Play My Music

Title Song: Play My Music

Title Artist: Jonas Brothers

Song Link: Jonas Brothers – Play My Music – YouTube

Steady progress continued to be made this past week, and I have a working first version of each of the individual pieces I need (welcome screen, lyric editor, timestamping, and the actual karaoke part). There is still a bit of functionality that I need to add to each of them (as well as connecting them), but each piece currently can work on its own.

The first success this week was exporting the timestamps and lyrics to a .lrc file. LyRiCs (LRC) files are what are typically read by standard karaoke machines. Exporting in this format also means that it is easier process on the backend when a user wants to sing a song that they have already edited and timestamped. I haven’t added export functionality to the lyric editing form yet (so that they can have just a text file of their changed lyrics if they so desire), but that will be a relatively easy thing to add in the next day or so. While I don’t have a video of the exporting process, I do have a screenshot of an example .lrc file attached below.

The second success was getting a karaoke-like form working. For the moment, the two files that it is pulling data from (audio and LRC) are hardcoded so that I didn’t have to open multiple file dialogs every time I ran the program, but the data that comes from them will eventually be passed by another form. Currently all of the lyrics of the line are shown in the same color, and all at once, and I think that is how I am going to keep it unless I end up having enough time later to change it to highlight the word/syllable in a different color. But the lyrics do change on their own at the correct timestamp, so it is functional. I’ve included a video below of the karaoke screen as well as the sources that I utilized to get it working. Ignore the textbox above the lyrics on the video, that is just for testing purposes and will be removed/changed in the final product.

This was a relatively short update, but I still felt like I achieved a lot this past week. My next steps will include finishing the small bits of functionality for each of the pieces, actually making use of the trackbar by having it move to the correct timestamp when the user scrolls, and beginning to connect the individual pieces.

As always, thanks for taking the time to read my update and don’t forget to take a look at the videos below. Also, on a totally random note, if you are ever looking for some music to listen to while studying, working, or programming, I would highly recommend Celtic reels and/or jigs. Sea Shanties also work similarly (at least for me) but those typically have words/lyrics. Anyway, you probably didn’t need to know that, but I’ve listened to a lot of Celtic reels and jigs (and also a playlist called Celtic Battle Music) this past week while I was working on my project, so I thought I’d share their motivational power with others.

Lauren (2/28/22)

Sources

• Reading timestamps from file
• Removing the brackets from timestamp read from file
• Centering text in RichTextBox
• Saving a file
• What is an LRC file?

Videos / Files

Also, yes, I am getting slightly sick of listening to this song so many times, but it is a relatively short song, so it makes the full testing process a lot shorter. Plus, I already have all of the information for it, so it makes the overall process shorter.