A system for the comparison of synthesized music

The alphaSyntauri music system, produced by the a Syntauri Corporation, along with Mountain Computer's digital synthesizer board and the Apple II microcomputer, has vast capabilities as musical instrument. A five-octave music keyboard and a disk of software form the heart of the alphaSyntauri system. The software allows control of Mountain's sophisticated digital synthesizer hardware from the keyboard, via an Apple II computer.

The program described in this thesis, in conjunction with the alphaSyntauri music system, is being incorporated into an existing six-quarter sequence of ear-training courses required for all undergraduate music majors at The University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Presently, student in an ear-training course listens to music which is generated by a program and responds by pressing the key (s) on the Apple II keyboard. This thesis describes the software necessary to compare two music files played on the Syntauri keyboard which have been recorded on disk.

Before this comparison can be performed, the program puts the music file (the original or "master") in a form that would make comparison possible. After this normalized version was created and stored on disk, the student's attempt to duplicate the master file was also normalized. These normalized forms of the two music files were easily compared at this point. The results of the student's attempt to duplicate were then output on the Apple screen.