Help With This Music Wesbite

Location (grandparent | parent | this page): RodMer Arts Home Page | Rod's Music | Rod's Music Help

Table of Contents (TOC) of this page

• What browser works with this website?
• How do I get the music to sound?
• What do the different icons mean?

What browser works with this website?

Probably most recent browsers will work satisfactorily. But the ones I am familiar with are Netscape and Internet Explorer. The most recent free downloads can be obtained here:

• Netscape
  • Netscape 7.2 for Mac OSX
  • Netscape 8.0 for Windows
• Internet Explorer
  • Internet Explorer 5.2.3 for Mac OSX
  • Internet Explorer 5.1.7 for Mac OS 8.1 to 9.x
  • Internet Explorer 6 SP 1 for windows

In addition, you will need appropriate plug-ins (and maybe sound cards). Read on:

How do I get the music to sound?

I use Apple's QuickTime plug-in (which is available for both PC and Mac). The latest free download from the Apple's QuickTime site gives you:

• for Mac: both QuickTime Player 7.0.1 and the related QuickTime plug-in 7.0.1.
• for Windows: both QuickTime Player 6.5 and the related QuickTime plug-in 6.5.

If you use the QuickTime plug-in you are more likely to hear the MIDI file as I hear it when I play the embedded MIDI file on my browser (OK -- though certainly not as good as the MP3 files). The QuickTime plug-in also allows your web browser to play the MP3 files.

But it may also be a question of whether the sound card in your computer is up to date. I'm not very knowledgeable about this. But a quote from mp3.about.com on the Internet says:

        A MIDI file must be played back on a synthesizer. You may not
        know it, but the sound card in your computer also contains a 
        MIDI synthesizer. Therefore, MIDI can sound great on a high-end 
        system with a good sound card. If you think MIDI sounds tinny, 
        like a cheap video game, then you have an old sound card that 
        uses "FM synthesis." Newer and better cards use "wavetable 
        synthesis."

Finally, the sound will, of course, be better if you play it through external speakers (or perhaps through ear-phones) than simply through the mini-speaker that's part of your computer.

What do the different icons mean?

I use just 3 icons in this music section of our website: , , and . They have the following meanings:

• is the symbol for program Notes
  • sometimes it simply appears as a logo (say, at the top of the program notes page for a particular piece beside the heading "Program Notes", or beside the headings "Basics" and (sometimes) "Structure Notes" -- in these cases it is just a logo and not for clicking on
  • other times it appears in the "Score Package" table -- where it represents the text files accompanying the score -- clicking on this icon (not on this Help page) will download the text files in rtf format -- you will need the free Stuffit Expander for Mac or free Stuffit Expander for Windows for decompressing the rtf files
• is the symbol for an MP3 file
  • if you click on this icon the related mp3 file will play (not on this Help page) -- though it will take a little time to download first (not too long if it is an mp3 excerpt but longer if it is a complete mp3 file)
  • if you click and hold on this icon a pull-down menu will appear (not on this Help page) from which you can select "Save link target as ..." if you want to download the mp3 file to your hard-drive (which you might want to do for a complete mp3 file but not likely for an excerpt)
• is the symbol for a score in pdf format
  • clicking on this icon (not on this Help page) will download the score pdf file to your hard-drive
  • you will need the free Acrobat Reader -- or some other pdf reader.

In addition, you will see the following image:

This is the image of the embedded MIDI file.

• If you click (yes, even on this Help page) on the play arrow at the left (the little triangle pointing right) your browser will start to play the MIDI file (in this example, my "SwallowHill Skip" piano solo).
• If instead, you click and hold (yes, even on this Help page) on the little downward-pointing arrow at the far right, you will get a pull-down menu from which you can select "Save as Source ..." if you want, for some reason, to save the General MIDI file to your hard-drive.