Frank Lennon's

"The MIDI Music Classroom"

....128 is the most important number in General Midi (GM)....there are 128(1-128 or 0-127) General Midi sounds or patches....127 is the highest volume level, 0 the lowest(0-127)....127 is full reverb, 0 is none....there are 128 positions in the stereo spectrum (64 to the left and 63 to the right with "0" being the centre)....there are 16 channels but endless tracks....Channel 10 is always the drum track.....

www.socc.ie/~irishmidifiles

Multi-Keyboard Setup

The master keyboard is the sound source for the 5 smaller keyboards. It could be a sound module instead but as a keyboard, it permits a teacher to demonstrate what the smaller keyboards should be playing. It also allows a teacher to use the modern features found on many of these keyboards eg. auto-accompaniment, disk drive feature to record what is played or to playback "midi files" etc.

The computer connects into the master keyboard

via a MIDI cable interface which connects to the joystick  port   (or soundcard) of the computer

or

via the new style USB MIDI interfaces with the more modern computers

and to the OUT of the MIDI merge unit  below

(Picture courtesy of Philip Rees)

                              5 midi cables connect the "midi out" sockets of the smaller keyboards to the 5 "midi inputs" of the MIDI merge unit                              

                    Keyboard 1                     Keyboard 2                          Keyboard 3                         Keyboard 4                     Keyboard 5
                               (Click on the small keyboards to hear the individual parts and on the large keyboard to hear them all together)

(The above parts were written for and played by  4, eight year old,  partially deaf boys. The drum part on Keyboard 2 was added in from a MIDI file)

1. Each of the keyboards above may play any of the 128 general midi (GM) sounds or patches.

2. Each keyboard could also be a drumkit if assigned to Channel 10 (the drum channel). Most keys, but not all (there are simply not enough percussion sounds to assign), would be assigned a particular percussion sound. (What about the "bodhran"?)

3. The smaller (controller) keyboards are connected to the MIDI merge unit using  MIDI cables.

  Click on each of the left cells above to hear the whole group and in each of the other horizontal cells to hear the individual parts

*the "bodhran" ( pronounced 'bough - ron' ) is a hand held drum beaten with a double-headed stick

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