.wav files, Matlab and such

Hello. I'm doing a project for electronic engineering and require a tiny bit of assistance. I'll just explain briefly what the project is. Try to remain awake please.

Musical Rhythm Detection and Beat Synthesis.

Essentially, a piece of music is played (say just a piano playing on its own), I have to detect the rhythm (time signature, bar length etc.) and create a beat to play behind it.

Anyway forget the beat bit.

I'm told that there's a function in Matlab that lets you just read in .wav files but I am hopeless with Matlab and know nothing about it. I'd also like to be able to look at the envelope but I can't work that out either.

Also, where can I get free sample .wav files to use? Just anything remotely music would do.

Any teeny bit of help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Antbert

 

Damn should this have been in programming...? Apologies if so.