Arthur Gottschalk, The Shepherd School of Music, Rice University

An interesting problem was posed me last year by my colleague, popular local children's entertainer Ramón Torres. He has been performing at schools and public places for a number of years as a trobador, playing his guitar and singing to pistas, prerecorded musical tracks that I have been arranging and producing for him at my recording studio, using a combination of musicians and synthesizers. Ramón had been asked to do a series of workshops in the schools, most notable The Rice School/La Escuela Rice, and the nature and substance of the music he was to present varied from day to day, dependent upon the wishes and needs of the students from the previous day's activities. Our traditional manner of working together could obviously not continue, as I wouldn't have the time to prepare arrangements overnight, call the musicians, schedule the recording session, produce the master, and deliver the tapes to him for the following day's classes.

I decided to look outside the confines of the recording studio for the answer, and evaluated the substantial amount of technology available to me at my electronic music laboratories at Rice University, and it was there that I first obtained the glimmerings of an idea. Since Ramón would in most cases hand me a book or piece of sheet music containing the desired song or songs, I first thought to scan the song into a computer. Once there, I would be able to take advantage of a host of hardware and software applications that I have installed to meet my graduate student's research and creative needs, in ways that we at first never contemplated.

The process of preparing fully-orchestrated and stylistically (and ethnically) correct tapes evolved into a rather simple one. Using the traditional Mexican folksong Tengo Una Vaca as an example, I first scan the sheet music from the book, using an HP ScanJet 11P full-page black and white optical scanner, into the Desk Scan software. Here I can quickly evaluate the success of the basic graphic scan. Next I convert the graphic representation of the music into MIDI, using the relatively new software package MidiScan. Depending upon the nature of the artifact first scanned, I am obtaining a success rate of anywhere from 90% to 100%. It proves a relatively quick and easy process to edit out any errors occuring from the conversion stage, and correct them with the program's editing utilities. Here is an example of the music printed from a MIDI utility at this stage, and a recording of the melody played through MIDI via a neutral instrument on a General MIDI synthesizer:

At this point, I download the MIDI file of the song into a piece of software that wrote in C++, developing it at the laboratories for some anticipated coaching in music theory classes; I call it Global Harmony. This program allows the user to select from a number of preset harmonic rhythms and harmonic styles and then, after first downloading the melody and inputting a mode and key, it will provide a complete set of chord symbols for the melody. Here is an example of the melody played on the same instrument, but now with the newly-generated harmonies played as block chords underneath:

Satisfied with the results, I am then able to import the combination of melody and harmony to a widely-used commercially available program known as Band-in-a-Box. The most recent version of this program is quite powerful, and the interface is quite easy to use. At this stage, I select an appropriate preset accompaniment style or one that I have preprogrammed into the routine. The program will play the melody accompanied by a rhythm section (usually piano, bass, guitar, and drums) and, if appropriate, other instruments in an accompanimental function (strings, brass, woodwinds, ethnic instruments). It will even provide a "layer" harmony against the melody, if asked to, in again any number of styles. Here is an example of our tune now "dressed up" with an accompaniment generated by the software:

Now I can "zero-in" on a finished product. Converting the complete file from MGU (Band in a Box format) to MIDI, I will download it to another popular piece of software, Cakewalk Pro. This powerful sequencer program allows me to quickly assign a more desirable orchestration, transpose the music to fit Ramón's voice, set the tempo and program any necessary changes in tempi (including accelerandi and ritards), and more. It also affords me the opportunity to "reach in" and change a few notes, add some more touches, etc., and hear the results almost instantaneously. Once I am satisfied, I port the music out to the General MIDI synthesizers, usually Roland SC55s and Korg boxes. I will do this twice, once with the melody intact and once with the melody absent, thus creating an example and the pista, a practice I developed in mixdown situations at the traditional recording studio. I also save the files to 3 1/2" floppy disk, as Ramón has a small computer-music studio at home. Here is an example of a finished product, the final recording of Tengo Una Vaca :

We have had a couple of unexpected benefits from this procedure. We just released our second recording of bilingual bicultural children's music, ¡Vamos a Jugar!, distributed by the Rock 'N' Learn people, and all but Ramón's guitar and our singing (and a few kids from the school helping out) were generated and played by the computer-controlled synthesizers, thus saving a considerable amount of time and expense. And, since Ramón often travels with his MIDI computer set-up to the gig, there has been an opportunity for the students themselves to participate in the process, pointing and clicking their way through a myriad of choices and hearing and evaluating them. I can see where this type of available technology, if made available at even the most beginning levels of music education, could have a profound impact upon the way we currently teach and learn. I hope that you may have found this little presentation even just a bit as much fun as I have had in doing these things.