Music topics:

  • The Bill Denbrock Big Band - info, member bios, schedule, music clips, contact info, and more (goes to the band website)...
  • MIDI File Directory - A comprehensive directory of MIDI files that can be used with Notation Composer and Notation Musician to get sheet music you can practice with (lots of tools for that!) and print to take with you.
  • "If We Could Talk With The Animals" - A Christmas musical for kids, with songs from the perspective of the animals in the Christmas history.
  • Notation Composer - I started using Notation Composer as a beta tester many years ago, and have been using it ever since to create music files to practice with, and get sheet music for favorite songs or my own compositions.
  • Notation Software website - Notation Software is the developer for Notation Composer and Notation Musician, a couple of great music learning, teaching, practice, arranging, and composing programs. Check them out!

 

Music at the castle

We love music - from Bob Dylan to Baroque and beyond. It's a rare time of day that you can walk through our house and not hear either someone making music, or at least listening to music while doing something else (we do not have TV). We have a variety of instruments around the house that we've acquired over the years, and it makes for a lot of fun when someone wants to try out something new, or a fresh take on a familiar tune. We may not be virtuosos, but we do have fun! And that's a lot of the point. Music has been shown to help lower blood pressure, stimulate your brain, release those "feel good" endorphins, and just in general be a Very Good Thing. Go do some - it's better than drugs, if not less expensive. (Reminds me of the joke: A musician is the only person in the world who will put $5000 worth of equipment in a $500 car to travel 50 miles to a $50 gig.)

I've written a number of songs myself, using Notation Composer to help me. I'll say right off: I cannot write sheet music on staff paper if you paid me my weight in chocolate. However, I can bang out rhythms on a keyboard (MIDI, in this case). Using this method, I've managed to write songs for every member of my family, as well as numerous other tunes and even a Christmas musical for our church. If I can do it, anyone can! There are a lot of MIDI instruments available nowadays, so if you play any kind of instrument, you can most likely use Notation Composer to record your playing the MIDI instrument of your choice and get sheet music from the recording.

Music musings...

  • Ever wanted to write a song? I did, and found some really cool software to help me do it.

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