Musical Understanding for the Non-Musician: Using
Multimedia Development Tools to Create Audio-Visual Demonstrations of Musical
Concepts for Dissemination on the World Wide Web
Presented at the 7th International
Technological Directions in Music Learning Conference
January 27-29 in San Antonio, TX
Using My Director Templates
to Create Your Own Multimedia Demonstrations
What you will need:
·
Audio extraction software (“ripper”) to take the
digital audio from a compact disc; there are many shareware/freeware choices
(e.g., a large list of these audio extraction programs can be found at http://www.sonicspot.com/cdextractors.html).
Whenever extracting audio in this way, it is important that you keep in mind
the issue of copyright infringement and whether your particular
application of this technology fits securely under the “Fair Use”
provision. Useful resources for this
determination are:
US Copyright Office Home Page
http://lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/
Indiana University’s info about Fair Use
http://www.indiana.edu/~ccumc/mmfairuse.html
UT System Policy Page concerning Fair Use
http://www.utsystem.edu/OGC/Intellectualproperty/cprtpol.htm
· Sound editing software; my preference is either Sonic Foundry’s Sound Forge (Windows) or Macromedia’s Peak; these two specific software packages allow you to place “markers” within the audio file that are recognized by Director
· Macromedia’s Director (version 7) for creating the animation—“movie” in Macro-speak—and saving as a Shockwave file for distribution via the internet.
· Template files; these can be downloaded from my web site … simply point your browser to http://imr.utsa.edu/lipscomb/, then click on the graphic image labeled “Other Stuff”
Acquiring the digital audio from a compact disc:
· Download & install a program to copy the digital audio data from a compact disc (see URL provided above)
· Place an audio CD in your computer’s CD-ROM or DVD drive
· Start the program
· Select the track(s) or excerpt that you wish to copy
· Start the “ripping” process … for long excerpts this may take some time, but it is generally about a fourth of the playing time (e.g., a 1 minute song takes about 15 seconds to “rip”)
· Save the File on your hard drive as either a WAV (Windows) or AIFF (Mac) file
Adding “markers” to the sound file:
· Start your sound editor; it must be either Sound Forge (Windows) or Peak (Mac)
· Open the file you just saved from the audio CD
· As you play the file, simply add “markers” in real time by tapping on the desired series of beats, beat subdivisions, or formal boundaries; in Sound Forge, this is accomplished simply by pressing the “m” key. The final marker must be named “End.” Other markers can be named using the default values assigned by the sound editing software.
Using Director to create the final product
· Open the desired template file (either for beats, beat subdivisions, musical form, or 12-bar blues)
o For beats & beat subdivisions, the template file is named “MeterSubdivisionTemplate.dir”
o For 12-bar blues, the template file is named “BluesTemplate.dir”
· Import the sound file (with markers) created above
o When using “MeterSubdivisionTemplate.dir”, you must import this sound file into slot 11 for the movie to work appropriately
o When using “BluesTemplate.dir”, you must import this sound file into slot 7 for the movie to work appropriately
· If using the “MeterSubdivisionTemplate.dir”, ...
o In the “PrepareMovie” script (cast member 32), simply enter the following two values for the sound file you created: 1)the number of beats per measure and 2) the number of beat subdivisions … entering value of “1” for beat subdivisions creates a movie that shows the beats only without subdivisions
· Edit the Song Title cast member (#31) to accurately reflect the title & performer of your song.
· Play the Director movie to make sure it works as expected.
· Save the final project as a Shockwave movie by selecting “Save as Shockwave” from the File Menu.
· Upload this Shockwave File to your server and create a link from one of your web pages to this newly created sound file … Voila!! You’re transmitting your opus over the internet!!
That’s all there is to it! I hope these templates prove useful to you & your colleagues as you teach students basic musical concepts … musical learning is fundamental!!
If you do use these templates to create your own Director movies or Shockwave animations, I request only that you 1) acknowledge their use on your web site and 2) let me know that you are using them … and any suggestions that you may have for their improvement.
Contact Info:
Dr. Scott D. Lipscomb
Institute for Music Research
UTSA Division of Music
6900 N. Loop 1604 West
San Antonio, TX 78249
(210) 458-5334
(210) 458-4381 FAX