This Python app creates an 8-bit/chiptune audio file from a simple text representation of sheet music. The app currently supports mono (1 channel) and stereo (2 channel) audio.
The logic is derived from nuclear magnetic resonance data processing software I wrote while a grad student.
Click the links below to hear some example songs generated using this app:
A musical note and its timing (number of beats) are represented as a single line of text:
E4,qd
G4,e
E4,qd
Each note / timing pair is given as comma separated strings. The notes are defined using the standard names (E4, G4, etc.) and the timings are defined using abbreviations (h = 'half note', qd = 'dotted quarter note', etc.).
Chords are also supported using the + operator to link multiple notes together:
C3+G3,w
C3+G#3,w
G2+F3,h
Example sheet music files for a 2 channel version of 'Largo' from Dvorak's New World Symphony are provided in this repo: largo_treble.txt for the treble channel and largo_bass.txt for the bass channel.
Clone this repo and run the app from the command line. To ensure proper functionality, first create a virtual environment using the py36_env.yml file. If using Anaconda:
conda env create -f py36_env.yml
Then activate the environment:
conda activate py36
Run the app using the command line:
python keyboard.py -tr largo_treble.txt -b largo_bass.txt -o largo.wav
The complete list of command line arguments is shown below:
-tr: Path to treble sheet music file
-b: Path to bass sheet music file
-o: File name for output.wavfile (include.wavextension)
-t: Tempo (default is 120 bpm)