Google Blogger Housecleaning

    Writing kind of a trivial post today.  At least, it's trivial in the large scheme of things.  It was a big deal for me, anyway.  :^)

    Back in January when the idea of starting Grace Notes back up was gaining momentum, there was a huge speed bump that just about shut things down before it even had a chance to start.  The "cookie consent" situation.  There were a log of changes to manage, new things to learn.  Last time I was paying (a lot!) for hosting and using Wordpress.  This time we're taking the budget express.  Google Blogger is free, and you can have a BUNCH of blogs if you really want to.  I forget how much Google charged for the URL, but seems like it was $13 or $15 for a year.

    The URL name is a compromise.  It's not the original one for Grace Notes, but it is my overarching URL ever since Galaxy Quest came out.  Crewman6 was the redshirt who lived, and it's always been an inspirational name for me.  Lastly, I'm paying $12 per month for Google Office.  That gives me a custom email, more storage for whatever files I use on the blog.  Some other benefits I haven't looked into yet.  Pretty much, this is everything I need to manage Grace Notes.  WordPress was a great blogging platform, and was more versatile than Blogger.  But it was a heck of a lot more expensive to maintain, and the hosting company just kept leapfrogging the rates up every year.

    At some point I'll turn Adsense on, but it's not a big goal here.  Grace Notes cost much more to maintain than it every made me last time around.  If it can pay that $12 per month fee, I'll call it a successful hobby and enjoy it.

    Now we get to today's subject.  To properly manage the cookie consent requirements, I had to paste some code into the Blogger theme.  I also pasted in some custom lines for a couple of features that weren't easily available on Blogger.  Not really a skill of mine, but I did manage to follow a couple of guides.  Afterward, the initial menus for Theme management were gone.  There was a comment about some features not being available now.  I took that to mean I could no longer change the advanced features of my theme, without reloading the base version, making my changes, then re-inserting whatever custom codes needed to be done manually.  For a few months I looked for other theme templates off-Blogger, but didn't find any that seemed worth changing the whole blog for.

     With that in mind, I've been leaving a lot of 'tidying up' undone for months.  Mainly the link colors, and making a custom Banner. Woke up this morning, and it felt like today was the day to finally fix all that.  Found some websites that gave pointers on changing the link colors and sat down to puzzle them out.  The first one wanted me to start off on the Theme tab.  As usual, the first line read "Theme Preview is currently unavailable."

   

    If you're familiar with Blogger, at this point you've probably realized I've been mistaken this whole time.  The ability to customize my theme was always there.  As was the Advanced options.  Maybe something changed, maybe I just read it wrong.  I was clicking the down-arrow on the orange button to get the drop-down menu.  Took me ages to realize I just had to click on the orange button ON THE WORD "Customize!!" Now that I know, fixing the link colors was very easy.  

    It was a bit of work to get the banner done, but at least it was legitimate work, not a figment of my own imagination.  My previous keyboard was a Yamaha DG-640, and was a grayish-silver color.  That worked really well against the black background of the blog screen.  The Hammer 88 was more difficult.  A black body on a black background didn't stand out a lot.  I played with it a lot, even tried to use an external image for the background, but it didn't come out perfect.  It will stand for now, I do like it a lot.  But some day in the future, I'd like to have better lighting set up so that the keys will be a clean white. Today's lighting was partly sunlight from a window, partly incandescent bulbs from a ceiling fan light, and the keys aren't consistently white.

    It's been a learning process, and a matter of finding the right software all over the internet.  I started with PixLR, used Irfanview, and tried several online tools before getting something that worked.  At the moment, I'm calling it a day, and an improved banner will have to be a project for another day.

Introducing The Singing Chapmans: Just Over In The Glory Land

 

    Some time ago I digitized all the audio from the record album "Introducing The Singing Chapmans."  The album has 12 songs.  It's one of two albums I know of that has my Uncle Freil playing the piano.  (He also did a couple of CDs solo, but those are easier to find.)  I chose to feature "Just Over In The Glory Land" because it's one of my childhood favorites.  Even better, there's a fair amount of interesting history involved with the song.

    According to TraditionalMusic.com, the words were written by James W. Acuff (1864 – 1937), and the music by Emmett S. Dean (1876 – 1951)

    Per Pixabay, James Acuff wrote it in 1906, so the song is considered Public Domain.

 As always, their midi is clear and pure. Nothing fancy or complicated which makes learning the melody much easier if you’re a ‘play by ear’ pianist.

    I can remember Freil Playing and Aunt Elsie Mae singing this song in church.  And through the years, heard Freil play it just about anywhere there was a piano available.  Eventually it became one of my favorites to play myself, not as nuanced as Freil's playing but brash and bold, and full of joy.  (The result of not knowing as many non-major chords as Freil.)  

    Going back to digitizing the record... it was a loan from my sister, so I had to get the songs to computer quickly and return the album.  It was convenient to do that work immediately, with the intention of going back later and getting them onto Youtube.  So of course they languished forgotten on the computer for a couple of months.  Now they're online.  You can play the video above, and click on "play on YouTube" to see the rest of them.  I may feature a few more from the album, but it will be over time, no rush.

    So far, the songs done by "The Singing Chapmans" have not been easy to research.  It's been difficult to find much about each individual song, and discouraged me from doing each and every one.  In this case, "Glory Land" is well-known, with a bit of history, a bit of lore and some confusion about the song's provenance scattered thoughout the internet.  Here are a few of the links and claims:

    Timeless Truths has a nice looking page, and is one of my favorite resources for information about gospel music. But in this case, they’re a bit sparse on information.  They agree it was writtten by James W. Acuff, and specify that it was PUBLISHED in 1906.  They also state that the copyright is Public Domain. They have the words, sheet music, and a midi file to listen to.

    But the end-all and be-all is an extremely-well researched article by Henrik Smith-Sivertsen. I found out much more than anticipated, and far beyond the scope of southern gospel I usually stick to. Smith-Sivertsen writes that “Just Over In The Glory-Land” was first published in the hymn book “Glad Hosannas: A Winnowed Collection of New and Old Songs for Christian Work and Worship”, in 1906. He gives credit for the lyrics to Acuff, the music to Emmett S. Dean, but goes on to name Dean as the editor of the hymn book, and part owner of the publishing company. The fascinating part, and this explains why some websites seem confused about the copyright, is that another publisher, R. E. Winsett, obtained “renewed copyrights” to the song.

    The article in full is worth digging into, and with an extensive bibliography, seems likely the most authoritative and trustworthy document of the song's history.  

    I personally agree with the articles and websites that list "Glory Land" as a public domain.  Especially after this year, because January 1st, 2023 marks the date for everything published up to the year 1927 (U.S. only; other countries have different laws.) There's a wonderfully detailed article by Jennifer Jenkins regarding copyright.  It's a fantastic read and very worth the time if you're interested in the Public Domain.

    As a matter of fact, she mentions that on January 1, 2024, the first ever appearance of Mickey and Minnie Mouse will enter the public domain!  Imagine that... I bet Disney is having fits about it.  Even Sherlock Holmes no longer has copyright protection.  Until 2023, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's last two Sherlock Holmes stories have been under copyright protection.  As of this year, everything Doyle wrote about Holmes is in the Public Domain. If even the Doyle Estate, and even more so, The Mouse, can't keep their characters out of the public domain, there's no reason a song published in 1906 would still be copyrighted.

