ChordPro to MIDI accompaniment: Demo - Sand, software and sound

Work continues on my Java program to translate ChordPro songs to Yamaha accompaniment (SMF). The code is fairly stable and mostly I’ve been writing example songs in ChordPro format for testing. The range and variety of musical craziness is amazing: weird chords (“Superstition”, “Michelle”), changing time signatures (“Two Of Us”), changing key signatures (“My Girl”), unusual time signature (“Everybody Wants To Rule The World”), and more.

Today, I want to give a taste of what to expect. I plan to distribute the Java executable as a “jar” file and will also make the source code available. To keep things simple, the program runs from a command line — no graphical user interface:

    java -jar cp2mid.jar ItsTooLate.cho

The program is named “cp2mid” and “cp2mid.jar” is the Java executable. We need to invoke java explicitly because it is an interpreted language and the executable consists of Java bytecodes.

The above command produces a Type 0 Standard MIDI File (SMF) named “ItsTooLate.mid”. This file must be sent to a Yamaha arranger like Genos™ by whatever means you have at your disposal, i.e., a USB flash drive or Yamaha Musicsoft Downloader.

Here is the first part of “ItsTooLate.cho”. The song begins with set-up directives including “{stylecode: }”, which selects the accompaniment style (“Cool8Beat”). You could leave out key, time, tempo, or stylecode and go with the current panel settings. This flexibility allows experiments with different tempos or different styles, including USER styles.

{t: It's Too Late }   
{key: Am}   
{artist:Carole King} 
{time: 4/4} 
{tempo: 104} 
# Style: Cool8Beat 
{stylecode: 5635} 

{start_accomp} 
[Am7][*IA] 

# Introduction (intro riff) 
{start_of_instrumental} 
[Am7][*MA] [D6] [Am7] [D6]   
{end_of_instrumental} 

{c: Verse 1}  
[Am7] Stayed in bed all morning just to [D6] pass the time. 
[Am7] There's something wrong here there can [D6] be no denying. 
[Am7] One of us is changing    
Or [Gm7] maybe we've just stopped [Fmaj7] trying. [Fmaj7][*FA] 

{start_of_chorus} 
And it's too [Bbmaj7][*MB] late baby now [Fmaj7] it's too late    
Though we [Bbmaj7] really did try to [Fmaj7] make it.    
[Bbmaj7] Something inside has [Fmaj7] died    
And I can't hide [Dm7] and I just can't [Esus4:2][*FB] fake it. [E7#9:2]
{end_of_chorus}

The screenshot above shows the Genos song player with “ItsTooLate.mid” loaded and ready. Choose either the Lyrics or Score display (optional). Then hit play!

The next screenshot shows the Lyrics display. It should look familiar if you have played a Yamaha arranger. The arranger highlights the current lyric syllable or phrase in time with playback. Compare the screenshot with the ChordPro song and you’ll get an idea of what to expect for each ChordPro construct. A lyric phrase is not broken into syllables, but is associated with the chord preceding the phrase.

The following screenshot shows the Score display. It’s a different view of the same song. Lyrics appear below the staff and chords appear above. The time and key signature are displayed on the first page. Follow the bouncing ball during playback.

So, how does it sound? Listen to a quick demo (MP3) with me noodling on top.

That’s a taste of what’s ahead. I hope you will try cp2mid when it’s ready.