Original and re-arranged "classical" style music for midi

          On the internet there are many midi versions of most varieties of classical  music.  Usually they make a fairly limited imitation of the sound of such works, and there is little point in  providing more of the same.   However, there is some excuse to re- arrange such music for a refreshing change of sound - or to write new pieces that the composers  may have written, but which no orchestra  would take seriously.   So I have done both these things.

        The music here will probably  sound empty and 'electronic' if played on a normal   P.C. sound card.   You can  get a  better effect with a realistic 'wave table' card,  or an external 'midi' sound module or keyboard.  A 'general midi'  device will match the instruments correctly and, in theory,  roughly matches a classical style.  However,  you may need a device where you can alter  the character of the sound, such as the attack speed and  general  tone.   This is because  I have NEVER  heard a  midi device which has come set up to sound really well in a classical style. It can take very subtle changes  to make instruments match a particular piece of music. 

Since first writing this, I have acquired a creative  'Sound Blaster Live' sound card,   one of the better ones for midi because it uses samples of sound that you can set to play the way you want ( using a free extra program) .. within limits.  
This card is likely to be present on quite a few modern computers.  I  have therefore gone through the midi files here and edited them to sound better for this card  AS IT  IS  ORIGINALLY  SETUP -- ie  with the original samples and volume balance.      Sadly one of the least successful sounds on the original card is the strings .. the most important for classical music.  The original samples are of the 'harsh' high frequency style.   When set against the rest of the instruments all that tends to be heard is a high pitched 'fuzzy' sound.   I have tried various combinations of other instruments playing the same notes to soften the effect.   Sometimes it is reasonable.

Also ...  the music sounds better with some reverberation and chorus effect .  I have set each track to have a small amount of these 'ON', but there will be no audible difference unless the 'EAX" settings for the SB live sound card are set fully on.  You have to go to the "Audio HQ" and then the  "EAX control panel" where you can set the 'master settings' for chorus and reverberation to 100%.    The midi controls will then be operative.

(All of which makes me think that midi is a very 'unstandard' and therefore unsatisfactory  way of  presenting music!!!)

If you  have a 'sequencer' program,  you can change the midi file's  instrument  type to suit  your taste or make the best of a poorer sound card.

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 The music here was played live into a sequencer, not entered note by note with mouse click, and is therefore not always strictly in time ... (especially as the performance in this case is strictly amateur) , but it still has the advantage of some musical expression.   As far as the compositions go, they lack the finesse of a Mozart, especially being  played  through a digital device, but you  may find them interesting.

Midi experts- please note that volume  levels are sometimes set into the tracks themselves to create 'fading' of sound.  Meaning that simple external setting in a sequencer will not always work .. it may require modification of the track volume data... or you can add or subtract some note velocity.

The midi files >>

Click button  for  an original example in the style of a Mozart  march (or is it more like Haydn?) 

Followed by a short slow movement in the style of the Mozart clarinet concerto ( I am afraid that vibrato is set 'on' in the standard SB live clarinet sound ..  grrr. ) 

And just when you thought you could relax,  Mozart meets Mendelsohn. 

Next, in a fit of  enthusiasm a jig was extemporised ( i.e. made up as it was played )  in the style of Bach.  This is obvious in the way the timing is not entirely consistent.( I may fix this later ??? ).
By sheer luck the playing held together till the last few bars when the key had gone far from the original.  This was altered in the sequencer and the  worst mistakes corrected.   Extemporisation is a strange business.  When your  energy is good there is quite automatic reassembly of the musical data you have built into your nervous system - in my case by years of repetitive "playing about" on a keyboard.   It is almost impossible NOT to reproduce musical phrases, but what is astonishing is that sometimes the  whole thing follows an intelligent flow to an end.
I believe this is very much like normal speech  where intention formed inside us directs the later flow of words without real conscious effort.  ( The downside is, as with speech, out of place phrases, awkward halts, or too much repetition of cliches. The brain connections go astray. )    This piece is not as complicated as it may sound.   Once the notes were in the sequencer they were 'cloned' to other tracks to become oboe/ bassoon effects fading in and out as required.
  Try it here 

Now a re-arranged Teleman movement.  I quite like this cheerful piece. Originally I believe, for 2 violins and continuo.  Modified for 2 oboes, a guitar, cello and string orchestra. 

The next one is Pachelbel's famous canon .. severely modified to become  a  'farewell to the world'.    In  fact it is mostly just the bass and general harmony that survive.  If the user has an SB live sound card (as per original)  the music should be ... 'half satisfactory' .. the strings being the main problem again.   
But it may sound quite awful on other sound cards!
 A sequencer and changing of instrument types may help in that case.  I suggest in particular that the 'monks' be changed to oboes since ordinary sound cards are especially unrealistic ( and faint)  as choir imitations.   Or just select any  instruments for each part that seem to work together in balance.
You can try to picture yourself standing on a beach hearing monks singing their last farewell to the world and then fading away as the universe continues on it's eternal path. This 'eternal background' is meant to be evident at the start, and again at the end,with the music matching the  rising and falling of the sea.  
It is much slower than usual.  Musicians will note that it has a rather thick texture at times.    The music could be pruned out I suppose, but the current piece is how it came together .. a basic structure was done and then various themes added and emphasised over time, on top of the old.     You will just have to imagine what it could sound like with a proper string orchestra and male choir singing the voice parts.
You can get a hint of the sound  here .... 

That's  all for now.  There is much other music I  could add, but it needs to be modified for PC .  We shall see.
I suppose I should assert some sort of copyright over the original music.  Oh .... um ..   er ..  Enjoy if possible.  If anyone ever transfers the midi files to anywhere else  please acknowledge the composer  and web site.

        And if anyone has made, or knows of  similar midi files,  feel free to 'attach' them to an email   sent  to the  address on the main page .    For any who have not discovered midi music yet, there are many thousands of files of every possible style on the internet.  A large  source of classical and serious music (and a few oddities in the 'inspirations' section)  is at  ..     http://www.prs.net/midi.html

         I would offer to provide tape cassettes of the way these pieces and others are meant to sound,  but it would take a lot of effort and expense.   And  MP3 files  are still  far too large to store on this web site.     Small 'samples'  may appear later,  or perhaps complete pieces will be uploaded to another site  and linked to from here.

David  Lawrence.  modified November 2004                 Link to home ( index)  page