Accompanying — Exercise Nº 4

Accompanying

Exercise nº 4

On the Ave Maria (Ellens dritter Gesang, D 839), by Franz Schubert (1825) — public domain.
Exercise material © 2026 Mario Maurano. All rights reserved.

What you will do: receive the Ave Maria just as it comes from a MIDI file — long, with some wrong note values and unsorted —, turn it into a clean score, give the voice's melody to the clarinet and, at the end, play it yourself over the piano and record yourself.

How long: about forty-five minutes for the editing; the practice, as long as you like. What you need: the files Ejercicio-4_Ave_Maria.mmf and AveMaria Schubert-Piano-Solo.mid, the PDF of the score, the COSMIC KEYBOARD open for the sound, and Exercises nº 1 to 3 done.

If something goes wrong: the UNDO button on the top bar undoes the last step, and you can press it several times in a row. Try without fear.

Five words you will meet

Verse
each time round the song. Schubert wrote three, with the same music and different words.
Unfolded work
the three verses written one after the other, bar by bar. That is how it comes from a MIDI file: MIDI does not know what a repeat is.
Re-value
changing a note's value (eighth → quarter) without changing its pitch.
Brace
the curved sign joining the piano's two staves: it says they are one instrument.
Transposing instrument
an instrument that is written at one pitch and sounds at another. The B♭ clarinet sounds a tone lower than written: to sound B♭, you write C.

PART ONE — TIDYING THE SCORE

IN THE PICTURES: the orange circles show where to look or click.

1 · Open the file and listen to it

Open the SCORE (from the COSMIC KEYBOARD) and in MENU FILES → IMPORT MMF load Ejercicio-4_Ave_Maria.mmf. Listen to it with the PDF score in front of you.

Notice three things: the work has 82 bars — the three verses unfolded —; the three staves are loose, with no brace; and in some bars the piano's left hand stops too soon.

The file as it arrives — the three channels with no brace, the short eighths in the left hand, the extra bars at the end

2 · Re-value: the notes that came in short

The left hand plays quarter-note octaves on beats 1 and 3 of every bar. In five bars those octaves arrived as an eighth followed by an eighth rest: they sound cut off. Find them by looking at the PDF.

HintAll five are in the first verse, between bar 5 and bar 29. Look for an eighth rest right after the octave.
SolutionBars 10, 13, 16, 22 and 25, on both beats.

You don't need to fix them one by one: the Score corrects them all at once.

  1. Press ◻ SELECT (it turns into ◼) and leave CURSOR · CH.
  2. Drag over the left hand (CH3 · LH) in one of those bars: a golden region appears.
  3. Right-click inside the region, on a spot with no notes: the SELECTION menu opens.
  4. In Bars type 5 → 29 and press Set. The region becomes the whole first verse of the left hand (CH stays 3 → 3).
  5. In the same menu, Re-value….
  6. In the RE-VALUE window: FROM 1/8 (the eighth) → 1/4 (the quarter). Leave both dot buttons off.
  7. APPLY.
Check: next to APPLY the Score says «10 re-valued» — five bars, two octaves in each —. The octaves are quarter notes again and the eighth rests are gone: the quarter swallows them. Listen to bar 10: it no longer cuts off. Press Esc to leave SELECT.
Right-clicking on a note opens something else — that note's editor —. For the SELECTION menu, click on an empty spot of the region. And the FROM dot starts off: if you turn it on, the Score looks for dotted eighths, finds none and says «0 re-valued».
Re-value — the SELECTION menu with Bars 5 → 29, and the RE-VALUE window (1/8 → 1/4)

3 · The repeats

The three verses are the same: it is enough to write one and repeat it three times. The verse runs from bar 5 (where the voice comes in) to bar 29 (the end of the piano interlude).

  1. REP button on the toolbar: the REPEATS window opens.
  2. Repeat from bar 5
  3. To bar 29
  4. Times = 3
  5. CREATE and Close.
Check: at bar 5 and at the end of bar 29 the repeat signs appear (the two dots beside the barline).
REPEATS — the popup with From 5 / To 29 / Times 3 and the strip with the signs in place

4 · Delete what is left over

Now verses 2 and 3 are written twice: once by the repeat and once unfolded afterwards. Those bars — 30 to 79, that is 50 — are deleted. The last three (the dim. and the chord with the fermata) stay.

  1. Put the yellow cursor on bar 29.
  2. BARS button: the BAR STRUCTURE window opens.
  3. After M 29  -  50 Bars  -  DELETE
  4. APPLY and Close.
Check: after the repeat sign of bar 29 comes the dim., and the score ends at bar 32 with the fermata. If you see the voice again after bar 29, something was not deleted: repeat the step with the bars that are left.
BARS → Delete — BAR STRUCTURE with After M29 / 50 Bars / Delete, and the clean ending

5 · The piano brace

  1. CHANNELS
  2. Group options (the three horizontal lines on the right)
    1. BRACE CH 2 & CH 3
    2. APPLY
    3. Close
Check: the brace joins the piano's two staves; the voice stays apart.
Grouping — CHANNELS + GROUPING with Brace on CH2 and CH3, and the brace drawn

6 · The melody to the clarinet

The melody was for soprano voice. Here a clarinet will play it (flute, oboe or trumpet work just as well, if that is your instrument).

