Note Auditioning with Pitch-before-Duration and one or two other bits and bobs

Dorico
1

So, I’ve been loving using pitch before duration for the past short while, but I’ve been noticing that something was feeling off about it that I was having trouble putting my finger on. I eventually realized it’s that notes don’t sound as they’re entered in (ie when you enter their rhythm), only when you enter their pitch. I suppose it feels odd not having the aural feedback; I didn’t realize how much I rely on it when engraving. Now I have to keep my eye on the computer screen much more, which slows things down and feels, as mentioned, slightly off. Does anyone else feel this way too? I would love an option for pitch-before-duration to flip note auditioning on when the pitch is entered AND/OR when the rhythm is entered.

Also, while we’re on the subject, I noticed that when both pitch-before-duration is on and rhythm dots/accidentals/etc. are set to “After inputting note”, [alt-up/down] will not change the pitch of notes about to be entered (the grey cursor notehead), but rather notes already entered (it works the opposite way if “Before inputting note” is set). I can imagine a few reasons why this might be intentional, but I am curious if it is indeed intentional. It would be great if there was a way to change the pitch of the grey cursor notehead from the keyboard alone when those settings are set that way. So far I’ve been finding that pitch duration has been working great for me when I’ve got my midi keyboard, but using it with a keyboard alone has been much less smooth. Along those very lines…

I don’t imagine there’s any possibility we could get the ability to make conditional key command changes? As in, the ability to alter key commands when pitch-before-duration is on? I find that the fastest way to enter music in this sort of mode, if I’m not near a midi keyboard, is the way it’s done in percussion kits. In kits, the up and down arrows (without alt) essentially move between “pitches” and then the number keys input the notes. It’s super fast now, for kits at least. For any other instrument, one must use alt-up/down. Alt-up/down to change pitches is ok, but not nearly as fluent, imo (and also, as mentioned above, [alt-up/down] doesn’t even work if rhythm dots are set to go in after notes).

That all being the case, it would be nice to set some conditional key commands in this mode, like, for instance, up/down changes the pitch that’s about to be entered, alt-up/down changes pitches that have already been entered, and ctrl-up/down could be set to jump to the next staff up or down instead of the top or bottom staff. Something along those lines would make pitch-before-duration much more workable and fluent without a midi keyboard (but obviously, I can’t speak for everyone, hence my thinking that conditional key command changes would be nice). Just a few cents… :wink:

Edit: fixed some… silly mistakes.

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I agree that it would be good if Dorico were to audition notes when you commit them to the score using the rhythmic duration commands; we’ll add this.

I’m not sure I know what Alt+Enter does for you; is that a custom key command you’ve set up? What does it normally do?

As for making it possible to change shortcuts conditionally based on whether pitch before duration input is active, that’s not possible at the moment, I’m afraid, and unlikely to be so in the near future. But we’ll certainly continue to consider it; we thought about many such situations while we were working on the new input method, but decided against those kinds of changes on the grounds that we didn’t want to make the program too casey and conditional to make it hard to keep track of what key combinations do what in each circumstance.

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Oh goodness me… not alt-enter, alt-up/down…

While typing this, I was (and am) in the midst of engraving a piece that has a lot of local barline and meter changes, so I’m using lots of alt-enter with popovers. I suppose it was on the brain :unamused: I’ve always known I couldn’t type and talk on the phone at the same time; didn’t realize I had the same problem with engraving… I couldn’t trouble you to re-read my second paragraph with the knowledge that that should be alt-up/down, could I?

As for conditional key commands, that makes a lot of sense, and I had figured that very well might be your position. “Certainly continu[ing] to consider it” is good enough for me :slight_smile:

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Right, Alt+up/down makes sense. And yes, it is intentional that if you have Dorico set to specify rhythm dots, accidentals and articulations after inputting, Alt+up/down will change the pitch of the selected, i.e. just input, note.

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I’m just trying to understand exactly what you are asking for here. At least for me, I want to hear the note before entering the duration, that way I know it’s the correct note before I commit it to the score by pressing the duration. I don’t have to look at the screen much because I can hear that it’s the correct note, and with one key press can input it. If I couldn’t hear it first, I would have to look at the screen to verify I had the pitch correct before pressing the duration. One of the main benefits of pitch first input for me is that I can work out whatever I want to write, input it, then go back to writing all without leaving the input caret. I guess hearing it after input would be confirmation that it was the correct pitch, but usually after input I’m on to the next note, so it would seem backwards to me to hear it after. I’m always inputting with a MIDI keyboard though, are you using the computer keyboard? I’m just trying to understand why exactly you would prefer to hear it after.

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I agree with you, Fred, that one needs to hear the note before confirming it. I think what Snakeeyes was asking for was some sort of audio confirmation that the duration/note had officially been entered into the music, and I can see a value in that too.

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Indeed, that’s precisely what I’m saying. I hate to have to demonstrate with one of the… others, but here’s a snippet of what I used to be able to do when I didn’t have a midi keyboard at hand. Notice that the notes are auditioned as they’re keyed in but not when the pitch is selected using the up/down arrows (the latter of which is helpful, but less crucial I think). I’m not asking for the team to necessarily recreate Finale’s speedy entry, nor would I expect them to since whatever Dorico does obviously has to work for Dorico, but it is at least worth pointing out how fast it can be when working with just the computer keyboard.

Now, that all said, this is just one of the many entry styles I make use of, given where I am or what I’m doing—I both compose and engrave, both either at my desk with a midi keyboard or somewhere else (on the couch, traveling, etc.) without a midi keyboard—and so though there’s a slight speed hit for me when I’m engraving without a midi keyboard, all the other spheres go much faster than before, so it’s a sacrifice I’m perfectly satisfied making :slight_smile:

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Got it. I’ve used arrow key Speedy too when in transit and I didn’t want to haul out my mini MIDI keyboard. You’re right, this would be a good option to have when doing this sort of input.

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Am I right that there is no option to turn off the double auditioning with Pitch-before-Duration (without turning it off completely)? So I’d like to audit the note when I enter the pitch, but don’t want to hear it a second time when entering the duration. After a while working with Pitch-before-duration, the double auditioning gets quite annoying…

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You are right. I’ll make a note that we could consider adding a separate option for this. I reckon it’s not quite as simple as simply not auditioning when you hit one of the duration keys, because you would want to hear it auditioned if you are repeating the same pitch in order to have some feedback if you’re not looking at the screen.

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Thanks Daniel. One Idea would be to make it auditioning the duration from the second same note you’re entering. Then there is the consistency that every note entry gets auditioned exactly one time