The Choralplayer is a mp3 player that makes use of the mp3 player embedded in your internet browser, however it also provides additional functions specifically conceived for music learning purposes.

The Choralplayer requires a browser that is compatible with the HTML5 specifications. All recent browsers are compatible with these specifications, although some behaviour may slightly change depending on the specific browser used.

When you click on a mp3 file on the Choralia website, Choralplayer is automatically activated for that mp3 file. The Choralplayer window will look similar to the following screenshot:

The above screenshot is obtained from Chrome. Other browsers may show something slightly different. The two bottom controls may not be displayed in certain cases (see details next).

The top control is the playbar provided by the browser. It allows to play, pause, change volume, mute, and move the time slider through the piece. Chrome also offers a pushbutton (on the right side of the playbar in the screenshot above) to download the file to your computer. Other browsers may not show this pushbutton, while they will anyway show the other download pushbutton that is present on the right side of the playbar. This is a specific download pushbutton, and details about it will be provided in the following.

The second control from top is the section slider. It allows to identify a specific section of the piece to be played. The two handles mark the beginning and the end of the section to be played. Initially, the two handles are set at the beginning and at the end of the piece, so the section identified corresponds to the whole piece. Then you can drag each handle to the desired position on the slider and mark the beginning and the end of the desired section. Time labels help to identify the desired position. To precisely set a handle to a certain time value, move the handle near to the desired time value, then double-click the time label to manually enter the desired time value. The handle nearest to the time value you entered will precisely move to that time.

The pushbutton on the left of the section slider enables or disables the section player, so you can toggle between playing the whole piece or just the section identified.

The pushbutton on the right of the section slider enables or disables the loop player. If the loop player is enabled, the section (or the whole piece, depending whether the section player is enabled or not) is played and, when the end is reached, it is played again from the beginning. If the loop player is disabled, playing stops at the end of the section (or of the whole piece), so you have to manually click the button on the playbar to restart the player.

The third control is the tempo slider. It allows to slow down or speed up music. The slider controls “tempo” from 50% (very slow) to 150% (very fast) of the nominal speed (100%). The “tortoise” pushbutton on the left side of the slider reduces “tempo” in 5% steps, while the “hare” pushbutton on the right side of the slider increases “tempo” in 5% steps.

Large speed variations with respect to the nominal speed may result in noisy or distorted audio performance. This depends on the specific browser you use.

The fourth control from top (or second from bottom) is the level slider. It allows to change the amount of emphasis applied to the voice of interest with respect to the other voices and with respect to the accompaniment. When the slider is in the middle, the level of emphasis is set at the normal level, as it is in the original file. If the slider is moved to the right, the accompaniment and the other voices are attenuated, and they are even completely muted if the slider is fully set to the right side (100% value). As a consequence, the voice of interest is more and more highlighted with respect to the rest. If the slider is moved to the left, the voice of interest is attenuated, and it is even completely muted when the slider is fully set to the left side (-100% value), while the accompaniment and the other voices remain at their normal level. This allows, for example, to test singing one’s own part without any help from the corresponding virtual singer. The two pushbuttons on the left and on the right side of the bar move the slider in 5% steps. When files with all voices at the same level are played, this control works on all voices together with respect to the accompaniment (this may be useful, for example, to mute a “for rehearsal only” accompaniment when studying “a cappella” pieces).

The last control is the stereo slider. It allows to move the voice of interest to the left or to the right of the stereo space, while all other voices and the accompaniment are moved opposite. This helps to recognise the voice of interest when emphasis is not enough or not desired. The use of headphones or earphones is recommended in this case. The two pushbuttons on the left and on the right side of the bar move the slider in 5% steps. When files with all voices at the same level are played, this control works on all voices together with respect to the accompaniment.

The two bottom sliders, when moved away from the middle position (0% value), require that the browser has enough memory available to perform some digital signal processing calculations. Not all browsers are compatible with these functions, and some browsers, especially on smartphones where the amount of available memory is small, may not work when the duration of a piece is long. If your browser does not work when the bottom sliders are moved, reset the two bottom sliders to the middle position (0% for both) and use only the top controls, as apparently there is not enough memory available for your browser to perform the digital signal processing calculations.

The two bottom controls may not be displayed if you are using a browser that is known not to be compatible. For example, Microsoft Internet Explorer is unable to run certain functions required by the two bottom controls.

If you want to download the mp3 file to your computer, the best way is to use the specific download pushbutton that is provided on the right side of the playbar. This pushbutton performs the downloading of the file as a binary file rather than as a mp3 file, and this may solve some problems with specific browsers and settings that do not handle the downloading of mp3 files normally. Please note: the mp3 file will be downloaded “as is”, for the whole piece (not for the specific section you selected) and at the nominal speed. To play a specific section or to change “tempo” after you download the file you have to install a suitable mp3 player on your computer.

Most browsers also allow to download the file by right-clicking on the playbar and then selecting “save audio as…” (or something like that, depending on the browser). On smartphones and tablets the equivalent of right-clicking is obtained with a long pressure on the touchscreen. However, if any of the two bottom controls is set to a different value than the middle position (0%), the file will be downloaded as it is internally handled by the playbar, i.e., as a wav file. Files in wav format are much larger than the corresponding files in mp3 format, so the downloading may take a much longer time. Any level or stereo settings applied using the two bottom controls will be applied to the file that you download. Any section or tempo settings will not be applied, though.