Does somebody have experiences with inputting voices via MIDI? I know
> that several programs exist with which you can enter music (to Finale-
> or Sibelius-output or to MusicXML) by step-recording. But is there a
> (good) program which allows you to record the music with your
> midi-keyboard and get a .ly-output?
> The main problem seems to be the rhythmic imprecision of humans playing
> the piano. Is there a program which deals with that? If there is no such
> program do you know attempts to write it?

I created an intermediate method, a sort of super-step-recording for the
Denemo front end to LilyPond. You can enter each change of rhythmic
duration along with the notes as in ordinary step-recording but in
addition you can enter the rhythm for whole bars, phrases, lines and
even wole movements before playing the notes (which adds the pitches to
the rhythms).

When I did this I thought I was just making an slight improvement over
step recording. But I discovered that as I entered the rhythms I fell
into entering the durations rhythmically, and that this felt a bit like
playing a drum. That is, I was leveraging my sight-reading ability to
enter the rhythm as music, helping to keep my place in the music.

Over time I created key shortcuts that meant dotted rhythms, triplets,
and slurs could all be entered without breaking rhythm. Where the rhythm
is repetitive I *do* break rhythm, e.g. copying the rhythm of one bar to
the next, or filling out a bar with the same rhythm already entered etc.

Entering rhythms is still a bit of a bore, but as each has its own sound
I find I get a very high degree of accuracy and can often enter a voice
in the time it takes to play it twice.

Once you have entered your notes there is a command to generate the
LilyPond syntax for them into a file.

HTH

Richard