Week 5 Lessons: MIDI and Music Synthesis

The goal of this week's lessons is to acquire enough knowledge to program a simple software synthesizer capable of, at the least, playing different pitches with different loudnesses. (In further explorations you can develop your synthesizer to be even better and more capable.)

Read the lessons in the topic Building a Synthesizer with Web Audio API Links to an external site.. Then study the examples listed for Building a Synthesizer with MSP Links to an external site..

While the Web Audio lessons stick to using keyboard and mouse as the main controllers, the MSP examples use MIDI data. For an initial orientation to MIDI (and also some geeky details), it's suggested that you read the Introduction to MIDI provided by the MIDI Association and MIDI, an introductory essay by Christopher Dobrian. You can find some additional readings and examples in the lesson on MIDI Links to an external site. in the Computer Music Programming website. (Learning about the MIDI protocol without putting it into practice is pretty dull and impenetrable. You can make it more fun for yourself by trying to put it into action by playing notes in Max.)

In addition to studying all these lessons, it's very important to put what you're studying into practice immediately. Try building your own software synthesizer in JavaScript and/or Max. Not only will that help solidify your knowledge, it's crucial for extending your understanding beyond what's provided in the lessons, which is the point of the related programming assignment.