  1. CHANNELS → INSTRUMENTS
  2. For channel 1 choose Clarinet.
  3. Close.
Check: listen to the verse: the melody now sounds on the clarinet.
Changing the instrument — the INSTRUMENTS palette with Clarinet chosen for CH1

7 · The clarinet part in B♭

The clarinettist does not read what sounds: they read their part a tone higher. With the melody in B♭ major, the clarinet part is written in C major.

The Score already did that in step 6: when you chose the B♭ clarinet, the notes on the clarinet staff moved to their written pitch. Compare with the voice in the PDF: the melody is a tone higher.

  1. To see the real notes (what sounds), press the WRITTEN button on the bar: it changes to CONCERT and the clarinet shows in B♭ again. Press it once more to go back to the written part.
  2. If you want to play it in another key — more comfortable for your instrument or your voice —, open the KEY popup, choose the new key on the circle of fifths, the scope All CH and ⇅ Transpose music to key. All the music moves, piano included.
Not the same thing: WRITTEN / CONCERT only changes how the clarinet looks; it does not touch the sound. Transpose music to key changes what sounds: the whole work goes up or down.
The transcription — as a pair: the clarinet line in CONCERT (B♭, as it sounds) and in WRITTEN (written in C); and the KEY popup with Transpose music to key

8 · The finished score

PAGE button for the written view. Compare it with what you opened in step 1: from 82 bars to 32, with its repeat, its brace and the clarinet.

The finished score — PAGE view, the first sheet

Save it: MENU FILES → EXPORT MMF.

PART TWO — PLAYING AND RECORDING YOURSELF

9 · Practise with the accompaniment

Now the melody is yours. In the CONSOLE, press M (mute) on the clarinet channel so that only the piano sounds, and play the melody on the Keyboard while the Score accompanies you. The tempo is slow (♩ = 52): if you need to, lower it further with the Pulse until it works, and raise it little by little.

Practice-1 — Score and Keyboard side by side, with the Pulse and the tempo in view

10 · Take the accompaniment with you

You can take the accompaniment away: with the clarinet on M in the Console, MENU FILES → 🔊 SAVE AS WAV records the piano into an audio file. With it you can practise outside the program — on your phone, at the music stand, with your instrument — or share it with whoever is going to play with you.

That accompaniment sounds with the Score's Tonal piano, in Pythagorean tuning: every note in its exact place. To compare, also play over AveMaria Schubert-Piano-Solo.mid, the accompaniment alone, in any player: there the piano sounds equal-tempered, like an ordinary piano.

Hear the difference: play the same phrase with both accompaniments. With which one do your long notes settle better? Where do you have to adjust your tuning with one and not with the other?
SAVE AS WAV — the popup with the logo during the recording

11 · Record yourself

Before you start: open the KEYBOARD (⊞ keyboard, from the Score) and the CONSOLE. The microphone and the recording live in the Keyboard: the microphone permission is asked by the Keyboard window, and the WAV is downloaded from there.

Now the Score's accompaniment and your real instrument — clarinet, flute, violin or your voice — in a single recording. Do it in this order:

  1. Leave only the accompaniment. In the CONSOLE, M on the clarinet (or voice) channel.
  2. Shape the piano's sound on the KEYBOARD: VOL for the volume and REV for the reverb, until you enjoy playing with it.
  3. Allow the microphone. The first time, the browser asks whether the page may use the microphone: Allow. If you have more than one microphone, make sure it is yours: click the icon to the left of the Keyboard's address and choose it under Microphone; then reload the page.
  4. Set your 🎤 MIC channel in the Console. Play your loudest note loud and watch the meter: raise the fader until it gets close to the red without reaching it. If it sounds too boomy, turn on Low cut; Low and High adjust lows and highs, and Rev and Echo put you in the same room as the piano. If you want to hear yourself while you play, turn on 🎧: it asks whether your headphones are on and checks it with a soft tick; without headphones it stays off. The delay is handled by CAL (below).
  5. Record. ⏺ REC in the Console starts the accompaniment and the recording at the same time. ■ STOP ends it and saves a WAV with the piano and you.
Where to put the microphone: close to your instrument and far from the speakers. About 30–50 cm from the clarinet, aimed between the keys and the bell (for the voice, 20–30 cm). The speakers behind the microphone, with the piano only as loud as you need to play with it — in the WAV the piano goes in clean from the Keyboard, at its own volume. Avoid the laptop's built-in microphone: it sits right next to its speakers. Best of all: headphones; then the microphone hears only you.
The delay fixes itself: your sound reaches the microphone a few milliseconds late. Press CAL (calibrate) once on the 🎤 MIC channel (with the speakers on): the Keyboard plays a click, the microphone hears it and measures your setup's delay. When you save, the WAV comes out already aligned.
Console with the 🎤 MIC channel and ⏺ REC — meter, fader, monitor, CAL; below, the countdown

Congratulations: you tidied the score and played it yourself

Listen to your recording with the score in front of you. Where did you rush? Where did you breathe? Record yourself again in a few days and compare.

Going further

The accompaniment is correct, but flat: every piano note exactly on the grid, like a machine. In Exercise no. 5 — Shaping you bring it to life: the right-hand triplets are heard as groups (INTELLIGENT BEAMS), each group breathes with a small inner motion (ASYM AGOG) and the tempo settles at the end of the verse. Then you record yourself again and compare the two takes.