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I like playing and listening to music, particularly Jazz, Renaissance, and Baroque music. 

My favorite Jazz musicians include John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Herbie Hancock, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis.
 
My favorite instrument for Jazz playing is Yamaha's WX11 Electronic Wind Controler.

I use to play a lot of Renaissance music.
Here are a few examples of stuff I have played in MIDI and WAV formats.

These are dances from France and what is now called Belgium and Germany from the mid 16th century. On many commercial recordings, this kind of music is played at a very slow tempo on very quiet instruments (like the luth). This is non-sense. This music is the court dance music of the time that evolved from popular and folk dance music. It had to be fast enough that people could dance, and loud enough that they could hear it while they danced.

One book tells us the whole story: "Orchesographie, methode et theorie en forme de discours et tablature pour apprendre a dancer", by Thoinot Arbeau (a French monk) published in 1596. The book describes the dances, and therefore tells us how fast the music must be played.

MIDI Files

Ballet des Coqs (P. Attaingnant)    (.mid 35k)
Ballet des Coqs (alternate)  (.mid 35k)
Basse Dance 1 (P. Attaingnant)  (.mid 35k)
Basse Dance 1 (T. Susato)   (.mid 33k)
Il Etait une Fillette (T. Susato)    (.mid 42k)
Hoboecken Tanz (T. susato)   (.mid 27k)
Ronde 1 (T. Susato)    (.mid 34k)
Ronde 2 (T. Susato)    (.mid 27k)
Ronde 3 (T. Susato    (.mid 22k)

WAV Files

Ballet des Coqs (P. Attaingnant)    (.wav 6.7M)
Basse Dance 1 (T. Susato)  (.wav 10.0M)
Il Etait une Fillette (T. Susato)   (.wav 9.3M)
Hoboecken Tanz (T. susato)   (.wav 8.2M)
Ronde 2 (T. Susato)   (.wav 6.9M)
Ronde 3 (T. Susato)   (.wav 7.5M)

These pieces were recorded with a Yamaha WX-11 wind controller using the software "Bars and Pipes" on an Amiga 4000 computer. The .WAV files were generated from the MIDI files through a Korg 05/RW Synthesizer (which has much nicer wind sounds than a Roland Sound Canvas).

Yann LeCun    [email protected]