It's safe to say, out of all the posts I published in the original Grace Notes, this was by far the easiest yet most overwhelming song to research.  Some day I'll post another blog about "Just Over In The Glory Land", but next time... it'll be with my rendition on piano.  I do believe I mentioned it being one of my favorite songs to play.  :^)

Used Laptop for the Hammer-88: USB Problems

     Just an update based on a simple fix for a long-standing problem.  Going way back, I originally had one very good desktop to do everything.  It's 6 or 7 years old now, and still good, but no longer great.  Over the years, some things started conflicting with others.  The usual victim was system audio.  

    This caused the biggest problem with Ableton Live Lite and M-Audio's Hammer-88 keyboard.  Sometimes the audio drivers would quit working randomly.  The  most consistent and annoying villain was when Microsoft did a Windows "update/upgrade."  EVERY SINGLE TIME.  I only know a couple of swear words, but I've used them many many times at Windows updates.

(Warning - Upcoming Rant)
    The problem could sometimes be fixed easily (usually the random occurences.)  Other times (looking at YOU, Microsoft...) it could take days or weeks to get the audio to working reliably.  Sometimes it took so long, another update would come out just days later and we'd start all over again.
    Helpful Hint:  This website provides a link to a trouble-shooter that could fix most of the audio problems in moments:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/fix-sound-or-audio-problems-in-windows-73025246-b61c-40fb-671a-2535c7cd56c8
    Yes, I'm aware it's a microsoft link.  That doesn't make me like them any better, since it was nearly always their OS updates that triggered the problem.  Just the same, this is the first thing I try when the audio stops working.  Click the link on the page and allow the app to test for problems.
    The weird thing is, it always reports "no problem found", and starts suggesting random things to try... but actually fixes the issue, at least most of the time.  So I click the "Open Get Help" button, let it do it's thing, then close the window after it reports failure.  And that's usually all it takes.
    Other times, it's as simple as checking "Sounds", going to the PlayBack Tab, and finding that the update has totally played havoc with speaker output assignments.  For some reason, it would reassign a new random output as the default.  Sometimes it would go to a legitimate speaker, like the one built-in to the monitor.  Other times it would choose options that had no output at all.  Re-setting the correct speakers as the default option will typically fix the audio, but sometimes it has to be reassigned as the default with every reboot.  Eventually it sticks, until the next system update.
    The worst ones... the mystery issues with no reliable fix... were the worst. This is part of the reason I quit playing.  It was so consistent, there were so many times I just wanted to 'play the piano' but couldn't, I gave up for a while.
(Rant Over)

A Dedicated Laptop
    In a final attempt to solve the problem, Monique found a used laptop on an Amazon lightning sale.  It's an older HP EliteBook.  Old enough it was originally sold with Windows 7 installed.  It's running Windows 10 now, but that's pushing things.  I don't install extraneous software.  Primarily Ableton, plus CCleaner and Irfanview.  And my favorite browser, Vivaldi. 
    Ableton 10 Live Lite - dedicated to the Hammer 88.
    CCleaner for it's utility toolkit and easy system cleaning. 
    Irfanview for the times I need a screenshot. 
    Vivaldi mainly because I used to use Google Drive to swap files.
    Our working space is tight, so the keyboard is on a wall-mounted shelving system, right beside the door.  It's easy to bump the keyboard while walking past it, and I thought maybe too many impacts caused the issue.

The Ultimate Fix: A USB Hub
    Eventually I realized the problem was the USB port the keyboard was attached to.  The laptop only has 3 USB ports, one to an external audio driver (the Air/Hub, by M-Audio), one to the keyboard, and one for the mouse. Not enough to go around with one having intermittent problems.  We had a 7-port powered hub.  I tried it, but for some reason when the laptop is powered down the hub still provides power to the Hammer 88 and to the mouse.  I didn't want the keyboard to be powered up non-stop all day long.  Seems like that would wear the electronics out faster.
    For about $15.00, we found a great USB hub on Amazon, by Sabrent.  It's powered, has 4 ports, and each port has a dedicated on/off switch, with a light so you know which ones are on.
    Now the keyboard and mouse are connected through the hub.  I also keep a USB memory stick on one port, for trading files between computers.  And the fourth port, just because it was available, provides power to a VCR-to-Computer converter.  Only the ports in use are powered up.  And when the laptop is turned off, I turn off the hub ports as well.  
    Now it works great.  I can play the keyboard reliably, at any time.  And turn the peripherals on/off as needed.  It's amazing when things function like you need them to!!

    With this setup it worked most of the time, but frustratingly there were still days it didn't.  Sometimes on a reboot, the laptop would not communicate with the keyboard.  Occasionally reconnecting the cable between them, but not always.  I started worrying that after all these years of not getting to use it, maybe the keyboard was aging, connections failing, who knows. 

The Technical Side of Grace Notes: Midi and the Missing Sheet Music

     Still celebrating the first brand new posting of my own piano arrangement (Stepping On The Clouds).  Part One of this "Technical Side of Grace Notes" article dealt with how I learn a new song and the process of creating the finished video and blog post.  Today we'll finish with getting the Midi file on Blogger, and acknowledging the missing sheet music.  Then, I'll have a solid reminder against the future and my failing memory.  :^)

    In the previous post, I explained how to save all three elements from Ableton.  The full SET, so I can always re-create the Midi and .wav files.  Just in case.  Plus, of course, the actual Midi and .wav files.  We already applied the .wav file to the video, for a clean audio track with no ambient noise.

    The Midi file I do for it's own sake, for those readers who want it.  Either just to play with Midi on their own setup, or to use Midi as a controllable process for learning how to play my arrangements.  If you downloaded the Midi in order to learn the song, I strongly recommend using Midiano.com as a teaching tool.  It plays my music more "true" than just about anything out there.  It has a visual keyboard you can watch to see the notes as they fall, and the ability to slow down the playback for easier learning.  Plus many other options.

    Not that I have any illusions about my skill level.  There are a ton of musicians on YouTube that put me to shame.  But as my Mom said, there are also plenty of people who are at the perfect level to learn and appreciate what I can offer.  So I don't let all those better players prevent me from putting my two cents in!  

    I'd call my complexity level simple to middling.  There are at least three sites out there that link to my playing as the ideal way to play a specific song.  One of them is even using my sheet music AND my video (it was for Amazing Grace). 
    They were kind enough to give full credit, and to rate the complexity at "Intermediate".  That's higher than I'd expect, and it's very kind of them to share my music.  It validates Mom's advice.

    The real struggle with the Midi wasn't in creating the file, but in getting it onto Blogger in a way that's easy for readers to download.  On the original Grace Notes, I was paying a... large percentage of income... to have a dedicated site to use Wordpress, which I loved.  It had a lot more versatility than Blogger.  But hosting the site got drastically more expensive every single year.  Now I use Google Blogger.  Blogger itself is free.  And a basic Google Workspace is only $12.00 per month.  I still have my custom url, Crewman6.com, and that's a low once-a-year fee.  

