>> I would like to know what a "MIDI" is.  It will have to be
>> explained in novice terms.


MIDI is a recent buzzword that connotes recorded music.  It's the
acronym of Musical Instrument Digital Interface.  A dictionary that
includes up-to-date Internet jargon should give these definitions
of contemporary usage:

  midi (n.): 1. A skirt or coat of midcalf length, short for midiskirt.
  2. (French) mid-day, noon, lunchtime.

  Midi (n.): The South of France.

  MIDI (n.): acronym for Musical Instrument Digital Interface.

  1. A standard (MIDI Specification 1.0) defining how to represent
musical commands, such as conveyed by sheet music, in digital format.

  2. A digital data file that conforms to this standard, used primarily
for composing, editing and publishing electronic music but also
extended to other control applications such as theater lighting.

  ~ file: a computer file containing the digital commands to control the
keyboard of a real or synthetic musical instrument.

  ~ player: a computer program or a small computer dedicated to playing
music stored as a MIDI file.

  ~ keyboard: the keyboard of an electronic piano equipped to transmit
the key position and velocity as MIDI data.

A phonograph record stores sounds or sound waves, whereas a MIDI file
stores the commands to play the notes, much like a piano roll or sheet
music.  The process that 'plays' the musical commands of the MIDI file
creates audible sounds by using a synthetic or real instrument (piano,
organ, guitar, etc.) controlled by the MIDI signals.

Musical boxes and fairground organs and player pianos, all being
controlled by stored digital data, are the predecessors of more than
100 years ago of the modern MIDI-controlled instruments.

Robbie Rhodes
Etiwanda, Calif.