The other day, I saw this advert on my Facebook timeline. Certain details have been removed – if the company in question sees this, feel free to pay me and I’ll happily display an uncensored version!

It’s basically for a MIDI pack. This one has 100 files in it. Quite a few people have a problem with these, thinking that they’re a lazy way of producing music. Allow me to provide two reasons that suggest you just might be wrong…

First, the way that people learn how to play the piano these days isn’t the same as what it was. It’s now possible to learn how to play without ever getting a single formal lesson. Studying these kinds of pre-prepared MIDI files might just help someone out there to learn about chords that work together and any number of things.

Secondly, these files can actually be useful for getting inspiration. If you listen to one, there’s nothing to stop you from changing the key of the progression, adding notes, removing notes, moving chords about – before you know it, you could have something quite different going.

Yeah, you can just drag and drop them into your productions. That much is lazy. But you won’t last too long in the scene if that’s what you’re hoping to do…