M-audio MUSIC TEACHER user guide

Music Teacher

Learn to play keyboard with your PC

Music Teacher Help Manual

License agreement:

Information in this document is subject to change without notice and does not represent a commitment on the part of Evolution Electronics Ltd.

The software described in this document is furnished under a single-user license agreement. It may only be copied for the purpose of a backup under the terms of the single-user agreement. Any other copying is against the law. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, for any purpose without the express written permission of Evolution Electronics Ltd

Credits and copyright

Copyright © 1998 by Evolution Electronics Ltd. All rights reserved.

Music Teacher is an Evolution Electronics production.

Music Teacher programmed by Stephen J. Mellin.

Manual written by Rhun Roberts

Readme file

Please check the program directory for a file called README.WRI. This will list any changes made to the program after the manual was printed.

Updating your Software

To update your software to the latest version visit our web site on http://www.evolution.co.uk. Here you will find patches exclusively for Evolution own brand products. Simply download the free updates, run the patch.exe files and quickly update your software.

Technical support

Evolution Electronics offers free technical support for registered Music Teacher users. If you have a problem, before contacting Technical Support please read the relevant section of the manual and the on-line help section of the software.

If you still need technical assistance, please have the following information to hand: OPERATING SYSTEM :e.g. Win 3.11

HARDWARE PLATFORM: e.g. IBM PC CPU: e.g. 486

CPU SPEED: e.g. 33 MHz RAM: e.g. 8MB SOUNDCARD:

Technical Support can be contacted:

Between 0900 and 1700 UK Time

Evolution Electronics Ltd,

8 Church Square,

Leighton Buzzard,

Bedfordshire,

LU7 7AE.

United Kingdom

Tel: [phone]

Fax: [phone]

Support E-Mail : [e-mail] Sales E-Mail : [e-mail] http://www.evolution.co.uk

International :

Tel: [phone]

Fax: [phone]

Introduction

Welcome to the digital musical world of Evolution Music Teacher brought to you by leading UK music software developer, Evolution Electronics. This manual is an addendum to the on-line help which is available within the software.

Installing Music Teacher

If you really hate reading manuals then by all means follow your instincts and experiment. If you have installed other PC programs, you'll find Music Teacher’s installation very straight forward. Otherwise, check out the “Installing Music Teacher“ section later on in this chapter.

What is Music Teacher?

Music Teacher is a program designed to improve your musical skills and keyboard technique by use of simple tests and games. Music Teacher lets you tap out the rhythm of a song - and automatically plays the correct notes for you. It will even tell you if you're playing ahead of, or after the beat. The program will even wait for you if you're playing well behind until you catch up with the right

notes!

Music Teacher lets you guess the notes you see on the screen - and tells you if you're playing too high or too low. Music Teacher will assess every note you play during a song for left and right hands - and gives you a percentage mark at the end of the test.

Music Teacher lets you load in MIDI file to help you learn how to play it.

Music Teacher has a fun "Game" screen which is great for people of all ages. The game consists of 12 1-bar tests and has 4 teachers to examine your playing. Mr Easy might give you full marks for your efforts, but watch out for the MIDI GURU - who expects you to play every note "spot-on" before you'll get any kind of mark.

Music Teacher has a Backing mode which plays the backing track of a song as you jam along playing the melody. The Recital mode is used as a simple MIDI file player - no need to worry about playing the right notes here - all tracks will be played for you. If you like - you can flick through each track to see what's being played by, say, the main piano, bass line, guitar riff etc..

Music Teacher has a "loop" feature that allows you to practice difficult sections over and over until you get them right. You can even slow down the tempo to practice getting those awkward semi-quaver notes!!

Music Teacher has high quality graphics with easy to understand buttons. Fancy a metronome click to help you get the right rhythm? - no worries - just click on the picture of the metronome!

Music Teacher is an intuitive teaching package which will improve your pitch and rhythm recognition in no time at all. A few days with Music Teacher and you'll notice an improvement with your playing. A few weeks with Music Teacher and you'll be playing your favourite tunes to your friends and family's disbelief!

What you need

To run Music Teacher you require the following:

*A 486 IBM PC or compatible running at a minimum speed of 25 MHz, preferably faster.

*Windows 3.1x or Windows 95.

*4Mb of RAM with Windows 3.1, 8Mb of RAM with Windows 95.

*3Mb of hard disk space for the program.

*A VGA resolution monitor or better. The screen resolution is designed at 640 x 480 using 256 colours, so make sure your graphics resolution is set to at least 256 colours.

