Practical MIDI

Aside from being a solo artist who makes extensive, if not exclusive use of MIDI files in my act, I am also half of a MIDI-based rock duo. My partner has a huge P.A. system with all the bells and whistles and as part of the entertainment he used to bring along his portable CD player to play music for the crowds when we were on our breaks.

That's not a bad idea--to instill some sense of continuity of music in the crowd while we're gone. But let me tell ya, after a dozen jobs hearing the same CD over and over again I was about ready to punt the CD player over the crowd's heads and stand there and whistle for the half-time show. Eventually he got a different CD and played that one to death.

All right, on to my solo act. I didn't own the big P.A system with the CD player but I, too wanted to provide break music with my solo show. As it turns out, my keyboard, which is a Yamaha PSR-8000, was the perfect answer to the missing CD player. This keyboard has a built-in hard drive and it is so easy to use that all I had to do was create several directories on it and fill them with different MIDI files. Since that keyboard also has a feature that lets me select ALL files to be played one after the other, all I had to do when I took a break was set that directory to automatic, press play and when the song list was finished playing, my break time was over.

I mentioned having several different directories on the Yamaha hard drive for a reason. For example, if I'm playing at a coffee house where they expect James Taylor and Cat Stevens, well then, those are the kinds of MIDI files I'd put in that directory. On the other hand, I couldn't very well let that same song list play at a Hell's Angels biker party during my break so the next directory would be filled with so-called "Heavier" tunes. These tunes wouldn't go over very well with "ma, pa and the kids" at a wedding reception so a third directory would be filled with "Maracena," "Chicken Dance," "Beer Barrel Polka" and other such tunes designed to send the normal listener running from the room with their fingers stuck in their ears.

Last week I played a hotel on both Friday and Saturday nights. Friday was so dead that for the last two hours I ended up playing to just the bartender. That gave me a chance to pull out some MIDI files from my break directory and play along with them just for the heck of it. No one was watching or listening anyway, so why not have some fun with them? I considered that night to be a paid practice. The next night, with a wedding booked upstairs from where I was playing, I was able to run through my regular sets one after the other and had a ball doing it. The point of all this is that when life deals you lemons (like an empty house) make lemonade (play along to the break music.)

I always store more than twice as many MIDI files on my Yamaha hard drive than I could possibly play in one night. That serves two purposes. It lets me be flexible enough to fill almost any request and as was the case several weeks ago where I was booked for a six-hour job, it let me get through the gig without having to repeat myself. There was a steady stream of different groups walking by during that performance so all three directories of break music MIDI files got played that day. Not only does it keep the music flowing while you're on your break, the MIDI files playing during the break could very well draw more listeners in to see where all this music is coming from. And let me tell you, I don't have to think twice about where my choice MIDI files are coming from. I always turn to Cybermidi.

Go on, take a break. It's MIDI time.

©2004 Bill Bernico for CYBERMIDI.com Downwind Publications