----- Original Message -----From: George F. LitterstSent: Tuesday, September 12, 2006 6:19 AMSubject: Re: [disklavier] Re: piano-e-competitionGood morning, everyone.
On Sep 12, 2006, at 1:53 AM, Richard Kerr wrote:
>
> Not very useful without the composer.
I determined the title information that was embedded into the P-e-C
MIDI files.
Basically, we added 2 types of MIDI messages: (1) a Yamaha System
Exclusive message that Yamaha instruments recognize and display and
(2) a Sequence Name Meta Event that many sequencers, keyboards, and
other devices recognize.
In the case of #2, we were limited to 32 characters. In the case of
Mark III and earlier Disklaviers, we were also limited to 32
characters (i.e. two lines of 16 characters each).
With these limitations in mind, I constructed title information
consisting of piece name and artist name. In the case of #1, I put as
much into the 32-character allotment as I could; in the case of #2, I
essentially did the same thing except that I formatted it so that
piece name information appears on the first line and artist name
appears on the second line.
In some cases, the information was so crowded that I could not
separate words with spaces and therefore separated words by their
initial capital letters.
Since the competition is all about the young artists, I thought it
important to associate the performer names with each MIDI file and
therefore gave preference to the artists instead of to the composers.
The Mark IV, of course, can show even longer piece names. However,
the data is just in a long, System Exclusive string. The information
is not organized by categories (such as piece name, composer name,
date of composition, artist, etc.). In addition, you cannot see the
complete string at one time on the Mark IV Pocket Remote; it scrolls
by horizontally. I could have lengthened the Yamaha SysEx message and
included the composer name after the 32nd character, but the string
would have looked awkward. Also, adding that information would not
have assisted the objective of many Disklavier owners to have a
database that was searchable by piece, composer, artist, etc.
Regards,
PianoBench
Message
Re: [disklavier] Re: piano-e-competition
2006-09-12 by Richard Kerr
I am highly appreciative and grateful for the efforts of those of you who
have taken the time to improve the visual presentation of information
relevant to composer, composition, performer, etc of the pieces we play on our
Disklaviers. Despite these noble and welcome efforts, the limitations of visual
display devices chosen by Yamaha, the general looseness of MIDI
standards, and the absence of any significant interest by the computing industry
in compiling responsive software, leaves those of us who are serious about
cataloging, sorting, and selectively playing thousands of MIDI files, to
our own miserable devises. The result is a hodgepodge of personal computer
approaches for displaying musical composition and performance
information and for playing pieces that at best, is a gross
compromise.
What is needed is a consortium of Yamaha, computing industry,
and MIDI standards representatives to address this issue
by analyzing and defining user needs and packing technology in a way
that is fully responsive, rather than the half-heatred approach we are forced to
contend with today. Frankly, I don't hold out much expectation for that to
occur. So until that utopian day arrives, we are stuck with the PC and the
necessity of cobbling up our own software solutions to meet individual
cataloging needs. The very fact that this discussion is occurring should
serve as adequate notice to Yamaha that it should take the lead in pursuing this
matter of defining and responding to user needs fully. One would think Yamaha
would recognize that these severe limitations impede the sale of their
instruments. Alas, I love Yamaha and its wonderful pianos, and I'll be eternally
grateful for what they have done to bring the Disklavier to its current high
state of wonder. Nevertheless, when it comes to displaying relevant
information fully, I only have hope for far more, with very little
expectation that such hope will be realized. I wonder if Yamaha has ever asked
users what they need?
Richard H. Kerr