Home Concert 2000 is a 2nd generation implementation of TimeWarp's patented technology which gave birth to Cakewalk In Concert in 1998. Here is how it works:
- Load a Standard MIDI File.
- Pick one or two of the tracks as the "solo", or "follow" track(s).
- View your part in music notation on the computer screen.
- Then, play the music that you see using a MIDI instrument.
- As you play, Home Concert will determine your:
- Based on settings that you make, Home Concert will:
- musically coordinate the playback of accompaniment tracks
- match your dynamics
- match your tempo
- record your performance
- intelligently "turn your pages"
What is amazing about this is that the computer actually "listens" to your playing, and synchronizes the accompaniment, responding both to changes of tempo and volume! It's like having a personal back-up band, which will follow your every musical inspiration as you play the solo part! Pretty cool, and a number of software critics gave it top marks.
Because Home Concert 2000 can transcribe the "solo" track(s) into clear music notation, you no longer have to play the solo part by memory or find a printed copy of it--because the music is now displayed on the computer screen!
As the performance gets near the bottom of a "page," Home Concert begins to "turn" the page, leaving the bottom of the current page in view while also displaying the top of the next page. What could be simpler?!
If you don't want to read standard music notation, Home Concert 2000 can also display the music in its Piano-Roll View, which shows you on the computer screen which notes on your keyboard to play and when to play them.
There are literally thousands of Standard MIDI Files available, either for purchase or for free download from the Internet, ranging from songs from elementary piano-teaching method books to the most advanced piano concertos, as well as from classical to pop to whatever style you may be interested in. Composers and arrangers can, of course, also create their own. Virtually any of these can be used with Home Concert 2000 if they have been organized to logical beats and barlines.
Indeed, Home Concert comes with nearly 50 sample files from leading publishers, which will give you a good start, and stimulate your imagination as to how far you can go with this remarkable program.
Home Concert has three user modes:
- Learn Mode is for someone who is first learning a piece. For every note in the solo part, Home Concert waits for the user to play before proceeding with the accompaniment. It will show the user what note(s) it is waiting for, not only in notation or piano-roll view, but also on an on-screen keyboard.
- Jam Mode is for the person who does not want to play the solo part in a strictly accurate fashion. In this mode, Home Concert does not follow the user's tempo, but does let the performer set the initial tempo, and will respond to the performer's dynamics.
- Perform Mode is Home Concert's specialty, and is what makes it a truly remarkable piece of software. In this mode, you're the "boss", and can play the solo part at whatever tempos and dynamics you like. Home Concert plays the accompaniment synchronized to your playing; it will even let you jump around from one part of the song to another, without having to tell it anything!
We could go, on elaborating about various special features of the program, including that fact that:
- You can configure Home Concert so that all you have to do is to start playing anywhere in the piece, and Home Concert will join you there.
- You can tell Home Concert that you want to wait a real long time before playing a certain chord, et cetera.
But rather than belabor these points, we would like to mention that you can get:
