Meeting In The Air Southern Gospel on Piano

  

Click to download:
Meeting In The Air Sheet Music

Meeting In The Air MIDI File

     This marks the 2nd new Southern Gospel song posted since re-starting this blog.  Meeting In The Air is an old old favorite.  I loved to sing this in church when I was a kid.  It's one of the songs I can clearly remember from church, from Uncle Freil playing, and from playing it myself.

    The song's original copyright was in 1925, and is currently under the Public Domain.  It was written by Mae Taylor Roberts.  According to Hymnary, the copyright notice originally contained this offer:  "This song may be had in sheet music at 25 cents a copy. Order from Mrs. Mae T. Roberts, 1554, East Washington, Pasadena, California."  Since that was nearly a century ago, I sincerely doubt she's still honoring her offer.
    I've looked for more information or songs from Mae Taylor Roberts, but couldn't find anything beyond the small amount Hymnary has.  If you'd like the lyrics, Hymnary offers 3 verses plus chorus.  I've seen it in the past with 4 verses, but usually consider Hymnary to be the most reliable source of hymn information.

    Speaking of verses, I took the road less traveled this time.  Most of the time, I'll do two or three verses with a chorus between each. This time around, I had an example to follow.  I recently found several decades-old videos of my uncle Freil playing.  This was one of the songs, so I had the rare opportunity to compare my version to his.  For his version of the song, he simply played the verses three times.  Didn't play the chorus at all.  It never occurred to me that could be an option; plus, I liked that a lot, so I'm following his lead and just playing three verses.  

    Also, not surprising at all... his way of playing Meeting in the Air is much better than mine.  I tend to play a very direct melody line.  Freil had a subtler approach.  He wound in and around the melody line, in ways that would never have occurred to me, lending his variations a much more sophisticated feel.

    With some effort (okay, a lot of effort), I listened to his version of Meeting in the Air over and over, working on learning how he did it.  Unless you're very familiar with Friel's style, you probably won't hear the difference.  But for those of us who knew him, it's there.  The first and last verses are my style.  The middle verse is as close to how he played the song as I can get.  The difference blurs a bit, because over time, fiddling with the arrangement, some of  his style blended with mine.  That's fabulous, because I'd love to be able to play more like Freil.

    Regardless, I'm happy with the arrangement.  I can tell what's mine and what's Freil's, and love the fact that even after all these years, I'm still learning from him.  

    The video itself is a whole other story.  I have a new (outdated, but new to me) cell phone, and struggled with the settings.  It has problems with the audio.  It sounds like it's playing underwater, with strangely distorted sounds, and halfway through the video the audio stops entirely.  My final attempt was with the lower resolution setting turned on.  It was the best version I'd played, out of several hours of trying to fix the video.  By that point my hands ached, and I was getting tired to the point of starting to play worse, rather than better.  So I took that final effort as 'best effort' and called it done.  The playing is fair enough, but the lower resolution makes the video itself disappointing.
    I'd like to fix the audio issue, or at least figure out what's going on.  But... the video plays with perfect timing, and I never use the original audio anyway.  I always use Ableton to record while playing, export it as a Wav file, and overlay the Wav on top of the original video's audio track.  It's cleaner than the original audio, with none of the ambient noise, barking dogs, etc.  So, the odd audio isn't an issue in this particular situation.  At least, not for making these piano videos.

        I've been working on this for a couple of months (or longer).  It would have been easy enough to do a simple arrangement in the key of C.  That's always been my wheelhouse.  But for these videos, I try to change up the keys a little, and offer greater variation in each verse.  With age and covid affecting my memory, it takes longer to get comfortable with an arrangement I like, and my ability to play it perfectly is based more on good luck, no matter how much I practice.  So, please pardon any errors.  The style is there, clearly enough that other pianists can take inspiration from the style and arrangement.  Aside from the actual video of me playing the piano... there's also a "how-to" video using Midiano (see sidebar link to Midiano) to play the song at normal speed, and half speed.  

