> is there a table available, somewhere in the www, which tells me, which
> midi key velocity stands for piano, which for forte, etc.?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dynamic%27s_Note_Velocity.svg

Stef




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I was mildly surprised that Stephane knew of a table. I'm constrained to
point out, however, that this is not a cut-and-dried matter.

First, the MIDI instrument can map velocity inputs to amplitude outputs in
all sorts of amusing ways, so it's simply not the case that a velocity of 16
corresponds to ppp. In a given piano preset, a velocity of 16 might
correspond to mf.

Second, musical dynamics (ppp-pp-p-mp-mf-f-ff-fff) are not, in any strict
sense, statements about amplitude. These markings also contain or imply
information about the relative strengths of higher partials (brightness) and
about the manner in which the instrument is played. A note marked pp in a
cello part will probably be initiated using a soft, gentle bowstroke, while
a note marked ff will have a more pronounced attack "pop." If you're playing
a concerto in front of an orchestra, a passage marked pp will probably be
executed with a gentle attack, but with an amplitude corresponding to the
amplitude implied by mf in a chamber music setting. If you don't produce
that amount of sound, you simply won't be heard over the orchestra.

--Jim Aikin



kontrapunktstefan wrote:
> 
> Dear community,
> is there a table available, somewhere in the www, which tells me, which
> midi
> key velocity stands for piano, which for forte, etc.?
> 
> Send bugs reports to the Sourceforge bug tracker
>             https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=81968&atid=564599
> Discussions of bugs and features can be posted here
> To unsubscribe, send email sympa@lists.bath.ac.uk with body "unsubscribe
> csound"
> 
> 
> 

> I was mildly surprised that Stephane knew of a table.

That's a coincidence. I was actually in the process of implementing the 
dynamics functions in muO, and had my browser open in the wikipedia 
entry for dynamics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamics_%28music%29).

> I'm constrained to
> point out, however, that this is not a cut-and-dried matter.
[... snip ...]

All what you said is very true. Now MIDI is a very crude protocol; 
having a mapping from intervals of velocity values to dynamics symbols 
is of limited use, but useful anyway. I think such mapping should differ 
for each instrument (or synthesizer) in order to be musically meaningful.

More generally, MIDI can be seen as a way to transcript a musical piece, 
in which case IMO it is nearly worthless: no real music can be composed 
by the reading of a MIDI file. MIDI can alternatively be considered as a 
compositional backbone, used to inject a core melodic line into a more 
elaborated process (an abstract but rather accurate statement in the 
case of my personal way to work); there it can be very useful, and 
having the dynamics symbols at hand helps forgetting about the 0-127 
range, one of the most dreadful MIDI-things.

Not sure if this is very clear, or if it helps :)


Stef




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