reset/update midi to notation

[Sherry C]

Hi Shelby,

Good eyes and ears! You're probably not doing a thing wrong in using the program. There are a few explanations for what you might be seeing and hearing.

What you may be observing is the "interpretation" of the underlying MIDI performance into readable sheet music. Composer gives you a number of options for transcribing a performance to sheet music. Especially important (and perhaps what you noticed) is the difference in rhythm styles. To see all the options that are available for altering the transcription you see, you can check out Setup/Transcription options. This dialog allows you to select the options you want to use when you open up a new MIDI (.mid) file.

If you don't like the way the sheet music looks when you first open it, you can use Format/Retranscribe to select a different set of options for some staves or the entire score. This gives you a great deal of flexibility for transcribing (for example) a swing piece. If you're learning that style of music, you may want the exact rhythms notated until you feel comfortable with the style and then no longer need the exact rhythms written out.

Another case is that the performance has some performances of notes that are "on top of" or "behind" the actual notation. You can "snap" the performance of these notes (or all notes) to the notation using the Piano Roll feature. Our term "snap" is similar to the "quantize" feature that you may see in other sequencer programs, but here you have the major benefit of seeing the notation and having the performance snap to that notation. You can read more about that in Help/Users Guide, and use the Index to look up "snap".

One other case that sometimes comes up (and causes a notational mess) is a file that was not recorded with respect to a metronome. Currently Composer needs that reference to a metronome in order to correctly notate the score. I've found a number of files that sound beautiful - lots of tempo change to add feeling to the performance - but give lousy sheet music because the performance was recorded "as is" with no reference to the metronome. We're working on that one

ttfn,
Sherry