    To get to the point, Wordpress offers many options, and you can easily attach just about ANY kind of file for download. Blogger, oddly, only offers Video, Images, or links to other web pages.  Having other filetypes, like Midi, requires a workaround. So here's the gist of it:

    Put the Midi file in your Google Drive, give access to anybody with the link, and copy the link.  Then go to Google Drive Direct Link Generator.  Follow the instructions there to paste your link, then create a direct download link to your Google Drive file.  This is extremely important.  If you try to link to the URL generated by Google Drive, it will open an entirely new webpage, loading it in OVER your blog post.  Then it will attempt to play the midi file in your browser.  Then it will tell you the browser can't play that file, and offer to let you download the file.  THEN you can finally select to download the file.

    That's a huge pain, and the reader winds up on a completely different page, no longer on your post.  Using Google Drive Direct Link Generator is awesome, and free.  It lets you put the modified link on any text or image in your Blogger post, and anybody who clicks the link will be able to simply download the file.  I like choosing where to save downloaded files, so use the "Save As" option.  You might have your downloads default to a single directory for all downloads.  Either is fine.  The point is, the viewer easily downloads the file, without disrupting their reading.  

    Next up, those missing sheet music pages.  On the old Grace Notes blog, I used MidiSheetMusic to both play, and generate sheet music.  It did a great job, but is outdated now and doesn't work with any Midi generated by Ableton.  (Resaving from another Midi player doesn't help either.)  Now I'm in the process of finding another program that can convert Midi to Sheet music, and allow me to make image files of the sheet music.  Originally, those images were saved into .pdf files and uploaded to the blog for anybody that wanted to download.  That's still the plan, but it's been difficult to find software that does exactly what I need.

    I thought I'd solved the problem with MuseScore, which is free to download, converts Midi to sheet music, and allows printing.  Unfortunately, my play-by-ear style seems to confuse Musescore, and when it plays the music back, it completely messes up the order of notes.  Especially if they're played very close together to accentuate the melody.  You know... kind of like a "Grace Note"...  

    Not sure why it struggles with that, because it's sleek and sophisticated software that I like a lot.  Unfortunately, it's not the only one that struggles with my midi.  So far the rule is, if it understands my playing properly, it either offers no sheet music generation, or the function is only available with purchase of the full software.  All the free players that generate printable sheet music have been unable to play the files correctly.

    My favorite, Midiano, plays my stuff perfectly, but as of yet, has no option to create sheet music.  That's not really what Midiano's about, anyway.  My second favorite is a paid software called Notation Musician.  They have a free version, so I KNOW it can play my music perfectly, exactly as intended.  They also generate sheet music.  But the free version does not allow print output.  Yes, I could do screengrabs page by page, but I want to do this the right way.  I'll save up until I can buy the software properly.

    That said, it's $90.00 to purchase, and our budget is very finely balanced to buy food, fuel, pay insurance and taxes.  There's not a lot of leeway for fun things that don't 'earn their keep' monetarily.  So it may take a while to buy Notation Musician.  When I do, I'll go back to any posts as needed and add sheet music downloads.  For now, you're welcome to convert my Midi into sheet music in any way that works for you.  Again, I recommend Midiano.  It's an amazing learning tool, and one of the few players that interprets my playing exactly as intended.

And that's where I'm at, in terms of continuing on Grace Notes.  The last two 'technical' posts were intended to act as memory storage, in case I forget how to do these steps, but I published them just in case any of it might be useful to someone else.  If anybody other than my wife or my mom read these last two posts in their entirety, I'll be totally amazed.  :^D

The Technical Side of Grace Notes: Creating the Video and Sharing the Midi Files

     Yesterday marked a huge milestone here.  I finally posted my first brand new page of my own arrangement on piano, with a downloadable midi file of the piano arrangement.  It's been months in the process, learning and relearning all the associated elements. Writing this post is both a celebration... and my crib notes on the general process, in case I forget how to do it all again.  :^)

    I use M-Audio's Hammer 88 to play the songs.  I'm a strictly 'play-it-by-ear' type, so there's no music notation, no hours scribbling my music on notes.  Just sounding out different ways of playing, trying alternatives, and bit by bit designing an arrangement that appeals.  Once the idea is in my head, the hard part is memorizing that arrangement, and practicing until I can play the song (nearly) perfectly.  

    I'm in my 60's, and Covid really messed up my focus and comprehension.  It literally took 3 months to be ready to record.  Then stage fright kicks in.  Hours of playing/recording on Sunday.  More hours on Monday.  Tuesday I sat down, did a practice run-through, and the second attempt was as close to perfect as I'll probably ever get.  So that's the video you see.  (The song in this case is "Stepping On The Clouds.")

   Ableton Live Lite 10 came free with the Hammer 88.  So that's how I play and record the music.  Nothing fancy.  Once Ableton was installed and working, and a few technical set-up issues resolved, it was ready.  To record, I click the round "Record" button, start playing.  When I make a mistake, click "Stop", then "Play", then "Stop".  From trial and error, this activates a blue bar on the midi recording track, which I can then click to make Ableton's notation window pop open.  Click anywhere on the notation (inside the window that just popped up).  Select All (hold down CTRL and type "A".)

    Then I hit the DEL key, and for good measure, also hit the Backspace key.  Now it's a clean slate again.  Click the "Record" button again, and start playing.  Once the whole song is recorded satisfactorily, stop the recording, open the notation window and select All again.  
        {Without selecting ALL, the EXPORT features stay grayed out and don't activate.}

Then, under the FILE dropdown menu, first save the entire process as an Ableton Set (.als file).  Next, still on the File Menu, select EXPORT Midi, and save the midi version of the song.  Lastly, STILL on the File Menu, select EXPORT Audio.  I like to save the file in a ".wav" file format.  Mp3 is more popular, but Wav plays back at a constant speed.  It's not compressed so you can reliably count on the bitrate being stable.  I set it at 44000, 32-bit, and select "Normalize."  It's best if you first set your audio levels to not go over 0 decibels.  If the audio levels go into the red zone, it's set too loud.

    If it's time to record the video as well, I like to start recording, and keep playing even when I make mistakes and have to start over. (Tripod tip: Make sure you're pointing at the piano and frame the image as nicely as you can.  Don't forget to remove unsightly elements like the trash can under the keyboard...)
So, don't stop recording the video.  Keep recording nonstop, through every attempt.  There's a clear visual cue because every restart, the Ableton track needs to be stopped and reset before starting to play again.  When a good recording is achieved, upload the video to your computer.  To find the beginning in-point when editing, start at the end of the video, and scrub backwards until you come to the starting point of your perfect rendition.  Delete all the 'bad' footage in front of that, trim the end a bit if needed, to get your perfect video ready for audio.

    I use HitFilm Express to edit.  It's a free video editor, does a good job, and was easy to learn the bare minimum to create these videos.  Having already imported the video and trimmed it to just the 'good' part, now IMPORT the .wav file.  Drag it to the track just underneath the video.  You should see the video track, including the audio that recorded on the video track, PLUS the .wav audio file you just dragged under the video.

    Make sure both audio tracks are active.  Play the video, and see how close the two audio tracks are to playing in sync.  Make note of how close, which one starts first, then DRAG the .wav left or right to align with the video's audio track.  It's like lip syncing.  You may have to expand the visible track range, to give finer control over how much you move left or right.

