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From: brownd@thor.acc.stolaf.edu (David H. Brown)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: programs that can infer key/meter
Keywords: Finale?
Message-ID: <7203@thor.acc.stolaf.edu>
Date: 7 Oct 89 15:59:47 GMT
References: <15170@netnews.upenn.edu> <125936@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Reply-To: brownd@thor.stolaf.edu ()
Organization: St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN
Lines: 30

In article <125936@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> briang@sun.UUCP (Brian Gordon) writes:
>In article <15170@netnews.upenn.edu> hardt@linc.cis.upenn.edu (Dan Hardt) writes:
>>I'd like to know what programs exist that can
>>infer the key and meter of a melody, just based
>>on the pitch and duration information.

>Isn't that what Finale is supposed to do?

	Well, yes, this is what everybody thought Finale was supposed to do.
However, I've always had to tell it what key and meter I'm playing in...
even in the transcription mode.  Even after it's been told what key a piece is
in, it will sometimes put Ab and F# in the same measure (should be G# and F#)
if these chroma are not part of the key sig.

	After playing a piece for transcription and setting the meter,
the tempo is specified by tapping on some MIDI event for each beat while
the computer plays the piece back.  This doesn't really feel like the
program is "infering" much of anything.

	Even so, Finale is the best program I've ever encountered for handling
complete pieces of music (as opposed to collections of short sequences) in a
comnputer/MIDI environment.  It's also so complex that it may well be possible
to get it to infer such things as meter and key, but it probably isn't as easy
as we've all been told.

St. Olaf College has very little to     | M M | M M M | M M | M M M | M M |   
do with the things I talk about!        | M M | M M M | M M | M M M | M M |   
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Dave Brown: brownd@thor.acc.stolaf.edu  | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  
"I _like_ programming the DX-7!"        |_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|_|