*A MIDI interface or PC sound card with a MIDI interface. You’ll also need an electronic music keyboard with a MIDI OUT socket to connect to your soundcard for the inputting of notes into the program.

INSTALLING MUSIC TEACHER

This section explains how to install Music Teacher onto your hard disk. The process is virtually automatic - all you have to do is follow a few on-screen prompts.

Windows 95

Put the program disk in a disk drive and click on the start button on the task bar. Click on “Run”. Type in a:\setup in the “Open” section. If you don’t like typing - you can click on “Browse” - and locate the setup.exe file on your floppy drive.

Windows 3.x

Put the program disk in your floppy drive and open the file manager. Select Run… from the File Menu and in the Command Line enter:

X:\SETUP

where X is the letter of the floppy disk drive. In most cases this will be A - so you would enter a:\setup. Then press Return or click on OK.

If you really don’t like typing you can open the drive by double clicking on the drive icon in the file manager and then double click on the setup.exe file.

The Music Teacher installation dialogue box will appear asking which directory you want to install the program to. The default will be C drive followed by “Teacher” (in Windows 3.x) or C:\ Program Files\ Teacher in Windows 95. If you want to change the drive or directory path to install the program - you can do that here. Now click on the OK button and the routine will create a directory called “Teacher” on your hard disk and put the files in it. For a smooth installation just click on OK for all options.

To uninstall Music Teacher, follow the standard Windows 95 uninstall procedure and point to the Music Teacher program when prompted. For Win3.x users, an uninstall program will be installed in the Music Teacher Program directory.

Quick Start

The best way to learn about a new program is to sit down and start using it - so let's go and do just that!

Just follow the simple step-by-step guide below and you'll become a Music Teacher "Power User" in no time at all!

When you first run the program - a file called INITIAL.MID will be loaded automatically. This is the song we'll be using to get to know all the main teaching tools of Music Teacher.

You should see 2 bars of music on the screen with the play position (the triangle) directly above the rest in the first bar. You should be in Recital mode (as indicated by the button on the right hand side of the main screen.)

Now press the play button.

This will start the playback of the song. You'll notice some accompaniment sounds playing along with the melody. As the song is played - each note will turn red in the score display as they are

played. This will help you get the feel of the rhythm of the song.

If the notes appear in red - but you cannot hear any sounds coming from your speakers - please take a look in the Trouble shooting section before continuing with this quick start tutorial.

At the end of the song - press the go to start button This will take the play position back to the start of the song. Press play again to listen to the song once more.

Now that you know what the song sounds like-we'll listen to the melody on its own.

Press the Listen button. Notice that the lower stave becomes greyed out, indicating that were are going to learn the top stave only. Only the music in the score display area will now play. This includes the greyed out music on the lower stave.

Press play. Again, you'll see the notes on the top stave appear red as they are played. The keys on the screen keyboard will also turn red when they are played.

Repeat the process of playing and rewinding the song until you're happy with how the melody sounds.

When you're happy - rewind the song to the start and press the Teach button. You can now decide which of the three teaching modes to work with. You can choose to learn either the rhythm, the notes or both. First of all we will choose to learn just the rhythm of the piece.

Click on the rhythm "pedal".

The object of the rhythm test is to tap out the rhythm of the music displayed in the score area. You can use absolutely any key on your MIDI keyboard to tap out the rhythm - you don't have to play the same pitch of the notes you see on the screen.

After pressing play - the play position triangle will move across the screen from left to right, lighting up each note in turn. All you have to do is tap each note as they turn red.

If you tap too late, you will see a left facing arrow above the note.

If you tap too early, you'll see a right facing arrow above the note.

If you tap the note on the correct beat - the note will turn from red to black and you'll then go on to tap the next notes.

Let's try it!

Press play.

Did you get 100%?? Maybe not first time. Try again. Rewind the song to the start then press play again.

If you don't play all the notes in the first bar - the play position will stop and wait for a MIDI input. Only then will it carry on playing.

Repeat the test many times until you get a high percentage mark at the end of the test.

Once you're happy with the rhythm of the song - rewind the song to the start then press the Notes pedal.

This time - you don't have to play the correct rhythm of the song - all you do is guess the notes you see on the screen. You can do this in 2 ways:-

1.The Easy way (for cheats) - look at the screen keyboard for the note to play.

2.The Sensible way - play notes on the MIDI keyboard which you think match up with those in the score.

Press the play button.

You'll now see the first note of the song turn red. All you have to do is play notes on your keyboard that matches that on the screen. There is no metronome click this time - so there is no rush to play each note - take your time !

If you play a note which is too high, you'll see a downward facing arrow.

If you play a note which is too low, you'll see an upward facing arrow.