MIDI

As I was reading the articles, I was fascinated to learn about MIDI. I have known of the term MIDI, and that it involves technology and music; however, I have never really known what MIDI is. It was interesting to discover that MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface, and it is not a form of audio. Instead, it is a “non-proprietary hardware and software protocol for data communications among electronic musical instruments and computer” (Estrella 1). Therefore, rather than being a form of audio, it is more a language, or a set of instructions to tell an electronic device how to and what sound to create. By learning this information, it helped me to better understand how and why MIDI is used. It was also interesting to discover how MIDI works. I thought that it was fascinating to see how mathematical the MIDI process is and to learn how the code creates the interaction in and between MIDI devices to create sounds and music. In addition, reading the article gave me a better understanding of how to setup MIDI devices for use. Even though it was very interesting to learn the basics about how MIDI works and to see how the code is created, the explanations were extremely technical and seemed slightly challenging for me to follow without a more in-depth study of the programming of the code. I found it more intriguing to see the results of the MIDI process. For example, it was interesting to discover that there are standard MIDI assignments for sounds. For example, on a synthesizer certain instrument sounds are assigned to particular numbers and certain percussion sounds to particular keys on a keyboard. I found this interesting because at the school where I teach we have a synthesizer, and as I thought about all the sounds it creates it was fascinating to see how they all lined-up and matched what the articles had mentioned.

Although the discussions on MIDI were very technical, as I learned about MIDI it was interesting to discover some of the applications for MIDI. As I found out that MIDI is more a code, I could see why it is used for notation software and sequencing programs as well as many other musical applications. Its mathematical format makes it lend well to working with other technology. In addition, it was interesting to find the difference between MIDI and digital audio. Although I always appreciate actual sounds from audio, I could see how MIDI could be a valuable tool. As was mentioned in the article, “The MIDI-Digital Audio Shuffle,” the fact that MIDI files could be much smaller than digital audio files could allow for much easier sharing and dissemination of information. For example, if a teacher wanted to share or send a MIDI file to students it would be possible. In addition, MIDI files could be put onto a website for others to see. The format of MIDI also allows it to transfer code to create sounds into notation as well, which could ultimately help students better understand a piece of music by converting sound into notation. Again, it was extremely interesting to finally discover what MIDI truly is. Through that discovery, I was able to learn how MIDI works and its many benefits to creating sounds and music. Although I did not feel that the articles gave direct applications for the use of MIDI in music education. I could see how the use of MIDI in many programs, such as notation software and sequencing programs, could be extremely valuable in music education. MIDI also provides the opportunity for electronic sounds and music to be created. Through the potential and capabilities of MIDI, it provides the vehicle that drives many tools that aid in the music education process to help make learning about music more interesting and diverse.