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Using MelCom involves the following:
- Editing the textual description of a
piece of music in the edit area of MelCom.
- Checking the syntax and correcting any
syntax errors.
- Playing back the piece of music to ensure
its correctness audibly.
- Converting the textual description of
the piece into Midi.
- In rare circumstances, the user might want
to override the default of the note-on/note-off
time-ratio for each note duration.
Editing the textual description of the music
The edit area of MelCom is a notepad-like
editor for editing the textual
description of the music in the
MelCom
language. Right-clicking in the
edit area shows a context menu with editing
commands like "Cut", "Copy", "Paste", and
"Delete".
Checking the syntax
Clicking the check-syntax button
makes MelCom check the text for syntax errors.
In case a syntax error is found, MelCom will
report the error and highlight the part of
the text that has the error.
Music Playback
To play the music represented by the text in
the edit area:
- place the cursor at the point in the text
where you want the playback to start from
- press the play button
While the music is being played, each played
note is highlighted in the text. To stop the
playback before the end of the piece, click
the play button again.
Converting the textual scores into Midi
To convert the textual scores into Midi,
click the "Save as Midi" button. If the
textual scores include instrument setting
and changes, the user can override them when
converting to Midi by selecting an
instrument from the instrument drop-down
list and checking the "Force Instrument"
box.
Modifying the default "On-Time" of the
notes
Unless a note is slurred to the following
note, it is released (turned off) shortly
before the end of its duration. Thus, the
note "On-Time" is less than 100% of
the note's full
duration.
You can set the percentage of the note
"On-Time" relative to the note full duration
by selecting the Note Times...
command from the Tools menu. This
will bring a window where the note "On-Time"
percentage can be set separately for each
duration, and for each of "normal" play and
"staccato" play.
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