at the correct tempo. Then you can set the tempo back to the correct setting
for playback. The nice thing about linear performances with MIDI is that you
can preserve the spontaneity and freshness of a first take, editing out just the
bad notes later.You can also write the notes into a staff one at a time with mouse clicks or
key commands just as you might do with pencil and paper. You have the
advantage of being able to hear your work back instantly (if not always with
the exact sound you intended).When working with MIDI, whether or not you plan on printing out a score and
parts, you can always make changes on a note-by-note level, so you never
have to be stuck with a part you don’t like.Loop composing .................................................................................
There is a growing trend these days to construct compositions using ready-
made phrases of music of varying lengths, styles, and instrumental content.
These phrases are known as loops. Two of the most popular types of loops
are Apple Loopsand REXfiles.Loop composition is not new. What is relatively new is the ability to take
recorded audio materials and change the tempo and/or key independently.
For many years now it has been fairly easy to do this with MIDI, but if you
receive a MIDI loop from another musician you still have to attach a sound to
it. MIDI sounds still haven’t quite hit the same nerve that real recordings of
musicians playing real instruments such as a piano or guitar seem to hit.The problem with audio materials of real instruments is that when you play
them back at a faster or slower tempo, the pitch rises or drops. It sounds
unnatural due to the fact that along with the pitch changing, the other for-
mants of the instrument, such as sound duration, vibrato, attack, and so on,
are being changed as well. This gives the recording an unnaturally eerie or
comical quality when all you wanted was to change the tempo. To create an
audio loop with the ability to change pitch or tempo independently, the audio
file has to be chopped up into small pieces and accordioned out or in, depend-
ing on whether you want the tempo slower or faster, or whether you want the
pitch to shift down or up. Fortunately, that is now pretty easy to do.You can record a piano phrase of several measures, run it through the Apple
Loops utility to make it into a loop, and then can send it to another person to
use in their next compositional construction. That person can change the
tempo or the key — or both — and paste it in between other complementary
loops. Strictly speaking, this would be more in the nature of assembly than
composition, because you would be using someone else’s musical ideas.
Of course, if you are making the loops yourself, you are back to the realm of
composition again.236 Part IV: Orchestration and Arrangement