The Beggar's Opera Part 19

_About the Music_

The following information is also given in the text file "about_the_music" in the "Music" directory.

The music in the printed book appears to be a hand-written copy of the 1765 original, retaining or adding a.s.sorted minor errors. In particular, the use of double bar lines or repeats seems to be almost entirely arbitrary. In the PDF and MIDI files, obvious errors such as missing dots after notes have been corrected, and a few ties have been added.

Repeats are used only when required by the lyrics as printed.

All music files, including the PDF images, are in the "Music" directory.

In addition to individual Airs, there are PDF files containing the collected songs for each scene that has more than one song. Air LXVIII (the final song) has been omitted because it takes up a complete page by itself.

_Changing the Tempo_

If you want to change the tempo of a MIDI file, do this:

--Install the lilypond program (free from lilypond.org)

--Open the file you want to edit (named in the form "air_N.ly" using the same Roman numerals as in the text) and scroll down to the bottom. The "make-moment" line works just like a metronome setting. Leave the second number alone--usually a 4 for quarter-note--and make the first number larger or smaller.

--Select "Run" or "Typeset File" from the Compile menu. This will create three files in the same location as the original .ly file: an updated MIDI, a new PDF, and a Postscript (.ps) file. You may keep the Postscript file or delete it; they are automatically generated, but were omitted from this Project Gutenberg text because they are very large and are easy to make on your own computer.