What is the Espressivo Application?
Espressivo is an application that enables users to interpret pieces of music according to their ideas. A human performer achieves a musical expression mainly by controlling the following musical elements:
- Tempo
- Velocity
- Articulation
From these musical elements, velocity and articulation are applied either to all voices or to specific staffs or voices. Tempo always affects all voices.
Prerequisites
In order to take full advantage of the Espressivo application you need additional input devices and software.
Input Devices
To control the performance of your pieces of music you need a game controller compatible with your Mac. Among these you will find:
- Playstation 4 Dual Shock
- Playstation 5 Dual Sense
- Xbox Wireless
In contrast to the Xbox controller, Playstation controllers also include a motion sensor. For musical performances, we recommend a controller with a built-in motion sensor.
Alternatively, an iPhone can be used as an input device, as it owns a motion sensor as well. For this purpose, an iOS app called MusicalConductor is available on the App Store.
If you do not have a gamepad at hand and your laptop has a trackpad, you might consider using a software-emulated controller. See menu Tools → Trackpad Controller.
If you are a developer you might consider creating an app communicating over the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) or Bluetooth. See documentation Controller Interface to learn on how to remotely control a musical performance.
Sound Output
This music application does not produce sound on itself. For this purpose, a MIDI player is required. You might use applications such as Apple’s GarageBand, Garritan’s ARIA Player, Plogue’s sforzando or others. It is also possible to use synthesizer Web apps such as the renown DX7.
Use the Audio MIDI Setup tool to configure MIDI connections.
Sidebar
The left sidebar provides most of the essential functions of the application, as will be shown in the following.
Welcome
The Welcome panel provides basic information on how to start using the application. You will learn how to connect to a controller and a MIDI player. To begin, follow the steps suggested in the panel on the right side.
Repertoire
The Repertoire lets you choose the musical pieces you want to perform. The panel presents three columns. The left column is used to indicate the progress when loading a score file. The column in the middle shows the available musical directories and the column on the right contains the available pieces of music.
After startup, the repertoire presents a set of scores included in the application. Choose a title from the list or open score files or directories of score files from the file menu or the toolbar. Alternatively, you might drag and drop score files or directories directly onto the repertoire panel.
A context menu from the score file list lets you copy file paths, open score files, or show files in the Finder or the browser.
Note that the score files are always shown on two hierarchical levels, independently of how deep your files are nested.
By the way, any image files or Web documents, included in the top score directory, are presented in the left column.
Score
Navigate to the Score panel to see the graphical representation of the selected score. When the player is running, the notes playing at the moment are highlighted and the score accordingly scrolls to show the currently playing part. The available score files are presented on the right side as previously mentioned in the Repertoire panel.
Controller
The controller panel defines the mapping of the controller’s buttons, analog sticks and sensors to the musical elements of the performance.
Since more than one controller can be attached at a time, the controllers are organized in tabs. Switch the tab to find multiple attached controllers.
When no controller is connected, the application presents a virtual gamepad which is controlled by a trackpad device.
The available keys of the controllers are presented in a table. The first column of this table shows the symbol and the name of the respective key. Its current value is indicated by a horizontal bar. After the indicator, a popup menu presents the possible actions a key should perform. Finally, on the right column of the table, a menu lets you choose the staffs and voices an action is applied to.
With controller buttons you are able to perform the following actions:
- Start or stop playing
- Rewind the player
- Pedals on or off
- Proceed to the next title
- Proceed to the previous title
- Change of the general tempo
- Change of the general velocity
- Change the repeat mode
Analog sticks and sensors dynamically control the performance of these musical elements:
- Increase or decrease the tempo
- Increase or decrease the velocity, in general or per staff and voice
- Modify the articulation, in general, or per staff and voice
- Control the MIDI modification wheel
For simplicity, start with one of the existing profiles such as Keyboard, Song or Buttons. Adapt the mappings for your purpose and save it as a profile for later use.
After you defined the mapping, the changes of the musical parameters can be observed on the right side. To identify controllers and performers, consider assigning a symbol or emoji or a light color (the latter only applies to the Playstation controllers).
Styles
Use the style panel to configure the musical performance and styles. The configuration includes:
- The performance of ornaments
- The playing of notes
- The handling of repeats
Note that ornaments can either be performed from invisible notes in the score or automatically generated by the application.
