Listening to Music for the Nikado

The best way to listen to Nikado Music on your PC is using the Noteworthy Player software. This software plays the music, and also displays the music notation and words as the music plays. You can install a plugin which enables you to singalong to the music from within your browser. To dowload this, click below:

Noteworthy Plugin

Or you can download a stand-along noteworthy player for your PC:

Download Noteworthy Player for Windows95 or Windows 98
Download Noteworthy Player for Windows 3.x

You can then listen to and see the individual song scores by clicking on the keyboard icon next to each song on the main Nikado pages.

If your PC has no sound card, then you will not be able to hear music played on it. However, if you download Noteworthy, you will still be able to watch the program 'play' the music: the music will scroll across the screen. If your PC plays the music at the same speed as your CD player, you can watch the music and listen to it on the CD at the same time. This is a bit Heath Robinson, but you may find it of use. The Noteworthy music is in Stereo, so if you hear only the bass line, or only the treble line, you may find that you need to adjust the speaker settings on your PC, or on the speakers themselves, or alter the balance.

If you wish to print out the score, you can use Noteworthy Composer. You can download a restricted evaluation copy of this program for Windows95/98 by clicking here. Click here for more details.

Unfortunately, there is no version of Noteworthy Player software available to run on Macs. I have requested that a Mac version be produced - but I think that this is unlikely to happen before the Operetta is produced! However the vast majority of Macs can play the industry standard Midi files. They can also play MP3 files.

For most Macs all you have to do is click on one of the Midi links on the previous page. If you right-click then you can download the file onto your Mac and listen to it there. The same is true for the MP3 files. If your PC or Mac won't play MP3 files, try downloading the free RealPlayer software from the RealPlayer website.

Some people have reported being unable to hear Midi music on their Macs, and being advised by Netscape that Macs have no default player for Midi files. Computer Music Monthly (a UK magazine) includes the following advice: "Old Macs won't be able to handle Audio, but most are OK for Midi" and "Apple QuickTime means no extra hardware is needed as all the sounds come from a soundset within the Mac". So, try using Apple QuickTime Player. If it isn't already installed on your Mac, then try downloading the MacOS version from here. Note that QuickTime Player is a big program so may take some time to download (you need choose only the basic version). I have downloaded the PC version of QuickTime player and have successfully played Midi Files on it.

Cindy and I have used Noteworthy Composer to create the music files for The Nikado. It can import and export Midi files, and so can allow you access to much music stored on the net. Midi files are much smaller than those used by .wav files or mp3 files, and so can be very handy. The link to the main Noteworthy site is here. You can download an evaluation copy of Noteworthy Composer by clicking here.

The evaluation copy of Noteworthy Composer has some limitations:

• It cannot be used on Windows 3.x or Macs.
• The licence period lasts for 30 days (though you are not locked out of the program after this point)
• Any file that you can create can be saved only 9 times (you can try to prolong this by creating a new file, and copying staves out of the old one into the new one, one at a time)
• Some minor features are disabled.
• When you print music, an order form will automatically be printed first.
• Files that you create cannot be played using Noteworthy Player.
• If you open up a file created by a registered version of Noteworthy (e.g. any Nikado Noteworthy file) and amend it, you cannot save any amendment.

It costs USD39 (about UKP25) to buy a fully licensed copy of Noteworthy Composer. Click here to do so.

Midi Files (.mid)
These play music only, and can be played on PCs and Macs - see above sections for more details.

Noteworthy Files (.nwc)
These play music on PCs only, and let you see the musical notation and lyrics - see above sections for more details.

MP3 Files
These play music only, and can be played on PCs and Macs - see above sections for more details.

Graphics Files (.jpg)
These do not play music at all, but they do show the musical notation for the songs. These are the only way of printing music for the Nikado (unless you use the Noteworthy Composer software - see above).