What is Midi ? . How does it make learning an instrument easier ?

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MIDI (read more here) is the most powerful sound format for professional musicans. to ammusican who wants to arrange music and compose Its just as important as wave sound and CD audio format  files to a musician who wants to record

Now its becoming a standard world over for teaching too.
thats the use of MIDI this forum explores most.

MIDI sounds are already on your PC if you can hear sound if you have sound . All standard soundcards have MIDI samples on their memory - a MIDI file merely accesses that . youll notice the sound quality wont be like advanced digital piano or keyboard MIDI samples ( though advanced professional midi soundcards defintely do ) but that doesnt matter for learning.

WAVE sound  ( CD audio ) does not allow you to read the music.
MIDI does allow you to read the music as it plays as notation and even prints it out as a sheet music piece.

WAVE sound is hard to edit actual notes in the sense of moving them around and certainly you cant change the instruments once recorded .
MIDI enables editing notes and thuis arranging or composing or learning how to read with ease.( remeber in a midi notation sequencer you see the notes mainly as actual normal music notes or alternatively TAB ( you also see them just as graphs if you change the view)

MIDI SONGS and pieces are s far less controlled by record companies than CD audio . Classical pieces are copyright free but record companies require you to pay for their artisits recoirding naturally. However professional musicans and great amateurs have gone crazy since MIDI came out and reciorded 1000s of midi files so that almost every classical piece ever written is now free to down load on the net. For coipyrighted POP ROCK COUNTRY etc music midi is available FAR cheaper. Some midi businesses who have copyright sell these for US$1.00 .

You can play these files on your Windows Media player or MACs but you cant do anything to them on Windows media player  to help you with learning like slow them down , Mute instruments , convert them to TAB if guitarists, Loop them to practice different sections , change the instruments ( make a saxophone solo part channle a guitar or a keyboard or any instruments with a flick of a button, print them as notation, record over them etc etc . The various types of midi sequencer programs on this forum enable you to do all of those things and more.

MIDI enables you to slow down the music to any pace just like you can do with wave or mp3. noone can learn a piece without slowing it down first excpet advanced players.
With MIDI in a MIDI sequencer program ( we have all kinds of these with different functions on this forum ) you can loop a section over and over with the right program or keyboard.
There is no other most single important aspect of learning than being able to repeat small sections so this is an invaluable tool
you can see a note on the music staff highlighted in red as it plays.

MIDI enables you to play along with entire bands with your solo showing up highlighted as music notation or TAB ( TAB only on some programs like ours here ) but also to MUTE your own part which you cant do on MP3 or wave or even Mute other parts to make the music simpler to play along with ( for instance with a percussion rhythm that confuses beginners you can just MUTE that so the whole piece sounds simpler)

MIDI is a powerful tool for  learner of ANY instrument or even vocals.

KEYBOARDISTS can load midi files as extra user songs or record midi songs on the keyboard and send them to PC via a simple USB printers cable or Midi conection kit  to store and share by email - midi  is a fraction of the size of an MP3 file ( amongst MANY other things a keyboard can do with MIDI.

GUITARISTS can convert MIDI files to TAB with certain MIDI programs - We have one of those here besides the many others here . This way they can learn and play along with standard normal music notation as well as TAB all at the same time . This is invaluable because TAB has definate limitations on learning rhythm which only standard notation can notate. TAB is great for showing the guitar fret positions of pieces so its best to know both notations . Guitar pieces with band accompaniment to play along too in MIDI make practising fun.

WOODWIND and BRASS Players Flute oboe clarinet saxophone players can play along with midi accompaniments

If youre eager to hear a MIDI file right now simply click here and it will ask you to save or open in your windows media player or quick time player

Then you can start looking at some tutorials showing you how to do all the above and makes some program downloads of midi sequencers ( some are free if you register but some tutorials and dowlads only for paid subscribers and instrument purchasers) right here

to use midi on several PC sequencers simultaneously youd need MIDI OX

Excellent more detailed technical information on using MIDI IN and MIDI OUT  in various ways can be found at in this web  article