Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) is a standard to transmit and store music, originally designed for
digital music synthesizers.
MIDI does not transmit recorded sounds. Instead, it includes musical notes, timings and pitch information, which the receiving device uses to play music from its own sound library.
MIDI was developed in the early 1980s to provide interoperability between digital music devices.
Before MIDI, digital piano keyboards, music synthesizers and drum machines from different manufacturers could not talk to each other.
MIDI was developed in the early 1980s to provide interoperability between digital music devices. It was spearheaded by the president of Roland instruments and developed with Sequential Circuits, an early synthesizer company that Yamaha purchased in 1987. Other early adopters included Yamaha, Korg, Kawai and Moog.