Speedy Entry (well, sort of) -- a perspective from someone without Finale experience

Dorico
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Edit: since people seem to have different ideas of what Speedy Entry is, here is the definition I had in mind when I wrote this post (with reservations that I might have had the wrong idea):

An input method featuring the pitch-before-duration paradigm, where the pitches are selected using the up and down arrow keys to select a diatonic position on the staff in conjunction with a separate selection of an associated accidental.

Edit 2: it turns out I indeed had the wrong idea. See my reply: Speedy Entry (well, sort of) -- a perspective from someone without Finale experience - #22 by Frigolito

This was originally going to be a reply in another thread, but it turned out to be extremely long, so I thought this might be better suited for a thread of its own. If you are a moderator and disagree, please feel free to merge this with an appropriate thread.

Here are my two cents:

My Finale experience level: I have tried Finale one day and that day occurred over twenty years ago, so basically I have none, and that time I only explored the noob-friendly but probably not the speediest “input by clicking” method.

After reading a big chunk of your posts, I realized that the Finale speedy entry has very promising potential, and personally I think I would even find it preferrable over using a MIDI keyboard in many cases. These are its main strengths:

  1. It enforces you to think of pitch in a relative way (rather than absolute), which I can see why many would find more intuitive, since the vast majority of music is about the frequency ratios (a.k.a. intervals) rather than the exact predetermined frequencies in isolation. Not counting Dorico’s “pitch-before-duration” mode, the other input methods do not enforce that way of thinking, including pressing the computer keyboard keys corresponding to the alphabetic note names or MIDI keyboard note entry (although this is better since the keys are actually laid out in pitch order, but technically it’s still absolute pitches).
  2. You don’t need to move your hands (much), since you only need one position for the pitch – covered entirely by the arrow keys – and another position (although a quite big one) for the duration – covered mostly by the number keys. This both saves time and gives you more mental capacity left for your main goal – your music.
  3. It does not require a MIDI keyboard, which is excellent for working when you’re on the road or your budget or physical space is limited.

While Dorico has the option to switch to pitch-before-duration mode in a single key press, which probably makes all Finale converts who are convinced that switching mindset is too taxing happy, the Dorico implementation feels kind of like a quick fix for just that and not meant for that much else, with less care given to make the most out of it. For now it lacks in the following areas for it to be speedy:

  1. (This turns out to not be true. See my reply below!) If limited to your computer keyboard, you can’t input accidentals. Regardless if you’re selecting your pitch by using your arrow keys to adjust the semi-transparent placeholder note or pressing the computer keyboard key corresponding to the alphabetic note name, attempting to add an accidental with the default key commands has no effect and you’ll need to alter these notes manually afterwards. Assuming your music is not purely diatonic, working in this mode without a MIDI keyboard is IMO too cumbersome to justify the means.
  2. (Partially, this turns out to not be true. See my reply below!) If using the arrow keys for pitch selection, you can’t input chords. If you’re limited to your computer keyboard for input, the only option to input a chord is to do it via alphabetic note name input, which is done by simply choosing all the pitches in succession before choosing the duration. You can of course use your left arrow key to step backwards to your previously input note while in chord mode to input more pitches “arrowkeyly”, but those who want the truly speedy experience would likely benefit from having the caret not advance until chord mode is deactivated (since you can always advance it manually with spacebar).
  3. If the semi-transparent placeholder is a rest, you can’t use the arrow keys to set the pitch. Instead you have to first make it into a note by pressing any of the computer keyboard keys corresponding to an alphabetic note name (or Y). Why not simply let Dorico recognize that if the user performs any of the pitch adjusting key commands while it’s a rest, they probably want to input a pitch, and then default to the top or bottom pitch of the previous note or chord (or whatever Y does by default if there is none)?
  4. You have to hold alt/opt to adjust pitch via the arrow keys. While I understand the team’s design choice – since it would be consistent with how navigation and editing works in the rest of the app – having an extra key to press not only requires an extra hand position for the left hand, but as a consequence it requires extra mental effort to input your music. While you could argue that an extra modifier key is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, considering that note input is most likely the most central feature of Dorico, these extra movements could really add up in the long run, so I don’t think it would be out of the question to consider making an exception to the pitch-before-duration mode to only use the arrow keys, at least as a toggleable feature in the preferences; you can always then revert to normal navigation mode by disabling the pitch-before-duration mode.

