Note input with pen?

[Hartmut]

What a great pleasure, that Dorico now is available for iPad!!!
Is it planned to include handwriting, that I can write scores with my pen?
Or at least the possibility to make annotations (in read-modus)?

Thanks!

[Stephen_Taylor]

There are no announced plans to support handwriting for note entry; but there have been several requests for making annotations in Read mode, similar to forScore, etc.

Here’s a good review that discusses some of these issues:

Dorico arrives on iPad - Scoring Notes

[Hartmut]

@Stephen_Taylor

There are no announced plans to support handwriting for note entry; but there have been several requests for making annotations in Read mode, similar to forScore, etc.

Here’s a good review that discusses some of these issues:

Thank you very much for this Info.

I’m a bit surprised that there are no requests for handwritten note input, after all it’s also a feature of this other brand new iPad program (whose name shall not be mentioned… ).
And it would really be a great thing if THAT was included too, not only because I’ve been looking for such a program for a long time!
…then I would even consider (as an old “subscription hater”…) to license Dorico for iPad

[Stephen_Taylor]

Try searching Apple Pencil on the forum, and you’ll find lots of interesting ideas - here’s one thread:

Apple Pencil - how would you use yours?

Hey all, Enjoyed the recent Scoring Notes Podcast with @pianoleo . It got me thinking - what is the perfect use for the Apple Pencil in a scoring app? My two cents :- Annotation and Review in reading mode: as it sounds, but annotations remain persistent as a mutable layer in write/engrave mode it would be cool if, when you circle something, the thing that is circled become tagged for review, and you can click through these tags one by one in write and engrave mode, “resolving” them. perha…

[DanMcL]

@Hartmut

I’m a bit surprised that there are no requests for handwritten note input,

Dorico iPad got me to finally drop pencil/paper which I used for idea development and initial blockout (on a 6 grand stave paper for orchestra). It’s faster and better on the iPad using a portable MIDI keyboard, and believe it or not I’ve come to like using a paired Bluetooth computer keyboard as being as fast. A pencil would just get in the way IMO.

[Derrek]

@Hartmut

I’m a bit surprised that there are no requests for handwritten note input,

Stephen did not say there had been no requests; he said there have been no announced plans for handwritten note input. Indeed, Daniel said the team is not currently interested in pursuing this since other programs already do this and produce output that one can import into Dorico.

[Hartmut]

@Hartmut

it’s also a feature of this other brand new iPad program

I have to correct myself: the (real) handwritten note input doesn’t work with Sibelius… Only a touch-like function works there.
…so everything is fine for Dorico to be the first program where this works…

@Derrek

Stephen did not say there had been no requests; he said there have been no announced plans for handwritten note input. Indeed, Daniel said the team is not currently interested in pursuing this since other programs already do this and produce output that one can import into Dorico.

Yes, but the only - reasonably functioning - program offered there costs another 99 euros…

[DanMcL]

@Hartmut

Yes, but the only - reasonably functioning - program offered there costs another 99 euros…

And it so rigidly requires you to write in a certain way that it obviates any benefit from using a pen IMO. I’d be curious to see how many people use it on a daily basis with no issue, as I said a digital approach with a keyboard is so much faster and effortless.

I wonder what those old time composers would have preferred, MIDI+computer keyboard input or scribbling with a quill pen, spilling ink all over their fingers

[Derrek]

@Hartmut

Yes, but the only - reasonably functioning - program offered there costs another 99 euros…

And you think Dorico would take on that big a project to offer it to you for free?!

[Hartmut]

@Derrek

And you think Dorico would take on that big a project to offer it to you for free?!

Did I say anything about free? Of course not:

@Hartmut

…then I would even consider (as an old “subscription hater”…) to license Dorico for iPad

[dspreadbury]

Just to reiterate: we have no plans to devote our development team’s time and energy into interpreting handwritten input. We do plan to expand Dorico’s support for the Apple Pencil in future versions, but not in the direction of using it to allow the user to attempt to write music freehand into the app.

[geof]

With all due respect, the state of the art with digital input and engraving has stagnated for decades. What else do the Steinberg/Yamaha’s erstwhile developers have to do with their time other than getting a stylus input working well? The competitors I’ve tried are trash. I can play and improvise on any nuymber of instruments (Bachelors in Music Compoisition), I can do data entry and write scripts (MS in Computer Science). I could probably write your program. What I can’t do is notate a score conveniently when ideas are coming fast. I’m getting really sick of being gouged for the privilege of listening to lame digital “performances”, particularly when I have to enter them at an agonizingly slow pace.

[YourMusic.Pro]

Oof…

[Mark_Johnson]

Then write it, Geof.

[geof]

Mark,

I’m 64 years old, Mark, and recently retired.

I’ve spent my career career working at startups, including a company that led the NASDAQ in 2000, and most recently one of the less than magnificent 7. I did both in preference to working for Finale, I should add. All were companies that made a difference in people’s lives. Frankly, I’m burnt out on coding and want to write music.

I’m flat out disgusted that the industry as a whole has advanced so far, and yet the lazy bureaucratic bean counters who run the music business have in the 40 years that I’ve used software for writing music have done nothing other than collect the low hanging fruit.

Sincerely,

Geof

[judddanby]

You might enjoy this recent thread, @geof:

For those who still write longhand …

For initial sketching and stuff I still write longhand. Even on the iPad it’s too slow and clumsy to get it out, plus having big sheets of paper where I can block in ideas still works the best compared to being locked into a screen. The annoying thing though is I’ve never found a good writing implement for it, the best has been rotring pens for a nice precise line but they’re so finicky and hard to work with. Anyhow my father is getting on in years and gifted me his Mont Blanc fountain pen he b…

[geof]

Thanks, Judd. I spent quite a lot of time using a Pelikan oblique italic fountain pen for copy work in years long past. My preferred sketching environment for just about anything is still 11x11 paper with 17 staves. For the stuff I was doing in the 80s, the DOS based proportional notation was fine, but it’d be suicidal now.

Anyway, for anyone from tech support who is actually listening here. . .here’s your free multi-million dollar idea:

I used oblique italic nibs for a reason. . . I didn’t have to turn the pen, a vertical line made stems, and a diagonal stroke got noteheads, similarly for flags and beams. The point, you may ask, is simple. A fountain pen, unlike a ball point pen, flows the ink between the two halves of the “quill”. If one had two points on a stylus, one could easily get the orientation of the line digitally and make far fewer mistakes.

Your welcome.

Geof

[Hartmut]

May I also join in with my sermon (after all, it is ‘my’ thread )
Dear Geof,
I can understand that you don’t feel like programming yourself. But if you’ve been to the companies described, then surely you have the necessary cash to pay someone to do the programming of the handwritten input… If it’s a million-dollar business, then it’s easy money, isn’t it?
…and if it works, you’ll give me 1% of the profits, because I was the idea giver, right?

[geof]

Dear Hartmut,

You’re money-grubbing is misplaced. By discussing the solution in public, I just put it in the public domain.

Cheers,

Geof

[Hartmut]

Which moneygrabbing ? It was a ironic….