The shareware music (copyrighted for for-profit public performance!) is here in the hope that those who enjoy it will send shareware donations so I can continue to create more. I’ve been going deaf from the high frequencies down at the rate of a semitone every two months (half an octave a year), so I won’t be able to continue creating music much longer. Doctors are mystified by the condition, and powerless to help (similar to Beethoven’s situation).

• lots of painstaking work has gone into all this music, so I hope you understand why I don’t make everything available as PDA freeware. I am soliciting donations, but you are not required to send any. Let your heart and conscience guide you. I was originally going to provide only certain pieces in each section for free, and sell the others, but the logistics and setup has become too much of a hassle. Despite its quality, classical music is not a lucrative product, and I REFUSE to utilize government funding (NEA), as it’s against my principles to do so.

Once you have the file, to play it outside of your browser (from the desktop, say), first try a generic player utility like Windows’ Media Player applet. In Windows, .MID files should automatically be set up to play via the Media Player (.MID file type associated with its .EXE program in the registry). If not, click on instructions below to make it so (apologies to Capt. Picard). Non-​Windows platform users are on their own.

If you’re on Windows 9x, you might want to create a subdirectory of the \WINDOWS\MEDIA directory (folder) named BACHWARE and stick the saved pieces in there, and then create a shortcut to that.

• If volume isn’t exactly to your liking, it may either be due to your equipment’s master volume (see its documentation), or note velocities are too great or small for your setup. You can adjust it with a sequencer program or utilities available elsewhere on line.
• If they don’t sound good (the timbres are weird, such as getting percussion instead of organ), be aware that the PD selections are formatted for the General MIDI specification. If your system isn’t General MIDI, or you have a customized setup, if you’re running under Windows 3.x you can either go into MIDI Mapper and set up a custom patch map, or you can modify the files’ patch and channel assignments from within MIDI sequencer software so they sound good on your system. Windows 9x uses .IDFs (Instrument Definition Files) – the .IDF editor (.ZIPped, but may no longer be available there) , was at one time available without support as part of the Windows9x software development kit (SDK) and via the link above, and may still be available somewhere on the WWW. If you can’ find it, try a search engine like Google.
• Windows XP’s MIDI capablities have been completely altered. In order to remap channels and patches, and have other control (e.g., filtering) of MIDI data, I highly recommend the excellent freeware/shareware utilities MIDI-Ox and -Yoke. I haven’t any experience with Windows Vista’s MIDI behavior and capabilities, so you’re on your own there…

Sequencer programs like Midisoft Session®, GVox (formerly Passport) MasterTracks Pro®, Cakewalk®, etc., often have a “scale velocities” feature that will allow you adjust the volume/articulation to your liking. To do so, you must retrieve the files into such a sequencer program and either add to or subtract from all the velocities until the musical dynamics sound good to you.

I generally use a velocity of 63 for “normal” (halfway between mp and mf), with 48 being mp and 83 mf. forte is 96, and pianois 24. This should be just fine with most generic setups.

If running your MIDI software & hardware at DOS; under TOS®/GEM® (Atari ST®), Unix® or Linux®, OS/2®, Macintosh® O/S x.x, or whatever, consult the documentation for your software on how to customize and/or convert .MID files for your platform. Some users will have to convert the .MID files over to a format compatible with that platform.