[LAU] midi: trigger a "piano roll scroller" type thing?

Hi all. I don't do any midi stuff. I've messed around with it a bit and understand the basics but I'm wondering if a certain midi "feature" (not sure what to call it) exists. Let's say you have a pre-recorded bass track...... And you create a midi file out of it.... Would it be possible to trigger each individual note of that midi file with, say, a kick pedal in real, human time? This would mean that every kick drum hit would trigger a new note (the next one in the series) but would still be triggered by a human being's sense of rhythm. I'm sure this exists but I have no idea of what it's called. And, of course, what are the best open source options to achieve something like this? Hope this makes sense. Thanks. -Aaron