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.

Midi Sheet Music Stopped Working - Searching for Alternatives

     I'm barely scraping the surface with Ableton Live 10 Lite.  Recently I learned how to export Midi files.  At least, it worked that time.  Now, it's not working again.
    To be more specific, it IS creating a midi file, but my old standby, Midi Sheet Music, can't load the file.  Can't tell what's different, if the song is longer, more complex, has non-standard play-styles... 

    Backing up a bit, I've used Midi Sheet Music (MSM) for years.  The sound is a bit cheesy and the graphics plain, but it's the ONLY stand-alone program I've ever found that:

    A. Creates Sheet Music from Midi files
    B.  Allows you to print the sheet music
    C. Plays the midi file while scrolling the sheet music.
    D. At the same time, also has a piano keyboard onscreen that shows the notes being played.

    It does it all.  I play by ear, creating a midi file while playing.  Load this midi file into MSM, hit "Play", and it's perfect for someone trying to learn the song.  They can follow along at their own pace, watching the sheet music, and/or the piano, as the song plays visually on both.  If I record a video and upload it to Youtube, the viewer can learn to play it in the same fashion I play.  (Southern Gospel... I'm okay, not great, but my songs have a "Floyd Cramer" feel, and MSM let me share my style with people who have the same taste in music.)
    If the person downloads my MIDI file, and downloads Midi Sheet Music, they can practice playing and adjust the pace as slow or fast as they want.  Except that it's no longer working for me.  When I save a Midi file, and load it into MSM, the result is a lot of gibberish that basically says there's an error in the file and it can't play.

    Maybe the problem is just with this one song, some glitch in the file?  Assuming exactly that, I hit Google up for help.  Nothing solved the problem.  Next I tried to find substitutes.  There were a heap of almost-rans.  Surprisingly, they were all able to import and play my midi file.  I guess that means MSM is seriously outdated.  Some did better than others.  Several would have been excellent, except they couldn't incorporate the sustain pedal.  Others played perfectly, including use of the sustain pedal.

     MuseScore 4 solved the problem of sheet music.  It will output sheets as .pdf files, perfect for letting people download if all they need is the notation.  I'm not certain how good a job it does, since I don't read sheet music.  I can figure out enough of it to feel like it gets the gist of the song, but have always heard midi to sheet music translations can be innacurate. 
    The fine details don't bother me.  Anybody who knows Southern Gospel should be able to figure out the rhythm on their own.  :^)
As long as it gets the notes well enough for people to figure it out, it's good enough.

    MuseScore 4 flopped, though, when it comes to playing midi files.  It was one of those that couldn't hold the sustain.  Couldn't find any way to fix it, so every MIDI I imported into MuseScore plays in a bad-sounding staccato sound.  Not just bad, but horrible.  I never found any free software better at outputting sheet music though, so this is my go-to for people who sight-read their music.

    The big winner was an online-only solution at Midiano.com.  I dearly wish it could be downloaded to use off-line.  It's supposed to be possible, but I don't know enough to understand how to do it.  I've emailed the programmer, hope he's able and willing to help.  Anyway, Midiano does it all.  Not quite like Midi Sheet Music, but it's actually an improvement.  The piano option wasn't immediately visible, but it's there, and can be selected in the "View" options.  Lastly, it comes with a HUGE amount of choices.  You can adjust nearly every possible option.  With a bit of tinkering in the options, it does exactly what I needed.

    Midiano was by far and away the best result from two evenings worth of hunting.  It's miles and miles ahead of anything similar.  Plus, it looks fantastic.  Best of all, you get all that for free!  Not sure how he supports his website, but the least I can do is let people know how fantastic Midiano is.

   

These Wonderful Broken Years part II (the short-short music clip)

 Yesterday I woke up with an unusually detailed and vivid dream stuck in my head.  Aside from the general dream, there was a Victrola with wood-grained sides, off-white surface, and vividly shiny brass horn/amplifier.  There was one line of music that was crystal clear; I heard orchestral music with wind and stringed instruments, 3 female voices singing the words in gorgeous harmony, the words "These wonderful broken years, wonderful broken years, these wonderful broken years."  It was the ending line of a song I'd never heard before, and when I got up, could not find the song existing online.  

Having such a short track made me curious in the dream, so I picked up the album and examined it.  Most of the tracks were of normal width, but that last track had a very small grooved section.  The record label wasn't entirely clear, but had the song title, "These Wonderful Broken Years".  The title was in an elegant cursive script, and I could clearly read it in the dream.  When I woke, I still had the vision of the album and the melody of that final line in my memory.

After writing the (much longer) blog about the dream, I spent most of yesterday trying to get that track into mp3 form on my computer.  It took hours, because I've had a Hammer 88 for a couple of years, along with Ableton Live 10 Lite, but only learned enough back then to play live piano.  Then I set the whole thing aside for over a year, and only recently felt inspired to get it all running again.  Even the little I used to know was long gone, and the day was a long learning session.

The most frustrating part was exporting the saved melody from Ableton.  Since the input method was MIDI, I thought the export method had to be MIDI.  It took an embarrassingly long time to realize the output was not MIDI, but the other option.  I don't have that computer running at the moment, but I think it was titled "Audio", or "Song"... something like that, but NOT MIDI.

After all that, here's the musical phrase in mp3 format, repeated 3 times, for a total file length of 28 seconds.  Really short. The record album in the video is pretty close to how I saw it in my dream, including the cursive font... but it seemed larger and easier to read in the dream.
     It also has Southern Gospel/Country & Western leanings.  That's my fault - I play by ear, and this is how I play.  In the dream, it was a much purer orchestral music, like Lawrence Welk would have played... These Wonderful Broken Years