Lastly, I’d like to say that I realize that my suggestions and viewpoints might not agree with everyone, and that it is probably far from a simple matter for the team to implement all of it, considering that they have to make sure that it is consistent with the app’s core philosophies among other considerations that the team without any doubt has way more insights into. The purpose of this post was rather – from the perspective of a Finale outsider – to acknowledge the potential of the “Speedy Entry” feature and to speculate about how this could fit into Dorico’s current functionality.

Please also correct me if I am wrong, regardless if it’s Finale or Dorico related!

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But you can… simply toggle this in preferences:

Screenshot 2024-09-18 at 1.37.52 PM
Screenshot 2024-09-18 at 1.37.52 PM1336×390 55.5 KB

You can do this too, sort of. Turn on chord mode ‘Q’, then hit ‘Y’, then tap alt+up/down arrows to move. Caveat: each Y will add it up an octave so you may have to pitch that down, and chromatic steps don’t appear to work here. But it’s a little closer than not possible.

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Conversely, the normal up/down arrow keys are used for either moving the caret or selections up/down staves, which is intuitive. I suspect one could flip this in the key commands menu (flipping pitch up/down with navigation up/down) but, then those that try this might complain they can’t move up/down staves without holding down a modifier key. I guess one must decide which they will use more frequently in that case, since obviously it can’t be both.

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I have a hard time understanding in general this argument, that musicians working on the level of writing scores don’t know how to read them? It’s a bit like a novelist who writes and spells words not because they understand or know how they are spelled, but they alter the spelling relative to the previous word.

To be fair I totally understand the notion of thinking intervallically – when I sing or play my instruments I too think in terms of intervallic distance to previous notes, or harmony & counterpoint in terms of intervals. And sometimes when writing, I use the interval popover Shift+I to change or transpose based on intervallic distances. So of course this is a valid viewpoint and I think one essential musical path.

But I think musicians able to write a score probably know how to read them, too? (In other words, the ability to use either method I would argue is an essential skill)

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Each mind is different, but as someone who was trained to write serial music, I think to it as a sequence of intervals. Yet, I have to immediately translate them to actual pitches.

It’s a bit like calling someone by name, instead of by numbers.

Paolo

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Speedy Entry is going to turn out to be a religious war, because people get very attached (psychologically and muscle memory) to their note entry methods. What complicates things is that it’s an umbrella term for different things to different people. For some, it’s just pitch before duration. For others, it’s arrowing around to select pitches. For others, it’s the ability to use the computer keyboard as a 3-octave keyboard for pitch selection, a note entry method so powerful (to me) that I could never believe that other programs never adopted it and that Finale itself deprecated it.

As someone who switched to Dorico a couple of weeks ago after 25 years with Finale (and Speedy), I would encourage other Finale orphans to start by putting themselves in a Dorico mindset rather than trying to use Dorico just like Finale. IMO, Dorico is a much better program than Finale, even if there are some things I wish worked a little differently.

I’ve found that although Dorico gives you different options for note entry, I get the most predictable results using both duration before pitch and dot/accidental/articulation before pitch – which is not the way I natively think about note entry, and not the way my (Finale) muscles are trained. But I’ve gotten used to it.

In the end, I also decided that I didn’t want to retrain my right (keypad) hand, so I remapped the numeric values to the durations I’m used to from Finale. I also remapped Z - M to be a single octave keyboard, and I only had to move one default Dorico command to do it. (The ability to natively remap just about any key command is one of the great features I appreciate in Dorico.)

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I’m not understanding this assertion at all.
I am a former Finale user, I always used Speedy Entry, and I always used a MIDI keyboard for this.
How is Speedy Entry “more desirable” over using a MIDI keyboard when it doesn’t exclude using a MIDI keyboard??

As for Dorico, I use a MIDI keyboard for note entry, with duration before pitch (ie: I press the rhythmic value I want then the MIDI keyboard note I wish to enter.)

I can fly through note entry with this method, entering on multiple staves or single staves.

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Yet another topic about how Dorico should become Finale, can the wishful thinking stop?
It doesn’t matter how you think, absolute, relative or whatever, it matters what are the efficient methods and when to use them, something that can only be done if you give an ounce of consideration before being stubborn on keeping the old ways.
It’s equivalent to me going to Cubase or Logic and demand some edit method to be like ProTools…

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Thanks for your reply!

It seems, these are both related. I think I might have judged too quickly regarding the impossibility of accidentals, since I just confirmed that accidentals now work, but only when not in chord mode which is probably why it did not work in the first place. The setting you showed me has nothing to to with this since I just confirmed that it works either way (but with different flavours of course).

