On Thu, 11 Dec 2008 10:01:22 -0500, "Eisboch" wrote:


"Boater" wrote in message
...

The best recordings of the piece *as written* date back a few decades to
performances in the old Soviet Union by Russian piano superstars. This
modern young fellow ain't bad, though:

http://www.serg.vangennip.com/www/piano.html

In fact, he's very good, and he is playing the piece *as written* by
Mussorgsky. It's best not to listen to solo piano music on super high-tech
speakers. They tend to be without...warmth.



I like it.

Now, getting back to earth he

For years I've enjoyed a hobby of creating musical performances using "midi"
technology.
Midi is not an audio recording like an MP3 or WAV file. It's simply a set
of digital instructions or "events"
in a file that instructs a midi device or sound engine to play a certain
note, with a certain velocity, with a certain "voice", etc. I've mentioned
before that midi backing tracks are often used in live band performances,
establishing a concert's musical performance sets. Enough about that.

After struggling with inexpensive keyboards and computer programs over the
years for composing and sequencing midi files, I recently purchased a more
professional level keyboard. It's not simply a keyboard. It's referred to
as a keyboard "arranger" and it is designed for both live performances, plus
doing orchestrations or arrangements of music to be stored for future use.
It's a Korg Pa50 which is not Korg's top of the line, but it uses Korg's top
of the line Titan processors. In fact, it actually has two processing
sequencers that can be run simultaneously, taking a lot of the time and
headaches out of getting a finished product.

But wait. I am not done yet.

We also have a Samick Grand Piano that we purchased several years ago. It's
not a digital piano. It's a 7' acoustic Grand, but when we bought it, we
had a system called a QRS Pianomation installed in it.

http://www.qrsmusic.com/pianomation.asp

The piano may be played normally, but you can also play proprietary, premade
QRS files through the Pianomation system that mechanically "plays" the piano
very similarly to the old player pianos that used paper rolls. The piano
keys are actually played like the old player pianos. It's wild to watch.

The QRS system replaces the paper rolls with digital data on a CD and feeds
it to the mechanical drives that operate the piano's keys, hammers, sustain
pedals, etc. It's pretty cool. The only problem with ours was that the
QRS file format, although very similar in concept to MIDI, is a different
format and .mid files will not play.
(I understand that the newer Pianomation systems will also recognize MIDI
files as well as QRS files, but ours does not)

Recently however, I found a simple and free program that converts MIDI to
QRS. It turns out that they are very similar, the difference being that
MIDI is all digital whereas QRS is, for lack of a better way of expressing
it, a type of analog/digital format. It operates digitally, but by using
analog tone shifts.
Whatever it is, it works.

So, now I can arrange performances on the Korg, store in standard midi, then
convert to QRS and play through the grand piano. The sound is that of the
acoustic piano in all it's glory. No amplifiers or speakers involved.

The beauty of these files is that they are very small, being just digital
instructions.
A recent 20 minute Christmas medley arranged on the Korg is only 77KB. I
can convert it to an MP3 or WAV file, but it would be over 100MB in size.

It may bore you to death, but here's the file. I put it together for Mrs.E.
because she loves hearing the piano playing in the house. It will play
through your computer's midi engine. Hopefully, you have a decent set of
speakers hooked up to your computer to get the best quality sound. But, you
have to imagine the same thing being played on a grand, acoustic piano that
does not depend on a sound card, engine or speakers to generate the tonal
quality. It sounds real, because it *is* real.

http://www.eisboch.com/chrismasmed08.mid

Eisboch




That's very nice! Really. I like it. It's playing in the background as I
type.

Could you do 'Pictures at an Exhibition' also, so I can see if my sound
system has the appropriate 'warmth'?
--
John