Definitions of terms used in Musical Discovery.

Tune        This term is used to refer to any melody, or any larger piece of music, including multi-track works, which is stored as a single Musical Discovery file. (Musical Discovery files are actually stored on disk as Microsoft Access tables). A tune may be loaded from the database into memory, by using the menu File - Load Musical Discovery File. Once loaded, a tune may be utilized in any screen which has a Playbar at the foot, and in a few other screens as well.

Melody   This term is sometimes used as a synonym for tune, as above.

Bar            This has the standard musical meaning, (in USA called a Measure).  The start time of any note in Musical Discovery is stored as Bar - Beat - Tick.

Beat          The position of the current beat within the bar. The note duration of each beat in the bar is most often a crotchet or quarter note, that is, when the denominator of the time signature is 4. In compound time signatures it is a quaver or eighth note. In hymn-style time signatures it is a minim or half note.

Tick            This is 1/120 th of a beat. In other words, a beat is divided into 120 ticks.  This is a convenient number because it is easily divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6, making it possible to represent exactly the duration of all these divisions of a crotchet.

Fragment      A part of a tune in memory, which has been saved as a FRAGMENT using one of the 6 methods described in the Composing Tools screen, with further detail in the tutorials. Fragments are kept in a collection of fragments, for use in the Composing Board, in order to assemble a larger piece of music.

Alignment      Alignment causes  the start time of notes to shift to an exact semi-quaver boundary. In some systems this is called Quantization.   It allows for mathematical precision to be applied to recorded MIDI  performances, where each note does not start exactly at the time indicated on the musical staff.

Rounding        Rounding sets note durations to the nearest multiple of a semi-quaver.   In some systems this is called Quantization.   It allows for mathematical precision to be applied to recorded MIDI  performances, where each note does not last exactly as long as written on the staff.

Duration          The length of a note, or the note-value.  In Musical Discovery it is stored as a decimal number of crotchets (or quarter notes).   So a duration of 2.0 = a minim,   a duration of 0.25 is a semi-quaver.

Playbar              This is the bar across the foot of Musical Discovery screens which contains a Play button, stop button, forward and back buttons, and a Load New Tune button.  It resembles the controls on a Video recorder or CD player.  It permits easy control of playing the tune currently loaded into memory, and facilitates stopping and re-starting at any bar.

Title                This is the full title of a composition, including, as applicable, the form (such as symphony, concerto etc), the key, the opus number, and the movement number.  For example,  Symphony No.5 in C Minor Op 54 2nd Movement

FileName        This is an abbreviated code-name for a tune, used by Musical Discovery as the name for a table stored in the database, and for all catalogued references to that tune. This name MUST be unique within the database.

Period        This term is frequently interchanged with Style. It refers to the epoch in which the music was composed, often with an implicit reference to the architectural style prevalent in that period.  Examples include baroque, classical and renaissance.

Length    The Musical Discovery database includes some full length pieces of music, some extracts of a reasonable length, and some very short themes, usually 2 to 4 bars.