The Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI): The digital organ for organists and non-organists

Abstract

The Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) is a technical protocol (standardized in 1983) to connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments. Digital organs, due to increased sound quality and lower pricing, have become a popular alternative to pipe organs. They also provide an advantage of controllability through MIDI. Using MIDI, digital organs can be connected to a variety of sound modules, greatly increasing the number of stops available for organists. For the non-organist composer, organ music can be written in notation software (such as Finale) and played on an actual digital organ. The challenge in writing music for playback through MIDI is to incorporate organ techniques (such as shortening of repeated notes, legato playing by finger crossing or finger substitution, and finger glissandos) so that the result does not sound like a pianist (or a computer) playing the organ. A MIDI capable digital organ can be advantageous for organists and non-organists alike.