At 7:17 PM 06/02/02, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote: >I started with Speedy (I don't play keyboard, and never actually tried the >other way), and I can enter music almost as fast as I can write it with a >pencil, including accidentals and beaming (except, ahem, across barlines) >and grace notes. I hope you can learn it easily, as I think it is an >extremely fast way to work.
I agree with that. I can enter speedy on qwerty faster than I can write it by hand if it's a single voice part. If there's a lot of chords, then it's a little slower. I wish they'd add to speedy entry a key that toggles between normal mode and a mode where entering a note (ie typing a number) doesn't advance the cursor. That would cut out all those left-arrows with the right thumb, which slow me down. I know that sounds like a tiny difference, but when your cranking out the notes at full speed, they can add up. I nominate the space bar for this. Right now it initiates playback, but that could be disabled whenever speedy entry is engaged with no real loss. The other thing lacking for high-speed speedy entry is any letter key that sets the cursor below low C (ie the second ledger line under the bass clef). I want a key that acts like "I" but takes it down another octave . I frequently get notes below that C in left hand piano parts, and it's a pain to have to use the down arrow to get there. I guess grace notes would have been a little easier if they were on the apostrophe instead of the semi-colon. I do them with the right hand (which resides on the number pad), and I suppose it would be a little easier to make the jump if it were one key closer, but I'm pretty much used to going to the semi-colon now. (I almost never use the apostrophe; I do my multiple voicing with layers as much as possible.) But I don't see any point in swapping them now since it would no doubt confuse everyone who is used to it the way it is (including me, no doubt). Another thing that might help speedy entry is if there were some sort of sounds made as keystrokes are made, not just the pitches for notes as they're entered, but a characteristic sound everytime the cursor moves left or right, and another one for when it crosses a barline. That would make it easier for me to keep my eyes on the page without checking the screen every so often. Occasionally I'll look up and find that I've entered several measures wrong because I missed a keystroke a ways back. A new feature that I *don't* like is that typing a number when the cursor is on a note that is already of that value will add a note to the chord. It was better the old way, where it just advanced the cursor and did nothing. That way you could fix/change rhythms by running through the measures with just the number keys, without it doing anything else to the notes. Now if you do that you have to make sure to arrow instead for the notes where the rhythm doesn't change, lest you introduce unwanted pitches. The change has pretty much rendered that technique useless for me, because I have to stop and think about each chord to do it, at which point I've lost the speed advantage. mdl _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
