Score Writer Hints and Tips

Let's begin. Entering a song completely from the keyboard can be quite quickly done if you know a few shortcuts. To enter a song quickly you need to be able to enter and change notes and rests as quickly as possible, and we do this via keyboard shortcuts. We'll also use a keyboard shortcut to quickly return to the Arrow Cursor button.

Important:

• When instructed to highlight a note or other element, the Arrow Cursor button must obviously be chosen.
• It is often easier to highlight a note or other element by swiping it with the cursor instead of clicking on it.
• Capital letters are used in the instructions below to make them stand out. However, just use the lower case letter when performing the keyboard shortcuts.

To quickly choose the Arrow Cursor button when another button is active:

Press the letter C on your keyboard.

To quickly choose a specific note or rest to input regardless of which button is active:

Just press the number representing the note, or the number followed by an R for rests. For example:

• 1 = whole note; 2 = half note; 4 = quarter note; and so on
• 2. = dotted half note; 4. = dotted quarter note; and so on
• 1R = whole rest; 2R = half rest; 4R = quarter rest; and so on

To quickly move notes up, down, left, or right:

Highlight the note or rest and use the up, down, left, or right arrows on your keyboard. This gives you much more control than using the mouse.

To quickly delete a note or rest:

Highlight the note or rest and press the Delete key. Do not use the Erase Tool except when absolutely necessary.

When you must use the Erase Tool:

When you cannot highlight an element with the cursor; for instance, Barlines, Repeats, Endings, and Arpeggios. To delete a Barline you must choose the Erase Tool and click on the very top of the Barline.

To quickly enter notes or measures already in the score:

Highlight and copy the notes or measures, go to the new area, and paste. Note: copying and pasting notes in measures already containing notes can have weird results. Be careful. ALSO, if you already have a measure with notes containing the same rhythm or note-type sequence, it can be faster to copy and paste the measure and then move the notes to their proper position (versus entering each note). This is especially true for chords. You can move notes very quickly with the arrow keys with just a little practice!

Beaming notes according to meter:

Highlight the notes and press Ctl-B.

Flipping a note from sharp to flat, or from flat to sharp:

Highlight the note and press Ctl-F.

Flipping a Tie, Slur, or Tuplet the other direction:

Highlight and press Ctl-F.

Creating an arpeggio that stretches treble to bass clefs:

Choose the arpeggio tool from the Articulations palette and click on the chord in the treble clef. Then, using the Arrow Cursor button (C), drag the bottom of the arpeggio downward as far as desired.

Other keyboard shortcuts when the Arrow Cursor button is selected:

• Pressing Shift and then clicking on the 1st and last note will highlight these notes and all notes in-between.
• Pressing Ctl and clicking on multiple notes will highlight these multiple notes.
• Double-clicking in a measure will highlight all of the notes in the measure.