    Do this until the Video audio track and the .wav audio are perfectly matching.  Then UNCHECK the video audio.  It's a little speaker symbol on the left.  Play the video again.  Now only the .wav audio track should be playing, and it should be perfectly synced with the fingers moving as they play the piano.
NOTE: if the .wav needs to move farther left than the video track will allow, select all and drag everything to the right to give yourself a bit of working room.

    Once the video and .wav are synced and the original video audio turned off, trim the ends again if needed. If both tracks aren't fully left-justified to the 0:00 starting point, select All and drag them to the 0:00 time marker.  Export the video as an mp4 file on your hard drive, and upload the video to YouTube.  On Blogger, it's easy to click the video button and select your YouTube video for insertion on the blog post.

I treat the audio this way to clean the original video-recorded audio.  Audio recorded directly in your video (I use my cell phone) is fuzzy, and picks up all the ambient noise.  Dogs barking, phones ringing, people talking... the .wav created from Ableton is crisp, clear, and clean of ambient noise.  It's like you recorded in a studio, with proper microphones.

This is a good stopping point.  I'll finish up in the next post.  We'll take a look at getting Midi onto Blogger in a way that's easily downloadable.

Southern Gospel on Piano is finally back: Stepping On The Clouds!!

 

Click Here to download Midi File If you want to learn to play the song using the Midi file, I recommened using Midiano. It has a ton of customizing and control options to make learning songs easier.

This was a long time in the making. My memory isn't what it used to be, and the hands aren't as steady. After Covid my focus drifts and I wind up forgetting what I'm doing right in the middle of a song. Took 3 months of practicing before even trying to record it... and 3 days to finally get one good enough to keep! Hours the first two days. On the third day lightning struck and it only took two tries.

    This is a song Uncle Freil used to play as a special for Aunt Elsie Mae to sing. Not sure how many friends and family will remember this one. The only place I ever heard it was when we were going to Grace Baptist Church in Nahunta. I'd completely forgotten this song until a few months ago when some random playing one evening resulted in this song. Had to mull it over for a bit to remember the song title.

    Stepping On The Clouds was written by Linda Stalls. I didn't have much luck learning anything about her or her music until, sadly, disovering her obituary from May, 2021. In 1975 she was nominated for a Dove award for her song, Stepping On The Clouds. It's sad that this, so far, is the most I've been able to find out about her.

    It's easier to find information on The Hoppers, the first gospel family to sing the song. I found that on the blog, TheScottSpot. You can search the Hoppers on Youtube and find a lot of videos featuring them. I appreciate their style. Southern Gospel family groups comprise the majority of my favorite music. Mostly for the happy, toe-tapping gospel music, but catch me in the right mood you'll find me playing slow, soulful songs of yearning and hope.

    This is also something of a personal revival for me. Grace Notes was my blog for about ten years. Life in general got in the way, and I gave it up a couple of years ago. When I decided to recreate it, all my blog posts were lost. Still had all the Youtube videos, so as time passes I'll re-write posts for the songs. I've also been documenting the entire recreation process.

    All along it's been in my mind to record new songs, old favorites, especially ones that Uncle Freil used to play. This inspired a hunt through our two-floor shed, for any audiotapes, video, or CD's of Freil that may have been left in storage over the years. It's been a mostly successful search. Found a lot of his music I'd forgotten, things I haven't heard in decades. One specific video is still missing. Running out of places to look, but still hoping.

    And, in these last few months, I've been working on this arrangement. It's all by ear. Not very good at reading sheet music. It's been a struggle to build enough muscle memory to get through the whole song when my focus wavers. And it's been tough getting to the point where it was good enough to record. The result isn't perfect, but it's close and I'm very happy with it. (And very ready to move on to a new song...)

I truly hope you like it!

Freil Thrift on Piano; from a 30-year old video!

    I've been tearing my shed apart trying to find old recordings of my uncle Freil playing piano.  This VHS tape is over 30 years old, so it's not perfect, but it really means a lot to hear him play again!  I've found several others, but this is exceptional.  Nearly 25 minutes of video with Freil playing, and there are quite a few songs I don't have recorded anywhere else.  The video quality is rough, the tape is stretched, and the VCR's auto-tracking couldn't compensate enough.  But this may be the only surviving copy, and I'm grateful it works at all.

    The search for more recordings is just about over.  I've gone through nearly every box that could possibly hold any more.  Haven't found the Hi-8 tape I was actually hunting... but did turn up some audio cassettes and vhs tapes. Even got my hands on a couple of record albums he played on.  

    This videotape was recorded somewhere between 1990 and 1991.  Maybe on multiple days.  It wasn't made by me, and I have no recollection of how it came to be in my storage.  It's an awesome video.  The quality's not great... probably a copy, but more importantly, the tape is about 33 years old at this time.  VHS wasn't meant to last this long, way back then nobody knew for sure how long it would hold up.  It certainly hasn't been kept in optimal conditions.  Most of those years were in a box in a shed.

    As a result, the quality would be unacceptable, had it not been for the unique and irreplaceable nature of the subject.  For a few weeks, I couldn't even test it out.  The old digitizer (EZCap) that worked years ago no longer works.   The computer identifies it as attached hardware, but I couldn't find any software able to use it.

 

    In a previous post, I mentioned a YouTube guide by Jumble that explained an inexpensive setup to digitize videotape. It involved an RCA to HDMI converter called MINI AV2HDMI, and a small video capture device that converts HDMI to USB.  Everything else I already had, or was available for free (the OBS "Open Broadcast Software".)  OBS is way over my head, but Jumble explained the basic setup in his video.  Once it was all connected, it still didn't work, but a quick Google search fixed that.  Hint - check your windows privacy settings.  I had all related settings for Windows Webcam turned off.  As simply as turning on permissions, and it was recording video.

    Beyond that, the resulting video files had an odd echo effect.  The audio was being mixed back into itself.  I turned off the desktop/mic volume in OBS, and it worked perfectly.  Or, at least as good as the videotape itself was.  Repairing the damage of years was beyond me.

    The result is a fabulous memory of some of my favorites.  I hope you can forgive the inconsistent video quality and enjoy the music!

    

    

 

New Old Sennheiser RS 120 Wireless Headphone

     Got a little off track here, but the most amazing thing happened today, and needed to be shared.  I'm ... sort of... hard of hearing.  Hearing aids are beyond the family budget, so it's a matter doing the best you can with what you've got.  I tell my friends and coworkers, there's a 3-repeat limit.  I'll ask you to repeat something twice.  If it's still just garbled static, I pretend I heard and move on.  Yes, it causes problems, but asking for repeats gets old, and 3 times is my limit.

    With that in mind, I've struggled with my Hammer 88 and the audio volume on Ableton.  If it's  loud enough for me to hear, it pegs way over 0 decibels.  Lot of red zone, overpowers the speakers, sounds like static when I play it back as WAV.  You'll see on older posts, I've gone through a few hoops trying to find work-arounds.  The best solution so far was to play very loud while recording, save it as an Ableton set.  Then swap to a quieter instrument for export.  Usually MiniGrand x64 #16, Loud, then #01 Real Piano, for the softer tones.

