Playing Music

Playing Accompaniments

While I find automatic accompaniments a very valuable rehearsal tool, make sure you don't train yourself too much into one particular style of accompaniment. Your live piano player will NOT care to hear "But that's how VocalEasel played it!"

VocalEasel uses the MMA Musical MIDI Accompaniment system to automatically generate accompaniments for rehearsal.

Click the Play icon to start the accompaniment.
Click the Stop icon to stop the accompaniment.
Change the tempo using the Tempo control.
Change the accompaniment style using the Groove popup menu. Swing and Bossa Nova are present, the Select... menu item will bring up a large number of other styles to choose from. Currently, not all styles will work for all meters.
To save your MIDI accompaniment for use in another program, e.g. GarageBand, use the Save a Copy As... menu item and choose MIDI from the File Format popup menu.

Selecting Parts to Play

By default, VocalEasel will play a two bar Count In, followed by the Melody and Accompaniment. To control which of these parts to play or omit, use the corresponding menu items in the Play menu.

Observing Yourself

If you would like to observe yourself while singing to control your vocal or microphone technique (or to indulge your vanity), use the Mirror menu item in the Window menu.