Classic Music Collection

b = corpus.parse('bwv66.6') # read from corpus collection

s = converter.parse('bach.mid') # direct read from midi

Stream and Score

Measure

Measure is (小节)

excerpt = bachIn.measure(-1)
excerptChords = excerpt.chordify()
excerptChords.show('text')

Measure could be excerpt through .measure or .measures() function

Note

As we have seen in a score, a note has the following properties

• Offset
  • Note the offset of a note is intrinsically defined relatively, relative to the start of the last object, so if a note is in a measure, then the notes’ offset is relative to the start of the measure
  • score.flat can flat the element hierarchy in score object, thus each note will have its offset relative to the start of the whole piece instead of each measure.
• Pitch
• Duration: length of the note, just like on the score.
  • Normally measured in the unit of quarter length. (四分音符的个数)
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Note_value

Note that chords are a different class of object from single note, which has a tuple attribute called pitches.

Play Music

To play music from object within music21, one way is to use pygame as player.

Though the rendering engine for violin is pretty bad, it’s a way to examine changes to your music.

btv = corpus.parse('beethoven/opus18no1/movement1.mxl')
sp = midi.realtime.StreamPlayer(btv)
sp.play()