    Also, last night I started using normalize when exporting audio.  It seems to do just as good a job, without jumping through the hoops.  That might sound simple, but I bought the M-Audio Hammer 88 just to have a digital piano. I play a song, record it live, and output Midi/Wav to share my music online.  The Hammer came with Ableton Live Lite 10.  That's sort of like asking for a match and getting a doomsday bomb.  Way over my head, and overpowered for my purposes.  So stuff like using normalize when exporting?  I don't know enough to even understand what question to ask, until something triggers an inspiration.  Then it's like Christmas!

    But... it came FREE with the keyboard.  I like free, and was willing to learn as needed to achieve the goal.  The Hammer 88 was about half the price of my broken Yamaha DG-640 Digital Grand.  Loved that Yamaha but it wore out, and repairing it was expensive. With no guarantees it would keep working.  So here I am, with the Hammer, learning how to do things as they come up.  At times I'd whine about "just wanting to play my piano..."  Ignore the whining.  I do the same thing about blogging.  There's a lot to learn about the modern blogging landscape.  (Like "consent cookies...")  At my age, learning isn't as easy as it used to be.

    Anyway - back to the hearing problem.  My old headphones were cheap, but nice enough.  But they're so old, the leatherette is falling off every time I pick them up.  And it doesn't just fall to the floor in pieces.  When I try to pick them up, they crumble into dust that leaves a mark like fireplace soot.  I have another old pair, still in the blister pack.  (Yes, it's another $20 headphone.)  Used them yesterday, and it was okay.  Just as good as the old ones, but without the disintegrating leatherette.  Monique saw me messing with them, and tinkering with ways to increase audio.  She's also seen me get the wires tangled, forget I was wearing them and walk away from the computer, and generally being a klutz.  She also remembered another pair of headphones.

    More than a decade ago, for a birthday gift, I gave her a wireless headphone set.  She liked watching tv while using the treadmill, and had expressed a desire for something wireless to listen on.  In those days, we were ridiculously extravagant, and the credit cards were like our own private printing press.  So I found some that had nice reviews.  Not sure if memory serves, but I THINK they were around $180.  They never worked quite right for her, maybe there was too much interference in that room, but they were put away and forgotten.  Monique found them again recently while doing a major cleanup in our storage room.  (Translation: eBay selling, model-building, upright freezer, and junk room.)

    She brought them out last night, tested them on her computer, then offered them to me.  The advantages were tremendous, but I live a cluttered life.  After years of building my "mission control" area, I couldn't figure out a place to put the base.  Seriously, no place left that wasn't stacked to the max.  I said "No thank you" regretfully.  This morning, I revised some priorities, got rid of a couple of things I don't really use any more, and... "appropriated" the headphones back.

    Here's the exciting part- after recharging them, and fine-tuning the channel, I tentatively played a song on the Hammer.  AND HEARD IT AS CLEAR AS A BELL!  Not only that, but there's a volume control on one side.  It was set somewhere in the middle.  When I cranked it up, it was actually much too loud.  Finally, finally, finally, I can hear what I'm playing, the way it should be heard, and not have to jump through hoops to correct the final output.  

    I also tested a YouTube video, and understood what they were saying... without subtitles!!  This decade-old Sennheiser RS 120 Wireless is not even available on Amazon any more.  They have an upgraded model now, and it's something like half the price I paid for these.  Don't care.  This is beyond amazing.  These are just fine, thank you very much.  Don't need an upgrade.  Did I mention I like FREE?  Maybe it wasn't free, but after so many years forgotten in a box, and "re-finding" it at a time I really needed the boost, it felt like a free gift.

    More than a gift, it was encouragement at a time I've been struggling.  I have a new song I want to record, and after two months of practicing, have only had 3 perfect practices.  None of them on video, of course.  It's been discouraging, to put it mildly. Being able to hear myself play is revitalizing.  It's brought joy back to my playing, and restored my hopes of being able to record this song soon.  

NOTE: I deliberately didn't add links to Amazon. I'm not trying to sell anything here.  You want to look for yourself, you'll have to Google it on your own.  I found mine on Amazon, but am sure you can find hundreds of retailers selling much the same thing.  I just wanted to express my happiness in being able to hear the music while playing.  :^)

Goodbye World Goodbye: Getting VHS Video Transferred to the Computer

    Last night's post was all about the end result.  Getting to play a duet with my uncle, and sharing it with the world.  Today's going to be the "prequel."  The story of how it got from a 2-decade-old videotape, to the state it's in now, and how I hope to get the real video uploaded eventually.

    To begin with... that photo was taken in 1962.  Freil was the youngest of my aunts and uncles, the baby of the family.  I was two at the time.  Mom's always said Nanny (her Mom) didn't get to see me until I was two, because of Dad's Navy career.  Nanny said I was walking already the first time she saw me.  So, just guessing, this photo might have been during that first visit.

    Fast forward to 1996, there was a family reunion.  We have a huge family, reunions were a big thing.  Freil was there, and of course everybody begged him to play.  I got a pretty long video of him playing.  At one point, he tried to 'escape', and asked me to play.  I've never been as good, but what I know, I learned by watching and listening to him.  Instead of letting us switch, someone asked us to play a song together, and Goodbye World Goodbye was the result.  It was one of those perfect moments, where everything goes absolutely right.  

    The rest of the video was mainly reunion events.  Later, I edited the raw footage, using his music as background track for the scenes.  By the early 2000's I'd sold or worn out most of my equipment, including the Hi-8 Camera.  The original tape is (I hope) somewhere in a box in our shed.  About 2016, Mom brought out one of the edited vhs reunion tapes.  It would have been a third-generation copy- raw Hi-8 to SVHS Master Edit, to regular VHS done using a 6-deck setup for small production duplication.  Better than home quality, way below broadcast quality.  And regardless, it's not optimal to have a final product at 3 generations. Back in the days of analog video, each generation lost significant quality.  

EZCap Video Grabber... not as good as it used to be 

  I bought a cheap transfer device from Amazon - EZCap Video Grabber.  It wasn't great, but it got the job done.  I borrowed Mom's VHS tape, and used an old VCR we still had.  It didn't come with software, but provided a link to free software.  It was already old when I ordered it, but with some tinkering and some online guides, I got it to work on Windows 10, on a computer I no longer have.     
    Now, that one video is on a file on my computer.  It's a poor scan, made from a 3rd-generation copied vhs tape. The video quality is not good enough to rescue, and the footage of Freil was mostly edited out anyway.  All I could save was audio of some of his playing, and that was muddied by background crowd noises.  That was the intent way back then... to use his piano playing as background audio for the reunion.  The conversations, the meal, the prayers, the announcements... I never thought it would be used to rescue Freil's music from.

    I'd forgotten the file existed.  Even that computer is gone, but I always save the internal hard drives from my old computers and add them to the new one.  Recently I was trying to make the EZCap work again.  Some programs acknowledged it's existence (VLC), but none of the ones I tried were compatible with it, including the original software.  It was while trying to run the old software, I found that old family reunion video.  Pure luck and coincidence, but I'll take it.  Sometimes you have to work with what you've got.

Serendipity plus hard work

    Even though the quality was bad, the audio was recognizable.  Hoping for an easy solution, I tried loading the file on Audacity, but Audacity can't load video files.  I tried using HitFilm Express (a free video editor) to separate the audio, but couldn't find an option to save the audio without the video.  There's a lot of results when you google the question, but I wound up using VLC, a free video player with a lot of options.  THIS SITE has a slightly outdated guide, but it was close enough to get me there.
    By the way, Audacity is free too... and a fantastic audio editor.