Regarding the impossibility of chords, your solution can indeed work as a partial workaround, but IMO you have to be able to get the accidentals right and preferably also be able to undo the pressing of the Y key (or any other alphabetic note name) for it to be completely usable.

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Yes, that is exactly the counterpoint I made:

What I then suggested was to have the normal navigation key commands overridden only in the pitch-before-duration mode, perhaps toggleable in the preferences.

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It would of course be unlikely that someone who writes music can’t read their own music. However, speaking from personal experience, a lot of music that I either write/arrange/typeset contains motivic figures, and this means that I have to translate the melodic contour to absolute pitches before entering them. While this is not difficult per se for a typical experienced musician, it’s an extra step that requires mental resources which add up in the long run. And if doing it “intervalically” you then also get the benefit of subconscious learning from repetition.

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Well, I completely agree with the OP, and it’s the only thing I still miss from Finale.

Yeah, yeah… there are other ways to input notes. I get it. They’re completely functional and I’ve adapted. But on this point, I still prefer the old way.

But this is probably the fifth time I’ve commented on this in the past couple weeks, so I promise I’ll stop… :sunglasses:

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I suppose, as a preference, that could work. But then if you’re in pitch-before-duration mode and want to go up/down staves, you would not be able to? Or that would use a modifier key? (I feel like if a preference were to flip the keyboard functionality and people mistakenly enter one or the other modes without realizing why it’s suddenly not working as before, we’ll absolutely hear about it on these forums, confusing/not intuitive/etc haha)

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Well, I hoped I was clear that these were only personal opinions and speculations. Maybe I’m wrong and I’ll never use it. But for entering simple melodic lines, depending on the mindset I’m in that particular day, I can definitely imagine that I sometimes might prefer it over using my MIDI keyboard. But, we’re all different and I can definitely also imagine that some people don’t want to use it at all.

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I can respect this approach, since as I mentioned I do sometimes work and write intervallically, too. Especially since (like most people) I don’t have absolute/perfect pitch, when I sing I always think relatively in terms of adjacent notes, which makes it easier to transpose as well. I’ve also played guitar for years so while I do know the names on the fretboard (which took me forever), I enjoy being able to also turn that side of my brain off, especially when improvising, thinking in terms of hand shapes / contours and simply moving my hand up and down the neck to transpose patterns/chords. So I think what you describe is not too dissimilar to this. I definitely think both methods of entry have their benefits in how we approach music, which of course also depends on musical context.

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As the OP, I can assure you that I don’t want Dorico to become Finale.

As the OP, I can also assure you that I have never in my life used Speedy Entry, so this is definitely not about keeping the old ways, but for me rather the opposite, since I am very open to the idea that the Speedy Entry might enhance my own and other people’s workflows. And I absolutely do not agree that it does not matter how you think, but rather the opposite; depending on how you think, different methods works differently well.

Then, like I suggested, you could simply deactivate pitch-before-duration mode to revert to normal navigation.

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I saw your suggestion and acknowledge that. I just think a lot of users would find further adds a layer of confusion and “unintuitiveness” why the modes behave differently, if say they wanted to move up and down staves while staying in note input, and the key commands were literally reversed from other modes.

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This sounds quite good, although that can backfire as @wing said.

I forgot how many times I’ve changed my mind due to exploring other options and being willing to get better, and not “this specific method works because that’s how I’ve always thought”.
As a musician, I try to use all methods at once, and not one that suits my preferences.

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If it’s going to be a war, it will indeed most likely be reminiscent of a religious one, since it would be absolutely pointless and totally negligent of the possibility that people can actually still coexist while having different beliefs, habits and preferences, as could different input methods within the same program. :exploding_head:

Good point! :+1: I have now updated my first post to clarify what I mean when I say “Speedy Entry”.

I covered that too :stuck_out_tongue::

And like I also suggested, this should be toggleable (and probably also off by default, reserved for power users).

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Yeah, I read that – definitely might be a bit more of a power user thing. I can definitely see a lot of confusion, in particular when people do want to use pitch-before-input AND quickly move up and down staves, confused why it’s suddenly not working. But perhaps for power users who know what they are doing, this could be a menu preference which they toggle on (like you say, not on by default).

I am looking forward to seeing what the team cooks up in the next major release, since I know this is a big deal for many users.

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