Rhythm Game - Using Midi Notes to trigger a coloured note on screen.

For my Final Major Project at college, I'm wanting to create a rhythm/guitar hero type game.

I've looked at tutorials online but they use If statements to create each notes to play (e.g. If song is between 5 seconds and 6 seconds then create red note). I was wondering if there's a way (with or without plugins, that works in C#) to use a midi file, and when a note is detected in the midi file it creates the note on screen.

This would save loads of time instead of manually coding each note and making sure that each note is in time. Plus most songs have midi files already so i could just download them and put them into the game.

Any help would be appreciated, thanks