_About the Music_

The following information is also given at the end of the plain-text and
html versions of the play.

The music in the printed book appears to be a hand-written copy of the
1765 original, retaining or adding assorted 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.