    In addition to the how-to, the Midi file for Meeting In The Air is available on this page for download.  You can download the file, go to Midiano and play it, which comes with a variety of options that will help in learning to play the song.  You don't have to use Midiano, any Midi player is fine, but I don't know of any free player that can do everything that Midiano does.  Actually, I don't know of any better midi player at all, paid or free. 

     If you read sheet music, a pdf file is also available for download.  All the downloads are available for free, on this page.  (At some point I'll consider adding appropriate affiliate ads, maybe a "buy me a coffee" link, but as of this moment, haven't looked into them yet.)    But even then, there's no obligation, no charge to download.   Get the files, enjoy them, but if you share them, please credit me for the arrangement.  :^)

    

Stepping On the Clouds: How to Play Southern Gospel Style

Click HERE to go to the original blog post with free downloadable Midi and Sheet Music.

     In the past week, the final piece of the puzzle dropped into place.  Music Notation 4 was the finishing touch.  In the original Grace Notes, there were multiple elements with each new song:

• The actual video, playing the song on piano (Yamaha DG-640 back then)
• A How To video, with sheet music and animated keyboard showing what keys to play
• A free downloadable Midi file of the song
• A free downloadable version of the sheet music

    That took a full toolbox of software (plus a keyboard).  Over the years, the Yamaha quit working for me, and was replaced with an M-Audio Hammer 88.  It's a beautiful keyboard with a great feel, but has no built-in audio.  Strictly a Midi controller.  It came with Ableton as the DAW.  The main computer was my Swiss army knife, but Ableton didn't play well with the other installed software.  It took getting a dedicated laptop to make Ableton and the Hammer 88 work consistently.  And even then, I wound up needing an external audio driver (Also M-Audio, as are the speakers.)  Ableton creates the initial Midi, Notation Musician cleans it up a bit.
    Originally, I used the Flip line of digital video recorders, and later a more sophisticated digital camera.  Eventually, cell phones improved to the point I now shoot the videos on my phone.  Nothing special, just a slightly outdated Android.  Got a cheap mini tripod from Amazon that has flexible legs.  It can wrap around handy furniture or fixtures so I don't have to worry about getting an odd angle or knocking it off a shelf.  Bandicam was my screen video recording software.  Did a good job then... does a good job now.  I've kept it through at least three computers, and it just keeps on working.
    For regular video editing, I use HitFilm Express.  My needs are simple.  I mainly use it to replace the live piano audio from the original video (with all the household noises, barking dogs, etc...) with a WAV audio file generated by Ableton.  I sync the audio and video by the simply watching my fingers on the piano, and aligning the audio to match the movement.  It's like having my own private sound studio, and easier than you'd think.

    The How-To videos were made using Midi Sheet Music, a freeware program that hasn't been updated in years and isn't compatible with Ableton's exported Midi files.  It converted Midi to sheet music, plus could play the sheet music notation with an animated piano keyboard.  And it divided the single-track keyboard into 2-track treble/clef sheet music.  Those were the only things it did, but it did them all-in-one and was dead-simple to use.  It wasn't pretty, but it did the job.
    Now I use Notation Musician to output PDF files of the sheet music.  It also splits the Midi files into two tracks.  Didn't have to have that feature, but it makes the sheet music look cleaner.  I can play the midi files and follow along in the sheet music onscreen, but lacks the animated piano keyboard.
    Lastly, I use Midiano to actually play the song (with the animated keyboard) for the How To video.  It animates the sheet music across the screen, has a gorgeous animated piano at the bottom, and drops played notes visually down the screen to show which keys are coming up in sequence.  Tons of customizing available.  Absolutely free.  Midiano is a sparkling example of brilliant design.  It's a fabulous learning tool, with more features than you can shake a stick at.  Did I mention free?
    I highly recommend Midiano.  Download my midi file (or any Midi file), load it into Midiano, and you can experience a whole new way of learning piano music.  It even waits for you to hit the next notes, before moving on.  You can see it in action in the video above.

    There's more here and there, but these are the basic tools I use.  Music Notation 4 was the last big piece.  With it, I can include the sheet music, and can replicate everything the old Grace Notes blog used to provide.  Since it's been so long between posting the actual 'live' piano video, and then today doing the how to video, I'm putting the new video here on this page.  Going forward, all four elements will be on a single post, so you don't have to search for every separate piece.