    With a 33-minute mp3 audio file, I used Audacity to convert it to a WAV file.  WAV is uncompressed, and will always play the audio at a consistent bitrate.  Mp3 is compressed, making it hard to match video clips with perfect timing.  When the whole video is just a single photo it doesn't really matter, but old habits die hard.
    From the Wav file, I edited it down to "Goodbye World Goodbye", equalized the audio trying to highlight the piano and de-emphasize the crowd noises, and exported it as a 32-bit Wav.

    Then back to HitFilm.  Create a project, import the Wav file, drag it into the timeline.  Import the photo, drag into the timeline, stretch the photo duration until it's equal to the audio track.  (It will snap in place when it gets close enough to the audio duration.)  Export the video to hard drive, upload to Youtube, and done.

    I'm still searching for the original raw footage of Freil playing on Hi-8 tape.  Once it's found, I'll have to obtain a Hi-8 player.  My plan is to buy an old one for $200-$250 from eBay, use it for any Hi-8 tapes I have (Not just Freil's, but any I may still find in all those old boxes.)  Then re-sell it on eBay.  It may not break even but at least I won't be out a couple of hundred dollars!

EZCap is outdated, but there's a better way to transfer video to computer

    Though I was able to transfer video using EZCap, I can't recommend it.  It was a pain to get working years ago, and now it's not working for me at all.
    The best way I've found to transfer that footage into computer (meaning "effective, yet cheap") costs about $50 from things easily found on Amazon, plus some free software, all of it compatible with an ordinary computer running current Windows.  You'll notice I'm fond of free.  In this case, the list of items, along with a video explaining how to do it, was created by a YouTuber named "JUMBLE."

    There's not much sense in me duplicating his work.  And I don't want to divert his Amazon links for the items you'll need, that's very likely a source of income for him.  So, go watch his short, interesting, and truly informative video, "VCR to Computer - How to connect, watch and record old VHS tapes."  It's well worth the few minutes.  He doesn't add "fluff" to his videos.  It's all solid info.  He provides links to all the hardware, making it very easy to follow his instructions.

    

Goodbye World Goodbye: A gospel music duet with Freil Thrift

 

    This was a long time in the making.  The photo in the video is of Freil and myself playing, when I was 2 years old... in 1962!  The music is from a 1996 family reunion.  Freil had already played several songs.  It was a recurring theme for him.  Every time he went to any church, or anywhere with a piano, people knew him.  They'd keep asking him to play, and when he did, it was rarely one song.  So many people had favorites that they'd ask for.  No matter how long he played, people always wanted more.

    We all loved to hear him play, but looking back, it must have been difficult.  He never just "went to church."  No matter how far afield he went, someone knew him, word spread, and he'd wind up playing for the church that day.  I've heard that he went to the library in Nahunta to check out a book and had to sign up.  When the librarian asked him for his photo ID, he said "I'm Freil Thrift."  She replied "I KNOW who you are, but you still have to have an ID to sign up!!!"

    That was Freil.  Everybody knew him.  So at this particular reunion, he tried to take a break and asked me to play.  Someone asked for a duet.  Goodbye World Goodbye was my all-time favorite Freil Thrift song, and I'd spent a long time trying to learn it in his style.  A really long time...

    We sat down, and it was magic.  One of the most joyous moments in my life.  Everything went perfectly.  Every singer, every musician, who ever worked with Freil will tell you he made them sound better.  It's the gospel truth.  No matter how good they were, Freil knew how to bring out their best, and raise them to a level they couldn't reach alone.

    It was the same for me.  I've never sounded better, before or after that day.  When you're listening to the video, pay attention to the high notes.  That's him.  I had the mid-range.  We never practiced this song, and I know he preferred to play in the key of 'G'.  But I'm best in 'C', and pretty weak in other keys.  So I played in C, and he matched me on the spot.  Without a single missed note, he played in my key, at my pace, and every note he played enhanced my own.  

    Finding this footage, even an edited copy of a copy, being able to hear us play together after all these years, is beyond amazing.  It means more to me than I can express.  Like Camelot.  For one brief shining moment the world was clear and perfect.  Hearing this again brought that moment back for me.

    Still searching for the original Hi8 footage, but in the meantime, this will do most excellently. :^)

The Singing Chapmans: Something I Can Feel, & One Day I Will

    "Something I Can Feel" is the fourth song on side one of The Singing Chapmans "Redeemed By The Crucified One" album.  The song was written by Elmer Cole. For lyrics, click HERE.

    I've tried learning about Elmer Cole's life, and what else he wrote, but nearly every mention I can find is in reference to an article about someone else.  If you can point me to any website or article that has authoritative information, please leave the link in a comment.  It's hard to believe how little there is, when he's written songs like "I Found The Answer", I'm Looking for Jesus, and the fantastic "Ten Thousand Years." (This info, and a little bit more, were on the blog Southern Gospel Tidbits.)

    I found multiple mentions of him being with Willie Wynn and the Tennesseans, but again, his name was included, but no further information.  I'm not so familiar the most of the songs I can find for him, but have heard "Ten Thousand Years" all my life.  It was one of the songs Aunt Elsie Mae sang (and Uncle Freil played) as a special in church.

    "One Day I Will" is the fifth song on "Redeemed By The Crucified One."  It was composed by Walt Mills and John Stallings, or perhaps written by John Stallings, and performed by Walt Mills.  What little I could find seemed unclear, none of it from an authoritative source.  The lyrics can be found on Bluegrass Lyrics.com.

    Again, there's not much available other than their names being included/listed on a large number of websites.  Certainly no life stories, inspirations, or quotes.  There are some Youtube videos if you search, but again, nothing I'd consider a reliable source.  This is starting to look like a trend.  I'm not sure if it's more modern gospel, less-known gospel, or if the nature of online information has changed.  

    Over ten years ago, it seemed there was never a shortage of information about gospel composers and musicians.  This blog, "Grace Notes", is a recreation of a blog I kept from around 2012-2022.  Actual life got in the way, the site languished, and eventually I let it go.  This is a recreation of the spirit of that blog.  Years ago, there were Wikis, active forums, personal accounts, historical sites, all kinds of sources to help paint a picture of the songwriters that influenced my childhood.  Now, it's a desert.  Maybe I'm just not using the best search terms.  

    Whatever the case is, I'll leave you with these two songs for now.  For future posts, if I can't find enough information about the writers, or the song, I'll just give whatever brief details there are, and include multiple songs per blog.  No sense filling up all my pages with "I don't know, and can't find out."

It's been a busy week at work, to the point several friends from other offices are chipping in and helping to get the work done.  Tomorrow's Friday.  I'm off to see my parents on Saturday.  Something to look forward to.  I can't wait!

Off Topic - Roger Zelazny's Unicorn Variation As Read By Rene Auberjonois

     I'm going off the beaten path today.  Usually I'm all about Southern Gospel Music, or things that have some bearing on getting this blog where I want it to be.  Today, it's still about audio, but not about music.  It's about searching for one thing, and finding another.  It's about synchronicity.  It's about searching the shed for a 35 year old audio tape of my Uncle playing the family piano, and in the process, finding a 28-year old audio tape that I wasn't even thinking about.

