Gospel Midi & Chords - Synthesia

To all gospel midi fans...


In case you hadn't heard of it, there is an open-source game called Synthesia (formerly called Piano Hero) that is a great tool for helping people to learn how to play gospel midi files. If you have a MIDI-compatible keyboard (I use a Casio WK-3000), you can connect it to your computer (using the USB-to-MIDI cable I talked about in an earlier post) and learn songs at your own pace. You can slow songs down, speed them up, play one hand at a time, simply listen to the song, and more. If you do not have a keyboard, there is still a way to play Synthesia using the keyboard, but I didn't find that as fun as actual piano keys.

Now, Synthesia comes with many more options, including a learning pack that is constantly in development. However, that pack is not free, and starts at $14. However, the author will allow all upgrades from that point to be free after buying the learning pack. With this learning pack comes the ability to view and play sheet music for your gospel midi files and more.

Finally, in case you wanted the song shown in the picture, When the Saints Go to Worship, here is the download:

When the Saints Go to Worship - Donald Lawrence - The Best of Donald Lawrence & the Tri-City Singers: Restoring the Years

You can download Synthesia 0.6.3 from its official web page here. Keep practicing!

Gospel Midi & Chords - VanBasco's Midi Karaoke Player

Before I post any midi files, I feel that it is important to first explain what a MIDI file is. A MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) file is a file that contains sound data from musical instruments, like a keyboard. MIDI also allows for multiple instruments within the same file (for example, drums, keyboard, sax) and allows you to place them on separate tracks. Imagine the separate instruments playing together as cars traveling along separate lanes on a highway.

VanBasco’s Karaoke Player (http://www.vanbasco.com - freeware!), a program that enables you to view the actual keys on the piano that were pressed to produce the sounds of the separate tracks of a MIDI file (drum tracks are not shown):

An in-depth description of the interface can be found on the author’s website
here. Additionally, the application’s appearance can be changed with the use of skins. One skin in particular, Big Piano, is useful because it enlarges the piano window, making the keys easier to see. You can get it from the skin gallery. I recommend the Big Piano skin. It makes learning songs easier! To quote the author:

To install a new skin, first download the .zip-archive of the file, e.g. skin.zip. Then extract the contents of the downloaded file to the installation folder of vanBasco’s Karaoke Player, e.g. C:\Program Files\vanBasco’s Karaoke Player. (To do this, you will need a file manager that is capable of reading .zip files. If you are using Windows XP, then Windows Explorer already supports this. Otherwise, you can download 7-zip - freeware!)

Then, inside vanBasco’s Karaoke Player, open the setup dialog. (You get to the setup dialog by clicking the note button in the top-left corner in the main program window of vanBasco’s Karaoke Player and choosing "Setup...".) Choose the "Misc" tab. In the box labeled "Skin" select the skin you just installed. Then close the setup dialog by clicking the "OK" button. The last step is to restart vanBasco’s Karaoke Player. Enjoy!