Incoming links: Software synthesizer
In simple terms, represents keystrokes of a piano, but it can likely also represent other effects (TODO confirm: bend, vibrato, slides, attack strength)
Can contain multiple parallel tracks as seen from the Wikipedia example: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MIDI_sample.mid
You can see what it contains well with GUI music editor.
To actually listen to MIDI, you need a software synthesizer, which knows what sound to make for each note. One way to specify such instruments is the SoundFont file format.
Technique to make cool sound instruments mathematically, either with electronic hardware components, or with a software synthesizer.
Good tutorials:
Best known techniques:
Opens a virtual MIDI piano GUI. It just works on Ubuntu 20.04: askubuntu.com/questions/34391/virtual-midi-piano-keyboard-setup/1298026#1298026
VMPK is a virtual device that replicates what you would get by connecting a physical MIDI keyboard to your computer. It is not a software synthesizer on its own. But it does connect to a working synthesizer by default (Sonivox EAS) which makes it produce sounds out-of-the box.
TODO: then I messed with my sound settings, and then it stopped working by default on the default "MIDI Connection" > "MIDI Out Driver" > "Network". But it still works on "SonivoxEAS".
A hello world of actually connecting it to a specific software synthesizer manually on Advanced Linux Sound Architecture with
aconnect can be found at: askubuntu.com/questions/34391/virtual-midi-piano-keyboard-setup/1298026#1298026Save to a MIDI file: askubuntu.com/questions/709673/save-as-midi-when-playing-from-vmpk-qsynth/1298231#1298231
Reasonable default key mappings to keyboard covering 2 octaves.
3 multiple simultaneous keys did not work (tested "ZQI"). This might just be a limitation of my keyboard however.
TODO how to save to a
.mid file? askubuntu.com/questions/709673/save-as-midi-when-playing-from-vmpk-qsynth