MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface, and it is the rage among electronic musicians. MIDI is a file format which allows music to be stored electronically and played back precisely and accurately. It allows musical notes to be recorded and transferred from computer to computer.
There are many electronic devices available to record MIDI files and many others available to directly play MIDI. Most modern computers do not need any special additional hardware to understand MIDI - it's just part of the normal sound system.
The Windows Media Player comes with everything that you need to play MIDI files. Simply download that software from Microsoft, install it on your computer and you are all set (assuming you have a sound card installed).
It is important to understand that MIDI files fall under the same copyright rules as everything else. You cannot just copy them to your web site and distribute them without permission.
To use MIDI on a web page, simply treat it as you would any other hyperlink. As you can see from the example below, there is nothing special about including MIDI files.
| <A HREF="racine.mid">Cantique de Jean Racine</A> |
It is important to understand that the user must have a MIDI player installed and configured on his system before this will work. If not, then the browser will display an ugly error message.
Click
on the symbol to the left or right to hear a sample of MIDI music (music
used with
permission of
The Music of John Rhyman).
Unless otherwise noted, all photos and text is Copyright © Richard G Lowe, Jr.