    

Music Notation 4 Sheet Music Print Function, and Making PDF Files Work With Google Blogger

     I mentioned in a previous blog the limitations inherent in Google Blogger.  It's great with images, and video, and linking to URLs.  Other files are kind of left hanging out to dry.  There's a workaround on Google Drive Direct Link Generator.  Makes it just a few easy steps.  I'd prefer that Blogger could natively handle the files, but this is almost as easy.

    With that said, the bigger problem has nothing to do with Blogger.  I've been looking for a way to convert MIDI files to Sheet Music.  I play by ear, and haven't read sheet music in about 50 years so writing my own would be more effort than I really want to do.  For years, I used "Midi to Sheet Music", and it was great.  Super simple, but anybody who wanted to learn my arrangements by music notation could do so.  When it quit working, there wasn't much of an alternative out there.  MuseScore had potential, but I didn't like the way it played the files, and it didn't seem to understand my "southern gospel" twang.  Music Notation played my stuff perfectly, but the free version was crippled so as not to print the notation out.  You had to buy the full program to be able to output the sheet music, and it was $90.  

    That's where I've been stuck for the last two months.  My son and his wife unknowingly funded the project when they sent birthday money last week.  Bought and downloaded Music Notation 4, and spent a few days exploring it.  Does more than I need, but the important part is that it DOES WHAT I NEED, and does so extremely well.  It's absolutely worth the cost.  If you click the link, it will take you to Notation Software's website.  If you decide to buy it, be careful to choose the correct program.  They have two, "Notation Composer," and "Notation Musician."
The former is a more complete program, and much more expensive.  The latter, Notation Musician, is the one I got.  For the record, I have no affiliation with Notation Software, and make no money for recommending them.  :^)

    A few weeks ago I posted my first new piano music video in years, and included a link to the midi file (thanks to the Direct Link Generator above).  Now I've got the sheet music for it:

Stepping On The Clouds Free Sheet Music

    I'll edit the original post with the video, so as to have the video, midi, and sheet music all in the same blog post, but wanted to include it here as a technical example of the link working properly, and how well Notation Musician handles the conversion process.  

    As an added bonus, it splits the left and right hands for me.  Not that I'm reading the notes, but watching what's being played while listening to it, it sounds like a fine job of separating the track into two.  Might not be following "The Rules According to Hoyle"... but well enough for someone to learn the song from it.

One more related link - If I choose to make a "How to Play" video like like the original Grace Notes blog did, Music Notation would work but Midiano includes an actual piano keyboard on the screen, so you can read the music and watch the keys all at the same time.  And speed or slow the playback as desired, which makes a great learning tool!!  
    (NOTE:  Today I figured out how to put an image and link on the sidebar, now you can click on the image and go directly to Midiano!)

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

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.

Midiano: Free Interactive Piano-App in your Browser!

     Yesterday I posted a little bit about the search for a "Midi Sheet Music" replacer.  Today, I want to go into more detail about the results of my search.  MuseScore 4, is my new favorite for printing out sheet music.  It's one narrow band of my search for a full-featured replacement.

    The real gem was in stumbling across midiano.com.  The homepage gives you two options; you can click "Start", and jump right into things, or click "About", and get an overview of the project in general.   This is the ONLY viable replacement for Midi Sheet Music (MSM).  There's nothing out there, at least not for free, that comes even close.  But where MSM is dated, hasn't been updated in years, and is no longer capable of loading all my MIDI files... Midiano goes the distance, and it does so with style.

To quote from the website:

• Midiano is an interactive Piano-learning app that runs on any device with a modern browser.
• Open any MIDI-File and Midiano shows you the notes as falling bars over a piano as well as the corresponding sheet music.
• Connect a MIDI-Keyboard to get instant feedback if you hit the correct notes.
• You can also use the keyboard as output device to play the MIDI-Files on your keyboard.

    It runs on any browser (and device) that supports the WebAudioAPI (Full support apart from Internet Explorer).

To connect a MIDI-Keyboard the browser also needs to support the WebMIDIAPI (Currently only Chrome and Edge).

