Electronic Musical Instruments:
Here are the focusing questions for EMI. Please try to answer each question briefly at first. Then go back and add more detail. Don't spend more than an hour crafting the review document. Use bullet points and link to related Internet addresses where appropriate as part of the discussion for each question. For a brief overview of MIDI definitions and the GM standard, see this link.
Here are the focusing questions for EMI. Please try to answer each question briefly at first. Then go back and add more detail. Don't spend more than an hour crafting the review document. Use bullet points and link to related Internet addresses where appropriate as part of the discussion for each question. For a brief overview of MIDI definitions and the GM standard, see this link.
- Briefly explain the difference between electric music instruments and electronic music instruments.
- Electric instruments such as the electric guitar have a human powered trigger that typically generates sound through disruption of a magnetic field. Electric instruments can generate small sounds with the power off.
- Electronic musical instruments typically use solid state sound generating technologies such as frequency modulation and amplitude modulation. Electronic instruments generate no sound when the power is off.
- What is Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI)? Identify pertinent aspects of the General MIDI standard.
- MIDI (musical instrument digital interface) is a digital, non-proprietary, hardware and software protocol for data interchange among musical instruments and computers. Invented in 1983.
- General MIDI - came to prominence in 1991 - organized a bank of 128 sounds in categories such as Keyboards, Pipe, Reed, Brass, etc. The spec states that any GM (General MIDI) device must support 16 channels of which channel 10 is devoted to one or more drum kits.
- Describe the difference between an electric piano or keyboard device and keyboards that are designated as “synthesizers”.
- Electric pianos (really electronic) usually have a few different piano sounds such as grand piano, Rhodes piano, harpsichord, and one or more organs. Electronic piano is always weighted to give the feel of a acoustic piano.
- Synthesizers have multiple banks of preset synthesized or sampled sounds, often contain a General MIDI bank, and will allow you to create new sounds using Frequency Modulation techniques. Weighted keys are not always included. Direct sampling is also supported on some instruments.
- Casual Keyboard (under $200 Casio, Roland, or M-Audio) are typically General MIDI instruments only and may have built-in speakers.
- What is a MIDI controller and what are the different types available to musicians?
- A MIDI controller is a device that does not produce sound unless connected to a sound-generating MIDI device.
- Keyboard controller, wind controllers (typically used by flute, sax, and clarinet players), launch-pad (8 x 8 grid of button that triggers samples), MIDI drum pad set, Brass controllers, String controllers for all string instruments, Vocoders, Gestural controllers, Misc triggers which are very often pressure sensitive to transmit MIDI velocity data.
- A MIDI controller is a device that does not produce sound unless connected to a sound-generating MIDI device.
- What is a software synthesizer? - The audio that is triggered by a MIDI controller is often store as software within a computer. Garageband is a well-known example of a product that contains many banks of software synthesizers.
- Who are a few of the makers of current EMI products?
- Korg
- Roland
- Yamaha
- M-Audio
- Korg
- What are some of the educational resources (method materials, books, etc.) available for use with EMI?
- YouTube
- SoundTree (educational division of Korg)
- Various books by independent authors
- MIE system by Yamaha
- YouTube
- What features have to be present in a piece of software before the software itself can be classified as a musical instrument?
- The user can trigger different sounds by clicking or tapping.
- Low latency (Incredibox is one example for triggering samples)
- The user can trigger different sounds by clicking or tapping.
- Referencing the 2014 national standards: list the enduring understandings and essential questions you believe are most relevant to this technology content area.
- Each student should link to this list of answers as well as provide examples of using EMI in your teaching.