Our team worked on our design report this Monday after the reading assignment discussion. I also did my ethics assignment before the deadline extension. 

This week, I was able to spend some time on our actual project. I asked several questions/worries related to performance score evaluator to the professor, and was able to make some design decisions. Initially, my plan was to compare two MusicXML files by converting the user input MIDI file to MusicXML, but after trying some conversions, I realized that the converted xml file contains too many unnecessary details like slurs or rests. This will make the comparison much more complicated, so I decided to compare MIDI files instead by converting the original musicXML file to MIDI. 

Using the MIDI cable that I received last week, I connected the piano keyboard to my computer. I was able to get the keyboard input through Garageband on Macbook, and store it as aif file. However, because Garageband is a free software, it prevents users from saving files as MIDI files. Thus, I had two options: buying a software like Logic Pro ($200) that allows me to extract MIDI files, or using a script that converts aif files to MIDI files. Due to our budget constraint, I decided to go with the second option.

1. Record user’s performance
2. Save it as an Apple loop (aif file), which will be located in ~/Library/Audio/Loops/User Loops/
3. Select that aif file from the conversion script

By following these steps, now I can get user performance data as a MIDI file.

I am currently on schedule; because I can now get user input MIDI file and can convert the original musicXML file to MIDI, I will start writing performance score evaluator next week according to my metrics defined in our design report.