I wanted to follow through on the topic of transcripts over-reliance. I have spent the last couple of days going over the Misty tutorial (cocktail piano improv) and doing my level best to try to understand the sequence in which you are hitting the chords/notes. As you say, it is a painstaking process…and I realize that I end up writing down the sequence of chords and notes one line at a time with a column separating RH an LH and going down the page to represent sequence…something like:
F C | A E
D |
| C G
C G | E B
… (I invented this sequence…just to illustrate)
Then it dawned on me that I have seen in YouTube a song being represented by chords and notes going down the screen in the sequence they are played. I Groked and found out that this representation is called Falling Notes and was originally championed by Synthesia. I also found out that there are several apps (some free) that can generate Falling Notes from MIDI files.
I searched our forum for MIDI files and apparently there are some that are part of the lessons download section but I have not found any for the Reading Lead Sheet lessons for beginners on any of the 9 standards. Would it be possible for you to make them available? I am wanting to see the results of generating Falling Notes from your playing of the standards. UNLESS you tell me that I am in some kind of foolish errand…
These MIDI files are available on some lessons but not all of them. The above MIDI files are performances which also include chord extensions and more advanced voicings than just R-3-7 spread voicings.
For the 9 jazz standards in the beginner section, it is possible to extract the MIDI files from the original lesson recording files. I’d need to locate the files and extract them so please check out the files above and let me know if it’s worthwhile for me to do that.
On a related note I’m working on a “Download Library” which contains all downloads and one can filter by file type (pdf, MIDI etc…) and also by document type (chord chart, theory worksheet, transcription etc…). I don’t have an ETA on this at the moment, but it’s on my to-do-list.
When using MIDI software to display these files, you will only see the light-up notes.
With the PianoGroove tutorial layout, the light-up MIDI keyboard is synched with my hands and so you can see how I am playing the chords and what fingering I am using. We also show the blue highlights on the lead sheet inside the video, so that you can see the exact part of the song being demonstrated.
With the raw MIDI files I think they can be quite difficult to follow - but please experiment with the sample files attached above and let me know if I can help further.
Excellent plan! I will start with My Funny Valentine which is not one of the standards I am learning at the moment and so this will be a good test to determine IF generating MIDI files for the standards is a worthwhile effort…totally agree.
I will report back once I have some answers. Thanks so much!
I must say this is quite helpful for me…it’s automatically doing what I was painfully doing on a piece of paper using massive steroids
Hayden, I know your time is precious but if coming up with these files is not a big deal then I am certainly going to use them! Your to-do list is most certainly daunting…so, this will be ready when it’s ready…cool?
