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kareinaLast week in Choir we started learning a new song, Waltzing Matilda. I am embarrassed to admit that in the five years I spent in Australia I never learned that song. Now, five years after leaving, I am finally learning it. However, it is new to everyone in the choir, and so didn't exist in our midi archive, so I couldn't listen to the tune on my own, yet, to better learn it.
On Friday some of the choir folk gathered at our place for instrumental music and singing and general fun. During the evening I asked where we get our midi files, and if I could help with uploading them. He explained that we take the photocopied sheet music the choir director gives us and transcribes it into a music notation program, then export the midis from there. And by "we" I mean "the one bass who had been in the choir even longer than![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lord_kjar has". The one who has finally, after many years with the choir, moved on to other things. This meant that "we" meant "no one, unless our over-worked choir president gets around to it".
I have a perfectly good copy of Noteworthy composer, so I said I would try typing up the song. Of course, we were out of town on the weekend, so I didn't get started till Monday. 5.8 hours of work (scattered in three sessions over two days), and I got it all entered in by this morning. Then I couldn't figure out how to get the program to spit out the midi. There is a "record" button, but pressing that makes the program ask me to "please select an input device", but the drop down menu from which one is, presumably, meant to select said device is totally blank.
I checked the web page, and it said one does it by selecting File>Export. However, I didn't have an "export" button under the file menu. I tried up grading the program, and still no export button. So I gave up for the time being and finished up my uni work instead.
By "finished up" I mean "did the last couple of edits to the paper in progress, exported the figures from CorelDraw as eps files (save for the two that didn't have good quality in that format--they became tiff files), and uploaded everything to the publisher's web page and then hit the "re-submit" button. If all goes well this time they accept it, and I am truly done with the last job (the one for which the last of the funding ran out in June).
Tonight's choir session was fun, if rather lacking in Bass voices (lord_kjar had to work in Kiruna today, and he wasn't done till 17:00. It is at least a four hour drive, so he isn't home yet, but is expected soonish, I would think. Why the other Bass who have tried choir out this semester weren't there I don't know, but we didn't have any). After choir I was inspired to try again, and this time I tried the "save as" button. Sure enough, one can "save as" a midi file. Much to my delight when one has typed up the lyrics into the program (essential for me to keep track of where in the song we are!) the program exports the lyrics, too. So I have the alto part of Waltzing Matilda playing in a loop in the background as I type, and at any time I can glance at the other screen where the word corresponding with the note that is currently playing is highlighted in blue.
In other news, I am nearly done with my current nålbindening project. A cute grey pointy hat with fur trim in omani stitch. Choir tonight wasn't quite long enough to finish the very top of the point. Clearly I should have kept stitching during the break. This is the most complicated stitch I have tried yet. The join to the previous row is totally normal, but then one needs to hook two threads from the right side of the holding thumb (assuming one is stitching right-handed) before taking three threads from the thumb on the left side and twisting them together before finishing the stitch. I know from experience that if one forgets to do those first two threads on the right one winds up with a hole in the pattern. Usually I took out the stitches back to the hole and did it again properly. But I don't promise I caught the mistake every time!
On Friday some of the choir folk gathered at our place for instrumental music and singing and general fun. During the evening I asked where we get our midi files, and if I could help with uploading them. He explained that we take the photocopied sheet music the choir director gives us and transcribes it into a music notation program, then export the midis from there. And by "we" I mean "the one bass who had been in the choir even longer than
lord_kjar has". The one who has finally, after many years with the choir, moved on to other things. This meant that "we" meant "no one, unless our over-worked choir president gets around to it".I have a perfectly good copy of Noteworthy composer, so I said I would try typing up the song. Of course, we were out of town on the weekend, so I didn't get started till Monday. 5.8 hours of work (scattered in three sessions over two days), and I got it all entered in by this morning. Then I couldn't figure out how to get the program to spit out the midi. There is a "record" button, but pressing that makes the program ask me to "please select an input device", but the drop down menu from which one is, presumably, meant to select said device is totally blank.
I checked the web page, and it said one does it by selecting File>Export. However, I didn't have an "export" button under the file menu. I tried up grading the program, and still no export button. So I gave up for the time being and finished up my uni work instead.
By "finished up" I mean "did the last couple of edits to the paper in progress, exported the figures from CorelDraw as eps files (save for the two that didn't have good quality in that format--they became tiff files), and uploaded everything to the publisher's web page and then hit the "re-submit" button. If all goes well this time they accept it, and I am truly done with the last job (the one for which the last of the funding ran out in June).
Tonight's choir session was fun, if rather lacking in Bass voices (
lord_kjar had to work in Kiruna today, and he wasn't done till 17:00. It is at least a four hour drive, so he isn't home yet, but is expected soonish, I would think. Why the other Bass who have tried choir out this semester weren't there I don't know, but we didn't have any). After choir I was inspired to try again, and this time I tried the "save as" button. Sure enough, one can "save as" a midi file. Much to my delight when one has typed up the lyrics into the program (essential for me to keep track of where in the song we are!) the program exports the lyrics, too. So I have the alto part of Waltzing Matilda playing in a loop in the background as I type, and at any time I can glance at the other screen where the word corresponding with the note that is currently playing is highlighted in blue. In other news, I am nearly done with my current nålbindening project. A cute grey pointy hat with fur trim in omani stitch. Choir tonight wasn't quite long enough to finish the very top of the point. Clearly I should have kept stitching during the break. This is the most complicated stitch I have tried yet. The join to the previous row is totally normal, but then one needs to hook two threads from the right side of the holding thumb (assuming one is stitching right-handed) before taking three threads from the thumb on the left side and twisting them together before finishing the stitch. I know from experience that if one forgets to do those first two threads on the right one winds up with a hole in the pattern. Usually I took out the stitches back to the hole and did it again properly. But I don't promise I caught the mistake every time!