The Musician
Type-in "music construction" software
by ANGELO GIAMBRAPowerful and versatile "music construction" program. You can easily compose songs with three-part chord backgrounds-or simply copy the notes and chord symbols from sheet music. This BASIC program runs on any Atari computer with 32K memory. Disk or cassette.
With The Musician, you can easily enter
and hear playback of any song on your Atari- with a full background of
three-part chords. Only an elementary knowledge of music is required. In
fact, you can simply copy your favorite songs directly from sheet music.
You set The Musician to play harmony chords by simply naming them-the program
fills in the required notes!
Type in Listing 1, checking it with TYPO II and SAVE it
to either cassette or disk. Antic Disk subscribers will find a short demonstration
song bonus file. Here's how to use The Musician.
USING MUSICIAN
When you RUN The Musician, you will see an introductory screen for
a few seconds as the program initializes. A music staff will then appear
on the screen with a single red note.
Use your joystick to move the note up and down on the
staff. If you are working from sheet music, simply place the note in the
same position you see it on the sheet music. To enter the note, press the
joystick button. The note will turn white. Then The Musician will briefly
play your chosen note and a new red note will appear.
TIMED NOTES
Placing your note on the staff just gives you the basic pitch. You
must still set time values, indicate if a note is sharp or flat, and enter
rests or dotted and sustained notes.
You select these various note types by pressing keys on
the Atari. Here is how it works.
Whole notes
W
Half notes
H
Quarter notes
Q
Eighth notes
8
Sixteenth notes 6
Thirty-second notes 3
Dotted notes
.
Sustained notes S
Sharp notes
#
Flatted notes
B
Natural notes
N
Rests
R
A little music information here:
There are various "time signatures" possible at the start of a piece
of music. In the most common types, 4/4 (standard) and 3/4 (waltz), a quarter
note would be held for one beat, half note is two beats and whole note
is four beats. An eighth note is half. a beat, sixteenth note is one-fourth
of a beat and a thirty-second note is one-eighth of a beat.
Dotted notes increase the time a note is held by half
its normal value. A dotted half note gets held for three beats of a measure.
Sustained notes slide into the note which follows them instead of playing
as separate notes.
To choose a dotted, sustained eighth note, you would press
the following three keys-[.] [8] [S]. The Musician isn't fussy You may
press keys in any order for a multiple-key note command.
When you use the [#] or [B] to make sharps or flats, The
Musician will stay in the sharp or flat mode until you press [N] for Natural.
Rests are times when no note is played. To choose a quarter
rest, first press [Q] to make a quarter note, then press [R] to make it
a rest. Similarly to make an eighth rest, press [8] [R]. Half rests are
[H] [R].
Once you have selected the correct type of note and placed
it in the right position on the staff, press your joystick button to enter
it.
Press [C] to Cancel the note if you change your mind.
[C] always cancels the last note or the last chord entered.
ENTERING CHORDS
The Musician will recognize even the most advanced kinds of chords.
Entering chords is a snap since you enter them by name, not by notes. Press
the asterisk [*] key to tell The Musician you want to enter a chord. The
Musician will display:
ENTER A CHORD
THEN PRESS RETURN
To enter a C chord, press [*] followed by [C], then press
[RETURN]. The Musician will display the name of the chord you have keyed
in, and briefly play the chord.
Using the Key of C as an example, here is a complete list
of chord types recognized by The Musician.
ENTER CHORD SELECTED
C C major
CM C minor
CM7 C minor seventh
C7 C seventh
CM6 C minor sixth
C6 C sixth
CMAJ C major seventh
C + C augmented fifth
C- C diminished fifth
CD C diminished
Sharp and flat chords are entered by adding the [#] or
[B] keys. For instance, here's how to enter a C sharp minor seventh chord:
Press [*]
Press [C]
Press [#]
Press [M]
Press [7]
Press [RETURN]
Chords in other keys are entered in exactly the same manner.
For instance, you enter a G seventh as G7.
If a chord is to play simultaneously with a certain note,
enter the chord first, then enter the note.
If you make a mistake when entering a chord and wish to
exit from chord mode, simply press [*] again. The chord will not be entered
and you will return to note entry mode again. To re-enter the chord, press
[*] again.
Chords will continue to play in the background until they
are changed to something else or turned off. To turn off a background chord,
press [O]. The Musician will display: CHORD OFF
SONG PLAYBACK
To hear a playback of the song you have entered, press [P]. The song
will play automatically and each note will appear on the staff as it plays.
You may change the tempo of the song by pressing [T] before pressing [P].
The Musician will display:
CHANGE TEMPO SLOWER
Press the joystick button to slow down the tempo. To speed
up the tempo, first move the joystick forward. The word SLOWER will change
to FASTER. Pressing the joystick button will then speed up the tempo.
After playing a song, it remains in the computer memory.
You may continue adding notes to the end of the song. You may clear it
from memory. Or you may SAVE it to cassette or disk.
Pressing [ESC] while a song is playing causes The Musician
to immediately stop playing the song and return to note entry mode.
SAVING A SONG
To SAVE a song, press [A] for Archive. The Musician will display:
ENTER SONG NAME
If you are saving to cassette, just press [RETURN]. You
will hear two beeps. Put your recorder on record, then press [RETURN].
If you are using disk, type in the song name. Do not use
more than eight characters, since this becomes the file name. Three-character
extensions are allowed if you like using them. Press [RETURN]. The Musician
will write out your song.
LOADING A SONG
To load a previously saved song, press [L]. The Musician will ask you
for the name of the song file.
If you are entering the song from cassette, position the
tape to the beginning of the song and press [RETURN].]
If you are using disk, type in the song name and press
[RETURN].
The Musician will load in the song and play it for you.
Once a song is loaded it remains in memory until you clear it out. If you
add notes after loading a song, they get appended to the end of the song.
In this way you can finish songs you saved only partially completed.
CLEAR AND EXIT
To clear a song from memory press [CLEAR]. Do NOT use the [SHIFT] key.
Now you may begin entering a new song.
To exit The Musician, press [E]. The Musician will display
EXIT Y or N
Press [Y] to confirm your choice. The program will end and return you
to
BASIC.
Angelo Giambra is a senior programmer for Marine Midland Bank in Rochester N.Y His "Eight Queens Problem" appeared in the April, 1984 Antic
Listing 1 MUSIC.BAS Download