    Midiano played my songs correctly.  More accurately, it played them the way I play them.  I'm not a trained pianist.  I'm a guy who plays by ear, is middling-good, and loves southern gospel style.  

    The song I play goes into Ableton in a single non-stop recording, while recording video at the same time.  If I mess up, I start over.  Once it's good enough, the audio and midi are output with no editing.  Then the audio is synchronized over the video, and the video's original audio is deleted.  The result is a nice video of me playing the song, minus the dogs barking, doorbells ringing, voices, neighborhood traffic...  

I'M A MIDIOT

    The MIDI file I create doesn't have a treble and base.  No separation for which hand plays which notes.  I don't read sheet music myself, and certainly can't write my own notation.  Midi Sheet Music used to be my go to for converting the midi files into notation that plays across the screen with the midi file.  Having found Midiano, I'll be using it from now on.  This is where it all comes together for people who want to learn to play my arrangements.  I record a video as the midi file is playing, slow once, then full speed.  It shows the notation, and the piano keys, as they play across the screen.  

    To make it more helpful, I include the midi files, plus a .pdf of the sheet music, on this blog.  All free.  

And all thanks to Midiano for making it possible again.  And for everybody who downloads my midi files, they can use Midiano to make learning the arrangements even easier.  You can easily slow down or speed up the playback. Pause, try a segment, back up and try again...  Midiano's far better than just watching a "how to" video, and I play to include a link to Midiano on every page that has a downloadable Midi file.

    Some day I'll see about using Adsense.  Maintaining this blog, a custom URL, and Google Office, costs about $12.95 a month.  If at some point my blog can become self-supporting, that would be the cat's pajamas.  Until then, at least it's affordable.  (You should have seen my BlueHost fees...)

I THOUGHT MY ORIGINAL SITE WAS GONE FOREVER

    Grace Notes, my original site, was online for over a decade.  I couldn't learn new songs fast enough to make it a profitable business, but occasionally someone treated me to a cup of coffee.  Sometimes even a banana split.  But the hosting fees were ridiculous, hundreds of dollars a year, for a site that never paid for itself.  So I gave it up.  We couldn't afford that kind of money just for fun.  

    

    Could have sworn I backed it up first, but mistakes were made...  and I thought it was gone forever.  Until recently when Monique found a mostly complete mirror of my site on "Wayback Machine."  Now I have access to many of the pages that were gone.

    I'm backing all the pages up that they saved.  Not everything was there, but a lot.  They saved nearly 100 pages of the original Grace Notes.  Now I've restarted Grace Notes in this new venue.  Writing new things, working on new music, but also plan to recreate every missing page I can.  Eventually all the midi files and sheet music will once again be available, for free download.

MIDIANO - ELEGANT, BRILLIANT, AND FREE

    Getting back to the point, there's a lot of 'step by step' processes needed to make this vision work.  Midiano is a HUGE step toward rebuilding my dream.  It's going to take years, but I see the path ahead now, and it's getting clearer ever day.

    To make it even better, it's available as a Progressive Web App!  I didn't know what that was, or how to set it up so I sent an email to the guy who wrote Midiano (He doesn't have his name on his website; for the sake of privacy, I won't use it here, either).  Within 24 hours, he sent a very nice email, with a link to instructions for my specific browser (I use Vivaldi).  And some general information to help me understand.  And an offer to help more, if that wasn't enough.  How neat is that?  

    

The instructions were beautifully simple.  Three easy steps and now I can work on Midiano any time, online or offline.  I'm immensely grateful!!

If you're looking for a learning tool that plays any MIDI file, creates sheet music notation, shows a piano keyboard, and shows them both in real-time, playing as the midi file is playing... you can't do any better than Midiano.  Go check out his site.  There's nothing to buy.  It's just a really cool utility, written by one of the nicest geniuses I've ever met.  :^)

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, and it couldn't seem to understand my 'southern gospel' twang.  Couldn't find any way to fix it, so every MIDI I imported into MuseScore plays in a bad-sounding staccato sound, and with notes often out of sequence or jammed together.  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 and can't afford to buy professional software.

    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.