MIDI manœuvres

I bought a new mobile phone and wanted to write my own MIDI file to use as a ringtone. (My old phone would allow you to compose ringtones on it, but you were restricted to a single melody, in a pre-determined synthetic sound, in notes of a constant length, so it was pretty limiting.)

I soon worked out how to upload and install MIDI files downloaded from the Web (for some reason though they only showed up on my phone after the connecting USB cable had been pulled out). I started with the hymn-tune ‘Tallis’ Ordinal’, downloaded from Cyber Hymnal.

For writing a ringtone from scratch, I was recommended the lilypond software for music typesetting (http://lilypond.org/web/). I hadn’t found this by my own efforts because it wasn’t picked up by searching for ‘MIDI’. It’s open source software, and it’s clear that its native platform is Linux. It does not have a graphical interface; you notate the music in a text file using lilypond’s notation scheme and lilypond will then convert it to PDF, PostScript and if you ask it nicely MIDI. Some simple examples are provided to get you going.

Now came the really puzzling bit. I found that my phone would play the downloaded MIDI file, but not use it as a ringtone. To save missing ringtone misery, here’s what you do: get hold of software such as the free version of Anvil Studio (http://www.anvilstudio.com/) open the MIDI file and then save it as is and download it to your phone. You don’t need to know anything more about what Anvil Studio does. I found this tip in a discussion on a bulletin board; I hate to think how long it might have taken me to try it otherwise.

(Disclaimer: I have no financial or other relationship with lilypond or Anvil Studio)