    One of my favorite writers, Roger Zelazny, wrote several of my favorite stories.  That includes "Unicorn Variation", and to a lesser extent, "Angel Dark Angel."  Both of these stories are on an audiocassette, and read by Rene Auberjonois.  The tape was produced by Durkin-Hayes in 1995.  If you don't know who Auberjonois was, you'd probably recognize him as Odo, in Star Trek: Deep Space 9.  If you like niche sci-fi (syfy), you may recognize him as Hugo Miller, from Warehouse 13.  Numerous other things, but what you may not know is that he "read" for a large number of audio book productions.  And that he could breathe life into his readings with majestic ease.  When you listen to him, the characters came to life.  Each had their own voices, and mannerisms.  I've always loved to read, but listening to Rene read the stories out loud, added another layer to my enjoyment.  

    I've intended for years to find that tape, and transfer it to an MP3 file.  Because tapes wear out.  They degrade, the audio fades, the tapes stretch.  28 years later is stretching my luck.  Recently, I've been on a related quest to upload old audio recordings of my Uncle Freil on piano.  In the process, I've had to buy a new tape player, and re-learn how to use Audacity, something I haven't worked with in over a decade.  So finding "Unicorn Variation" might have been unintended at this exact moment, but it's been in the back of my mind for years.  And this was the perfect time to find it again.  For the most part, the audio quality is still nice and clear.  There was one section that had some trouble, but the words were still clear, so I'm okay with a bit of hiss and clicking.

For anybody not familiar with Zelazny, I usually think of him as a fantasy/sci-fi writer.  But that's like saying the sun's hot.  Zelazny wrote concerts with words.  He's not for everybody, and I'm not thrilled with everything he wrote.  But he used words like Leonardo da Vinci used paints.  Like Michelangelo used a chisel.  Everything he wrote was a work of art.  In Unicorn Variations, a lone traveler meets a chess-playing unicorn at an abandoned bar in a ghost town, with the fate of the world hanging on a single game.

    It's the kind of story I love;   nobody is 'the bad guy.'  The story is full of charm, wonder, and wit.  I've read it many times, and listened to this tape off and on since the mid-1990's.  Angel Dark Angel is also a "read many times" story, but it lacks the wonderful whimsy of "Unicorn."  

    So now I have both stories, read by the remarkable Rene Auberjonois, as mp3 files.  I'll back them up on a few hard drives, download them to my cell phone, and never lose it again.  PLUS, at the end of the tape, Rene mentions he's also recorded Zelazny's "Last Defender of Camelot."  Now that one... that one is arguably my most favorite short story in my entire life.  

    Monique and I both spent some time today trying to track down a copy.  Not on eBay, not on Amazon, nor AbeBooks.  Not on any niche sites I ran across.  Not on Youtube (I searched, in case another fan felt like sharing).  Youtube did have an old Twilight Zone episode base on it, but it didn't live up to the book.  Not even close.

    So, still hunting for an audiobook of "Last Defender of Camelot."  If you know how I can get hold of one, I'd appreciate a comment or email.  :^)

Progress Report: I have "New" Old Music from Long Lost Audiotapes

 Just the small stuff for now.  There were two cassettes in a box in the shed.  Also a videotape.  Still looking for the Hi8 video.  The cassettes were both home recordings of my Uncle Freil playing the piano.  One was dated 26 March 1988.  The other doesn't have a date, but is probably from the same time frame.

    Finished scanning the first audiotape last night.  The first side was done a few days ago, and had 14 minutes of Freil's music.  The rest was off-the-wall stuff, mostly commercials and old tv theme songs.  On the other side, it was a lot of Floyd Cramer music.  It makes sense, seeing that his style is very similar to Freil's style.  I used to have a lot of Cramer's albums, this was probably just a mix tape for the car.  Thank goodness it went into storage before it got old and brittle in the car.

    So, it was fun listening to Floyd Cramer last night.  There was even one song by Cramer that wasn't available on YouTube - Back On My Mind Again.  I know, it's a Ronnie Milsap song... but Floyd made it into a fun, up-tempo song.  I like the style.  Converted it to a WAV and added it to the "Songs I Want To Play" directory.  There are a lot of songs in there I can already play, but if someone does one song in a way I haven't heard, or that appeals and I want to learn their way of playing it... it goes in the directory.  Also, there are plenty that are beyond me.  Someday, maybe... or maybe I'll just enjoy listening to them now and then.

    The 14 minutes of Freil playing are digitized in one big WAV file.  I'll do some work with it later.  For now, the goal is just to get all these songs backed up.  One more tape to try.  Assuming the tape still plays, it'll be like opening Christmas gifts.  Who knows what wonderful songs he'll be playing?

... Several hours later...

    Slightly disappointed.  The 2nd tape was a duplicate of the first one.  So, no new discoveries.  On the bright side, I have 14 minutes of music I haven't heard in decades.  Quality is pretty low, but that was expected.  Recorded on a Radio Shack shoe-box tape recorder, while it was sitting on the piano as Freil played.  35 years later, the fact that the cassette still plays is absolutely remarkable.  I'm very happy with it!

    Spent the last couple of hours tinkering with the audio.  For what little I know, Audacity has some nice beginner level effects that definitely improved the sound.  Then started saving each song out as a separate WAV file.  Now I have 8 new songs by Freil.  Technically 9, but Yackety Sax was played twice.  I don't remember why, but it's all good.  It means a lot to hear him play something "new" after all these years.  Decades later, Freil still inspires me.

    It'll take some set-up, and hunting on the computer in the hopes I still have the VHS-to-File transfer software... but with any luck the VHS of Freil playing will be next.  Again, hoping it's in great condition.  Also, still searching the shed.  There's one more recording, a Hi8 videotape, that should be somewhere out there.  If I can find it, there's a point where he and I are playing a duet at Uncle Roger and Aunt Annie's home.  We're playing Goodbye World Goodbye, and it's a very favorite memory.  I need it to still be there, and still be playable.

One last thing, completely unrelated to music; there was another tape in that last box.  It has Rene Auberjonois (Odo, from Star Trek: Deep Space 9) reading a couple of short stories by Roger Zelazny.  One of them is "Unicorn Variations", and ranks as an all-time favorite story.  Going to digitize it and load it onto my phone for trips.  Talk about serendipity... this was an amazing rediscovery!!

Transferring Audiotape Cassettes to WAV and MP3

    It's been a while since my last post.  Lot going on in real life, but also making progress on the music.  I went to see my folks a couple of weeks back, and Mom gave me some old tapes and discs that potentially had Uncle Freil's playing on them.  Got home, and hunted all over, but none of the tape players in the house were able to play the cassettes.  Monique and I both sell on eBay... you'd think with 20+ years each selling on eBay, we'd have at least one fully functional audiocassette player in the house, but nope.  None that could transfer the music into my computer.  Going to have to buy one.

DISTRACTIONS

    Then we had distractions.  A very cute, tiny dog that decided we were going to be his new home.  With three dogs already, we can't afford a fourth.  Thankfully someone volunteered to adopt him. Also, Monique and her sister spent all last week reorganizing our clutter.  eBay had taken over.  There's still work to be done, but it makes more sense now.  It feels like we have breathing room again.

