Speed Of Inputting Music, If you can't play a real-time keyboard, how's the fastest way Options

[Ricky Buchanan]

I am experienced with both computers and music, but not so much with the mix of both. Because of my disability I can't use a regular music keyboard to compose, and putting the notes in one-by-one with the mouse is a bit like pulling teeth! I do have a small keyboard - eKeys 37 - which I use to do note pitches and then use a programmed XKeys Desktop device to specifiy the note length, but it's awkward and slow.

I think what frustrates me most is that music entered like this with a mouse or the XKeys/eKeys combination has no extra "live" midi stuff like note velocity/etc. (I'm not sure of the terminology - sorry). So playing it back is a bit like listening to a robot, and very frustrating.

Is there any decent way of getting this information in so the computer can play it back and have it closer to the way it sounds in my head???

At the moment I'm using Sibelius mostly and Garage Band a bit (haven't really mastered that). I started off clasically trained so I'm used to notes and staves and such, not the MIDI type stuff, but I am willing to learn!

Best Regards,
Ricky
ATMac - http://atmac.org/ - Assistive Technology for Mac OS X Users

[vertpooomme]

Hello Ricky,

in Sibelius 5, you can specify the expression below the staves just as you think :
Click on a note, then
You click on the Housestyle menu,
then Lines , and you have crescendo, diminuendo, that are played back by Sibelius where you want it.
And in the Create menu,
then Text ,
then Expression , you have a list of all expressions such as p and f and many more to express the music you think and Sibelius read them too so you can listen to your music with the expression you think.

Kind regards,
Tony