III. Midi Improvisation:

Most of the bands who use a sequencer and play midifiles downloaded from internet, may have something in common, not unless you're doing an original song. You'll notice that songs follow the usual intro, pattern and ending.  Every musician or band does a cover version and uses the same midifile, so you keep hearing the same sound everywhere.  It's pretty boring sometimes.  Well, it's a fact, but do you know that you can introduce something better than that?

If you're one who does a cover version, spend time to improvise your tracks and learn how to add some flavor to it. Learn to be creative, try to catch some inspiration and review the rhythm of the song. Focus your attention in the entire content then later start drafting your own ideas into it.

Let's take this midifile as an example. (will add later on...)

As we all know, every commercial song has a simple intro and ending, and sometimes, the music simply fades out, so let's try to create something unique and cool.  In my case, if an original intro sounds a bit plain, commercial and common, I'll add few bars before the actual song starts then fill it with a nice ending.  You have two choices here when adding a bar, either you extract one nice tune within the song or create a drum beats. Depends on how you analyse it and whether it matches the music.  That's how you develop your own creativity.  This creates a more realistic sound during midi playback while maintaining the rhythm as soon as the next song starts or fades out. '

Remember, always try to "Make a nice introduction of your music and a unique ending."

Example: (will add later on...)

If you attend a concert, artists often introduce something different from the song originally cut from their album. This is to enhance the beat making it more a bit catchy and interesting during the concert.  In short, "Do something special out of your midi tracks as you perform."

"Put more emphasis on Bass and Drum tracks," they are the solid foundation of a song and your music.  You can alter the original bass lines or drum fills and patterns so long it does not spoil the entire music or lose the original content. There's nothing wrong when revising or remixing something based on your preferred style.  That's what we call as "Improvisation"

As always, I advise my friends that  every musician should be creative, everytime you wake up the next day, you'll often get multiple ideas. So grab which one that interests you most as you improvise your midifiles. Develop this habit and you'll get a wider edge in the music business where you can introduce your originality.

Guess what? Who are those people behind those successful artists? You're right, no one else but composers and music-arrangers. Professional artists are creative and they are considered as talented people. They're born with talents but your talent can also be developed.  I don't really believe that a "smart person knows everything and a idiot fellow knows nothing at all."

"Practice makes you perfect" if you're consistent to what you're doing, things would come naturally easier for you. Always learn from the basic, jumping from one to another application won't give you much credit and might confuse you. The best is, concentrate and master it before stepping to another level. 

I used to remember that I don't have a single idea about midi or how does it really work. But as time flies, it's pretty challenging to learn and explore the importance of midi and audio particularly to any music production as long as you're interested and you have the passion to learn.