March 28, 2024, 07:28:33 AM

News:

Own IWBasic 2.x ? -----> Get your free upgrade to 3.x now.........


Harmonica Tablature

Started by GWS, August 24, 2014, 09:29:34 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

GWS

August 24, 2014, 09:29:34 AM Last Edit: October 06, 2014, 01:26:02 PM by GWS
Hi folks,

Phew, this one took a bit of work to get going ..  ::)  I think I've tamed it, but you never know.  :P

It's a development from Jolly Roger's Midi$ composer 2004.  I used that as a basis, because Roger had coded a midi system, and I needed midi output of the music, played on a Harmonica.

It was difficult to follow the complex code Roger used to generate the music - more comments would have been nice. ;D I've had to build around it as best I could. :)

I've made extensive changes to accomodate the scale ranges for each type of harmonica - Chromatic 16, 14,and 12 hole instruments - Diatonic 10 hole - and Tremolo 24 hole.

The Tablature I've used is a composite of the many methods discussed on the Web.  It seems to be working well. :)

You can enter any music for a chosen harmonica, set the tempo, play the music with any chosen instrument, and save the tablature for re-loading later.

There is a fairly full explanation of how to use the program under Help - Using.

Printing the music was not going to be practical in any decent form - so I've output a simple text file 'out.txt' when you save, which can easily be loaded into a word processor, formatted nicely, and printed from there.

This is quite a substantial tool, and I'm finding it useful for my practice on several harmonicas.

I've included a couple of pieces of music for you to try.

Best wishes, :)

Graham





Tomorrow may be too late ..

LarryMc

WHAT??!!
Two IWBasic programs in 2 days.!!!!
The Gods of Creative are going to get you! ;D ;D ;D ;D
LarryMc
Larry McCaughn :)
Author of IWB+, Custom Button Designer library, Custom Chart Designer library, Snippet Manager, IWGrid control library, LM_Image control library

GWS

He! He! .. I needed the PLAYMIDI command - That's what did it ..  ;D

It doesn't look much, but there's a lot of Windows stuff encapsulated in that one command.

Graham :)
Tomorrow may be too late ..

GWS

I forgot to include an example of a saved file formatted for printing. Copy attached.

This one is for the 'When I Fall in Love' song, formatted in Word and saved as an Rtf document.

The formatting for the printer could be improved with a few more tabs, but I left some space on the right to explain the symbols used for note duration.

You will notice they are not a full musical set - dotted notes are not indicated. But the idea is only to give the player a rough idea of how long to play each note.  For a harmonica, the player will impart the feel he likes to the song anyway.

All the best, :)

Graham :)
Tomorrow may be too late ..

Doc

Really nice Graham!
I'm not much of a player, but truly enjoy the harmonica, so this could come in very handy..

...just wish  could get this Win 8 'puter to play midi files.  :'(

GWS

August 31, 2014, 03:31:27 AM #5 Last Edit: August 31, 2014, 03:06:49 PM by GWS
Hi Doc,

Hope you are well ..  :)

Looks like you've discovered another Microsoft baddie - they've removed 'midimapper' from their Win8 system. Lots of musical folk are hopping mad about it.

It's a shame, since it means you'd be missing an important bit of the program. :(

There's a lot of discussion on the Net, so hopefully you'll find a workaround.

Best wishes, :)

Graham
Tomorrow may be too late ..

GWS

Hi folks,

I've posted an updated version of the program above ..  :)

It now includes an option for a Baritone Tremolo harmonica - the notes for this instrument are an octave lower than a normal Tremolo instrument.

I've included a test piece of music so you can hear how it sounds.  Make sure you select the Baritone instrument option before you play it.

I ought to say, that if you look at the code, expecting it to be all neat and efficient, you may be disappointed.  It's a mix of blocks of my coding, with chunks of Jolly Roger's all mixed together.

I'm just pleased I got it working at all really ..  ::)

All the best, :)

Graham
Tomorrow may be too late ..