Guess I always used a MIDI keyboard with Speedy, so I never knew about the arrow keys.
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So the way I use speedy entry is
- go to the note position on the staff
- enter the duration (say 4 for eighth note)
- the cursor moves to the next eighth note position. I use the ARROWS to move to the next note I want
- I hit a duration (say 4 again).
The only keys my hands touch are the arrow keys and the numbers. There no note name entry.
Is that what dorico is able to do? I thought more before duration meant you had to press a letter (a-g) then a duration. As the initial post said, I think also in intervals, not note names.
As with Finale’s Speedy Entry, I use a MIDI keyboard for pitch entry regardless of which order I use to enter pitch and duration.
No, this is exactly the method I was referring to. Dorico does not include this at present, unfortunately.
And if there were some sort of note-entry contest out there (using only QWERTY), the winner would use this method. Hands down. You can fly using this.
Ah, this is interesting, I just watched an old YouTube video on it. It appears to be something sort of like the Dorico Caret tool but on both the X & Y axis for pitch and duration either alternatively or simultaneously, if I understand that correctly? Either way from my cursory understanding of it, seems like it would be a cool upgrade to note input when not using a midi keyboard.
Exactly. That’s all I used for 20 years. It was so fast you didn’t need MIDI!!! (Well, it was helpful for chords…)
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It’s almost doable. Set some new keys for Note Editing > Raise Pitch By Step and Lower Pitch By Step (I tested + and - on the number keypad so as not to have to unassign arrow keys from their default behaviour, but other keys could work fine), and turn on quord mode, and you’ve basically got the entry method suggested here.
The problem seems to be accidentals; they could definitely use refinement from the development team (presumably it’d be nice if Raise and Lower chromatically worked within this particular flavour of pitch before duration).
But yes, the first note entered needs clicking or typing.
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I very much hope it won’t. I don’t want there to be any compromises.
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Just one more small input. S Wagner mentioned that the orange note which he last entered will move with option+arrow. What is a not too slow solution/workaround is to type R i.e. the note will be copied to the next position and will then have focus. So then option+arrow. and note value entries will influence that note.
What might also throw people off (I just tried it…) is the the first thing you see is a quarter rest using this method?
If a middle B could be displayed as a hint that you are about to enter an actual note, that would be helpful.
But then again, hitting “B” or anything really first shouldn’t be a big deal either…
And then this, of course:
I emulated a simple, single-keystroke note edit on my Stream Deck, by the way, for chromatic, diatonic and octave editing. No more modifier keys!
Cheers,
Benji
Were you able to emulate keys that affected the accidental of the shadow note before inputting it, though? That’s the thing I struggled with.
Leo, no I wasn’t, but I usually use duration-before-pitch anyway!
My Stream Deck shortcuts are just for after-the-fact editing, but as such they work flawlessly, of course…
In the light of this, your feature request (see above!) is a very valid one!
B.
Finale users… take a breath! You’ll get it happening! There’ll be a slight transition period, but that’s totally worth it.
I agree that Dorico can do exactly what you want to accomplish with ‘Pitch before Duration’.
I was totally ‘ingrained’ to ‘Pitch before Duration’ with Sibelius for 20 years, and couldn’t wrap my head around Dorico’s ‘Duration before Pitch’ when I first tried Dorico, tried to adapt to their ‘Pitch before Duration’, and left at version 3.5. (…I had some long threads about my ‘perceived problem’, which I felt might be very useful to others like myself at the time. Maybe I had a pre-Covid fog starting to set in! I received input from the true Dorico experts at the time, including all the developers, as to their way of thinking about the whole note input process. They really have done wonders with Dorico.)
But, now, Dorico is as familiar to me as Sibelius once was. In fact, even faster, more intuitive, etc.
The amount of shortcuts, available customization, Scripts, Jump Key, etc. etc. makes life real easy.
There really is a solution to every perceived musical problem as I once thought I had, and if not yet, you can be sure that there will be in some future update.
For me, I use a MIDI keyboard and StreamDeck for pretty well everything I have to do, from the composing stage to the engraving stage. I’m glad to know that keyboard entry is available to me as well, and when I do use it knowing what I do know now, there’s no problem.
Finale users…you’ll survive! And thrive.
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It looks like there is a Keyboard Maestro type set-up.
I play tuba, and don’t know anything about MIDI keyboard. I have since 1997 used Finale with keyboard input with arrow keys. How shall I write the music now?
Use your QWERTY keyboard (notes a-g, numpad durations, arrow keys, popovers, tuplets, chord mode, articulations… etc. all in one place) . I do 90% of my input this way. I find it is quick and efficient.
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Or if you mean to change pitch with arrows, it’s alt/option up/down arrow diatonically and alt/option shift up/down chromatically.
Jesper
Judd, I have to say this post resonated with me and in the past week I’ve been experimenting with pitch-before-duration which I—accustomed to duration-before-pitch—will admit I always thought was a little bit bonkers. “Why would anyone want to enter the duration after every note, when they could just select a note value and play it in with their keyboard?” I thought.
But wow, just wow, I think I am convert, for the very reason you described. I can leave note entry mode on, while I noodle about on my midi keyboard to see what I like first. Then upon deciding, I can vary up the note values. I found it’s actually impressively fast for alternating rhythms, dotted notes and tuplets.
Best of all, I LOVE that Dorico has this feature as a toggle via keyboard shortcut K. (As far as I know, in Sibelius you would have to dig deep into a preference menu to change this). But a toggle is such a great benefit, because duration-before-pitch is still quite obviously useful when you want to do a run of say 32x 16th notes in a row, so you can set your rhythm and just rock n’ roll from your midi keyboard.
Sometimes you want chocolate, other times you want vanilla – now you can have the swirl! 
Now I see what Finale users are going on about lol. If Dorico brings an enhanced mode even closer to Speedy Entry we will all be unstoppable!
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@benwiggy
Exactly as i thought, dorico is more for users who actually use an instrument ie. Keyboard. Whereas finale, back in the day, started off as a notation software, ie point and click.
I do find notating in dorico a bit of a pain and therefore am in agreement with OP. It is also easier for me to click crotchet then click on the exact position on the stave, then click rest, add that, click again. Of course i know which notes are A B C snd so on. But that extra mental step, although trivial, does make notating more cumbersome.
Anyway, in the spirit of moving on , I’ve ordered a small midi keyboard from china. Hope it works! LOL
“The swirl” — love it!
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