MusicalConductor
The MusicalConductor panel allows a simultaneous view of the score as well as the current values of the musical elements.
Piano Roll
The piano roll is an alternative way of presenting a score. Basically, it is an XY diagram showing the pressed keys over time. Color schemes are used to identify staffs and voices.
Note that data imported from MIDI or TSV files can only be shown as piano rolls or note tables, but not as musical scores.
Note Table
The note table presents all audible notes of a piece of music, the rests and the measures in a temporal order. Note that the number of the notes is not necessarily identical to the number of notes shown in the score. For example, tied notes appear as single notes, ornaments do not create additional notes, but tremolo notes are expanded.
The note table includes the following columns:
- The index of a note
- The position of the note. The integer part refers to the bar number, the fractional part to the relative position within a bar
- The pitch shows the name of a musical note in scientific notation. The special name M indicates a measure, X refers to a musical rest, and S(space) to an empty measure
- The duration specifies the duration of a note as a fraction of the whole measure. The duration of a measure is typically 1 but may occasionally be smaller or larger. Examples are up-beats, endings or cadences
- The measure refers to the number as it is written in a score. Note that the integer part of the position and the measure number are not necessarily equal
- Midi specifies the MIDI value of the pitch. For measures this value is interpreted as tempo (in beats per minute)
- Staff refers to the staff number. The top staff is staff number 1
- Voice is the voice number within a staff. For measures the voice is used to indicate the key such as the number of fifths. Positive values denote sharp keys, negative values flat keys
- The Id is a unique identifier for each note
Performance instructions are appended to pitch values and bar numbers. A semicolon (;) is used as a separator. Multiple instructions are simply concatenated. See the tables below to learn how instructions are formed.
| Modifier | Meaning |
|---|---|
- | Marcato |
. | Staccato |
: | Staccatissimo |
N | Upper mordent |
n | Lower mordent |
M | Long upper mordent |
m | Long lower mordent |
S | Upper turn |
s | Lower turn |
t | Trill |
Pitch modifier table
| Modifier | Meaning |
|---|---|
m/n | Meter such as 3/4 or 9/8 |
|: | Start repeat |
:| | End repeat |
[n | Start nth ending |
0] | End ending |
|| | Double line |
.| | End line |
>* | Da capo |
>? | Dal segno |
>§ | To coda |
[§ | Coda |
[? | Segno |
[. | Fine |
Bar modifier table
Check the note table if you think that notes are played incorrectly. You will also see which measures differ in length from the specified meter.
The score is shown to the right of the note table. The currently playing position in the score is reflected in the note table.
Notation
This panel provides an overview of the musical notation. Specifically, the following notations will be presented:
- Tempi
- Meters
- Keys
- Rehearsal markers
- Instructions
The notations are interactively linked to the score. It is also possible to temporarily modify the tempo and add new tempo markers.
Log File
In the Log panel you will find entries for each opened score. You will also be informed about any warnings which occured during the parsing of the score files.
MIDI
The MIDI panel presents all detected MIDI destinations and devices. You are able to choose which destinations and devices will be used. Additionally, a selection of installed MIDI application is shown. They can be opened directly from within the Espressivo application.
Server
The Espressivo application supports UDP connections. Start the server if you intend to remotely control the Espressivo application.
Bluetooth
The Espressivo application supports Bluetooth connections to control musical elements. Press the Start button to run the Bluetooth Central. Once the Bluetooth devices are connected you might stop searching for more devices.
Use the MusicalConductor app for iOS to establish a Bluetooth connection.
Score Options
There are numerous options to change the appearance of the score. This panel mostly exposes Verovio’s options. For an overview of the options open Verovio Options from the Help menu.
Use the Reset button at the bottom to return to the default options. Note that not all options apply to the specific use of this application.
Settings
This panel provides a number of settings for the configuration of this application. It is also available from the Preferences menu item.
Good to Know
A few more information not mentioned otherwise.
Shortcuts
A few shortcuts simplify the operation of the program. Among those are:
- Space bar: Run and stop the performance
- Right arrow: Go to the next title
- Left arrow: Go to the previous title
Note that you may need to disable these shortcuts when entering text. There is a toolbar menu item to enable or disable these shortcuts.
Exporting Files
This application supports the following export formats:
- Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)
- Musical Encoding Initiative (MEI)
- Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI)
- Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG)
- Tab-Separated Values (TSV)