Hey Jude MIDI anyone?

[31flies]

Hey all,

Just wondering if anyone happens to have the piano part for "Hey Jude" as a MIDI file. I haven't figured out MIDI is why. It's easy to perform but I'm trying to get the sheet music printed out in the correct key and it isn't available in the key I need, so I figured snagging a MIDI file and transposing it would be the best way. I found one but the Quickscribe shows only bass cleff...I just can't figure it out.

Anyone have it they could send along.

THANKS!

[jarok]

Hi

Try these:

http://www.midisite.co.uk/MIDI_search/hey_jude.html

jarok

[monkey man]

While we're at it, I've been trying to get my hands on an authentic (close) rendering of the clav parts in Superstition for quite some time.

The only MIDI file sources I could find had the basic feel but the clav and brass parts were waaay different.
I think I've now heard around a dozen public domain MIDI files, and none of them comes close.

Just thought I'd ask in case programming the part was a passion of someone's at some point.

[kassonica]

IF you ever find em nicky U know where i am don't hesitate to pass them on

Share the funk i say


The only i can imagine that would be the business would be played in by the Wonder himself.

[jarok]

[31flies]

Thanks! I got a good one. However....page 373 of the manual just ISN'T helping me change the key. Can someone babystep me through that? It's in F and I need it in A. I gtried using the #/b mouse option, but apparently I'm just not ding it right. I'm also lost in the conductor track change key menu options.

Thanks a bunch for the help!

[emulatorloo]

However....page 373 of the manual just ISN'T helping me change the key. Can someone babystep me through that?

Well here is how I do it -- maybe there is a better way.

Go to the Tracks Window.

in the "Track Name" column, shift-click the tracks you want to transpose. That should select all the notes in those tracks.

Go to the "Region" menu and select "Transpose. . ."

A dialog box will open up

Check "transpose MIDI" uncheck "transpose audio"

Click on the radio button that says "Key/Scale" -- that will give you some fields to enter your information.

Click "Apply"!

Start singing "NAH NAH NAH NAH-NAH-NAH_NAH, HEY JUDE! jude-jude-jude-judyjudyjudy"

--

[31flies]

Thanks Emu, did it.

[mhschmieder]

The "Change Key" dialog in the Conductor Track is a bit counter-intuitive, as it leads you to think you can type in the key you need, which is "sort of" true in terms of naming custom keys that you then save. Actually though, you need to do a drag action with the mouse to cycle through keys that either have sharps or flats. So you need to know your music theory to know the relative minor, etc. Or rather, you need to know what sharps and flats are needed in the key you choose .

As for MIDI sources, most of those have dried up the past few years as the music publishers and/or recording companies consider them a copyright infringement unless they pay royalties, which is hard to do as there's no good system set up to make that happen anyway. Yet I do still have some working links for legal MIDI sources (some free, some for a charge from between $1 to $5 on average), one of which includes many Beatles songs.

My experience with most web sequences is that they are useless for anything other than karaoke, for which purpose most of them were designed to start with (there are some notable exceptions; especially the ones produced by Yamaha's chief engineer, who is a virtuoso). The reason is that they put all this effort into getting bass, drums, and guitar just right (often allotting up to six tracks for guitar, just for MIDI CC's for pitch bending and other natural expression for realism). Then the extra parts, which are what most recording and/or performing musicians really need as they'll be doing the other parts live, are an afterthought that might be incomplete, incorrect, or just plain missing altogether.

The biggest annoyance is that the sites that charge money for commercial web sequences almost invariably do NOT give you a way to "audition" them as rendered audio first. I refuse to pay money without first hearing them -- even the ones from Yamaha, which are probably pretty good.

Historically, MIDI files were the first way that people "shared" music over the internet -- before bandwidth improved to where MP3's became the norm. It is this background that is behind the recording companies trying to shut down all MIDI sites, which is crazy as no one today would be likely to use a MIDI file as a way of avoiding buying an audio file of the song.

So it may be the music publishers who are more concerned -- even though they only publish simplifications that leave out intros, endings, solos, and generally reduce the score to a single-person guitar or piano part without even preserving any original piano parts -- as you found in the case of "Hey Jude". This is similar to the longstanding battle over the jazz "Real Book" that was more useful to performing musicians than standard sheet music as it transcribed arrangements from famous recordings vs. the Tin Pan Alley originals (a legit publisher now "owns"/publishes Real Books).

Anyway, I thought it was worth republishing some of this background info, as it's been awhile since this topic came up here, and as some of the follow-on responses indicate there may be some hunger here for more info on availability and quality of MIDI sequences on-line (I usually do my own anymore, but sometimes start with web sequences just to speed up the templating of the arrangement -- which isn't always correct ).

Let me know if you still need a good MIDI file for "Hey Jude" or the others mentioned here, as I may have some of the ones mentioned. But as several questions were asked, I'm not sure if the main gist was one of a technical walk-through on the transposition process vs. the MIDI sourcing itself.

[bmills3]

Since someone mentioned Yamaha MIDI files, I thought this might be of interest. As a long time member of the Yamaha MIDI programming team, we have used DP almost exclusively for recording & editing since the pre-DP days (Performer 5 was the 1st version I personally used back in '93). Once we outgrew the QX3 sequencer, which was amazing in its day, we started with MOTU products and many programmers still use them.

[emulatorloo]

Thanks Emu, did it.

No problem -- I am glad it worked for you.

Did you do the singing step????? Because that was the really important one.

[johnnytucats]

As for the "Superstition" clav parts...drink a Wonder cocktail and stick to the black keys.

[31flies]

The music is pretty useless, yes, but I just needed the MIDI so I could transpose the song to a different key and print out the sheet music. I ended up just playing it myself, however, the transpose function is now a new thing I know how to do.

BUT HEY! Can I import a MIDI track (not frozen) from one song to another?

[mhschmieder]

I find it simpler to do cut/paste for MIDI, and don't remember Import being that useful for such a task, but maybe there's a way.

I think you need to first add the appropriate number of MIDI tracks to a new project (or have them set up already in an old project) before dropping the scratchpad contents using a paste operation.

I do this all the time and it goes without a hitch. Sometimes just a single MIDI track, sometimes multiple tracks. Most often I do it with drums, when I might want to use a pattern as a starting point for another song.

[ladyaylesford]

Since someone mentioned Yamaha MIDI files, I thought this might be of interest. As a long time member of the Yamaha MIDI programming team, we have used DP almost exclusively for recording & editing since the pre-DP days (Performer 5 was the 1st version I personally used back in '93). Once we outgrew the QX3 sequencer, which was amazing in its day, we started with MOTU products and many programmers still use them.

I've used many of the Yamaha XG files over the years, including "Hey Jude", for theatre work. They are excellent. Great attention to detail, and when you put real singing on it they are very convincing.

Dan