Why Rondo?
If you are one of the millions of people all over the world who would love to learn to play the piano or some other keyboard instrument but you hate reading musical scores, then read on! Part of the difficulty may be that when learning to play a keyboard instrument you are often really trying to learn two things at once; learning to read a score, and learning to play the instrument as well. That's hard.*
* Please note the software author is not a music expert or teacher and this is only his own opinion.
Rondo can make learning to play a piece of music much easier by showing you which notes you should play on a virtual keyboard as the music is playing. While there are several applications that do this, Rondo goes a step further by placing the virtual keyboard over a vertically scrolling grid of the notes to be played. By placing the keyboard over the continously scrolling note grid it is possible to see which notes are about to sound and move your hand to the correct position to play them. In order to do this Rondo plays special files, called MIDI files, that are commonly available (free and paid) on the internet for all types of music from classical through to rock, popular and jazz.
About MIDI
MIDI is an acronym for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. Despite its rather complicated sounding name (pronounced midee - with a short i as in 'it'), the essence of MIDI is quite easy to understand. The best way to think of MIDI is to recall the old style Pianola.
These old Pianolas, player pianos and organs use a long roll of punched paper, where slots representing each note to be played are punched at the correct position on the paper. A longer slot means a longer playing note. When the paper roll is played back in a player piano the paper is drawn over a bar where compressed air is released each time a slot passes over the bar. This release of compressed air then causes the correct note to play through a complicated set of valves. Sometimes instead of paper, a folded stack of punched cards is used, but the principal is the same. This can often still be seen in the large mechanical organs commonly found at fairgrounds.
MIDI works in much the same way, but updated for the digital age. Instead of a punched paper roll, the note events can be recorded digitally into a MIDI file using special sequencer software. A MIDI player such as Rondo can then play back these files, sending note ‘events’ at the correct time to a software synthesizer built into your computer. This software synthesizer then plays the correct note using prerecorded instrument sounds, called SoundFonts. If you have an external MIDI device such as a MIDI keyboard or sound unit, you can usually send the MIDI events to it instead. It is important to realize in all this, that just like with the paper roll, a MIDI file does not contain any sound. It is just a list of events to be played by the computers sound card or synth.
Going digital also allows the playback to be much more advanced. A MIDI file can contain many different types of events, not just note events, that will be interpreted by the synthesizer to change the instrument being played, alter the pitch, or adjust the volume of individual notes and instruments. The result can be a rich musical experience rivaling prerecorded music, but with much greater flexibility.
More information on player pianos can be found under this Wikipedia entry.
OK, what else can Rondo do?
It is this great flexibility of MIDI files that make them ideal for learning to play a keyboard instrument or the piano. A MIDI score can be greatly slowed down, instruments can be switched off or solo'd, and short sections of the score can be endlessly repeated. Rondo does all these things, including a special visual mode where an instruments notes are shown but the instrument is not sounded, so that you can play your own instrument along with the rest of the score.
Rondo also has a fantastic built in library where you can store all your favorite MIDI files and organize them into playlists, much the same as with iTunes. You can organize your files by composer, music style, or any way you like.
Some Rondo users have a modern player piano such as the Yamaha Disklavier that accepts MIDI and use the library to store their files. A simple click is all that is required to play hours of their favorite music with the rich sound of a real piano.
Others just enjoy MIDI files for their own sake. The best ones can be very good and it can be quite fun and educational to 'see' how a piece of music is put together, even if you can't read a score.
Try Rondo now
Rondo is a free download that will play in demo mode until a registration license is purchased. Demo mode disables random features each session but allows you to try out all of Rondo's advanced features over several sessions. There is no time limit on the software.