    During the same week, my computer kicked the bucket.  It started by only booting in low-res and 32-bit.  Then it wouldn't boot at all.  The next morning, still not booting, but it did attempt to do a repair on the drive.  Later that day, it booted up.  Over the next few days, it would start up, but with various hiccups.  For now it's booting up and working right.  It won't last forever, but at least it's working right now.

    In that same time frame, we were told our taxes were going to be... a lot. Much more than ever before.  Last year I half-way retired.  Still working part time, and still selling on eBay.  Near the end of the year property taxes were nearly double compared to the previous year.  So we sold on eBay like never before to be able to pay it.  Now we're having to pay taxes on all the extra income we made in order to pay the other taxes.  
    As it turned out, it wasn't so bad.  Not great, but not "end of life as we know it" bad.

STILL SEARCHING FOR A CASSETTE PLAYER

    While all that was going on, the hunt was still on for a tape player.  Apparently, there are no "good but affordable" cassette players being made.  You can either go cheap/mid-range, none of which had... pristine... reviews.  Or you can go eBay with classic, expensive, decks from the 80's.  Tough call... you want the final audio to sound good, but the bank is already broke.  Cheap was the only option.
    There were three models on Amazon that seemed appropriate, in a price range from $25 to $60.  All three had a standard headphone audio out jack.  With the correct cable, you can go from headphone out, to the computer's Mic In, and digitize the audio with Audacity.

    The winner was the Semier AM/FM Radio Cassette Recorder, model number SM-138.  It could play and record audiotapes, has a 3.5mm earphone jack, can run on 4 C size batteries, or AC (power cord comes in the box, thankfully).  As you can see in the photo, the box had some corner damage, but the machine was in perfect condition.

TESTING THE AUDIO

    Did a test run, and it works!  Not perfect, but I'm playing tapes recorded 30 to 40 years ago... and they were recorded with one of those old Radio Shack shoe-box recorders.  I'm thrilled they still worked at all.  A little audio wobble under the circumstances is completely acceptable.
    One of the reviewers (don't remember which unit it was reviewing) warned of a 'hum' when you used a power cord, and gave advice on how to avoid it.  (Use batteries, or buy a $10 Noise Isolator.)  It was a well-written review with a lot of helpful info, but he made it sound like not following his advice would result in horrible audio.  I disagree.  

    When the player audio is set to the lowest possible level at which recognizable sounds are playing, and Audacity recording levels adjusted appropriately, the audio was acceptable for the circumstances.  Hum wasn't an issue.  Bad tape quality, years of tape degradation, and highly variable volumes within the same recording, those were issues.  The quality sure wasn't up to sound studio standards.  But with all the technical challenges, it was as good as could be asked for.

GOT THE WRONG TAPES

    One last issue... now that I can play the tapes, and digitize them, those first two turned out to be recordings of professionally made CDs, which I already owned.  Very disappointing.  Not the end of the story, though.  Last night, going through old boxes, I found two audio tapes that I had personally recorded of Freil playing the piano.  Only had time to check one side out.  There are 14 minutes of good enough audio, with songs I haven't heard him play since the late 1980's.  That made it all worthwhile.

    Can't wait to listen to the rest.  Hope to find more gems from the past, but it's been too long since writing a new blog.  Now you know what's up, and that I'm still making progress!

MuseScore: Midi Import Panel Project Delayed

    "Midi Sheet Music" no longer consistently reads my newest MIDI files.  I spent several days recently searching for a replacement.  The big find was Midiano.  It shows scrolling sheet music, a piano keyboard, and both parts highlight the active notes as the MIDI file is playing.  It does the job with a LOT of bells and whistles.  That solved most of the problem.

    MUSESCORE PRINTS SHEET MUSIC... ODDLY
    The missing element was the ability to print the sheet music as .pdf files that I can share.  Of everything I tried, MuseScore was the best, but the formatting was odd.  It had clef symbols sprinkled all over the pages.  I wasn't too thrilled with the dots over the notes either, but that was small stuff.   The profusion of treble and base clefs throughout the sheets confused and annoyed me.  Not that I read sheet music... 

    Actually, I can struggle through the notes, piece by piece, but the rest of it is beyond me.  In the mid-60's, I took 3 years of first-year lessons.  Yes, that means I took the same first-year instruction three times.  Every time Dad got a new assignment, or my instructors moved, the new piano teacher insisted I start over... "to learn HER way."  By the third year, I was fed up and quit taking lessons.  Now I play by ear.

WHY CAN'T I FIND THE MIDI IMPORT PANEL?

    Anyway, spent a lot of time yesterday trying to find a better alternative.  MuseScore had the cleanest output, best-looking pages.  It imports MIDI without the sustain pedal, which is a strike against, but as far as sheet music it was the best free software out there.  Some forum conversations mentioned a "Midi Import Panel".  It's supposed to appear at the bottom of the screen, every time you open a Midi file.

    Not true.  It NEVER showed up.  Searched the context menus, the preferences, all the options I could find, nothing.  So I googled Midi Import Panel.  Long story short... it's gone.  There's are a lot of sites, even Google-recommended question/answer lists, that give instructions how to access it, and how to use it.  But they all apply to the previous version of MuseScore, not the current version.

    There's a GITHUB MU4 Task, "Restore Midi Input Panel".  It was opened on June 7, 2022, and closed on Sep 1, 2022.  The end result was to push it forward to a future revision.  The task was deemed too complex, and it was agreed that the panel would be restored in a future 4.x version of MuseScore.  As of today, March 05 2023, the panel is still not restored.

    So:      MuseScore 4 does NOT have the Midi Import Panel. 

               MuseScore 3 DOES!!!

GET 3.6.2 TO ACCESS THE IMPORT PANEL
    Those options seem kind of critical.  It's hard to understand why they simple left it out.  On the other hand, it's a very complex program, provided completely free.  I can't really complain about free.

There was another forum discussion where several people opted not to update yet.  Someone mentioned using both.  I already had version 4 installed, and tried installing version 3.  It worked just fine.  As a matter of fact, the highest revision to 3 I could find was version 3.6.2, so the link above goes to the first site I found that offered it.  Let me say it again:  MuseScore 3.6.2 DOES have the Midi Import Panel.

    It did exactly what it was supposed to.  Now I'm ecstatic.  It automatically splits my piano track into a treble and bass clef, which I like.  And it no longer has the excess clefs all over the sheets.
    One minor thing, and this is my own fault.  I use a lot of keyboard real estate.  Hit the deep low notes, and often go 2 or 3 octaves up as well.  In the sheet music, there are a LOT of lines stacked up representing how far below Middle C to play.  That's okay with me.  I hope it doesn't bother anybody who tried to play my arrangements.  With my limited understanding of sheet music, this makes more sense than having the treble and bass clefs floating all over the place.

PLAY IT LIKE YOU FEEL IT!
    Last caveat:  Professional musicians have told me, and many websites I've read also state that MIDI to sheet music conversion is error prone, and inaccurate.  As far as I can tell, it shows the notes I play, the way I play them.  Anybody advanced enough to read the notation... and anybody who loves southern gospel playing... can figure out the rest.  You just play it like you feel it.