Step-time note entry with the MIDI keyboard and the Keyboard panel

Building on what we've learned so far about note entry, another simple way to input notes is by using a combination of your MIDI keyboard with your computer's numeric keypad. This type of note entry is commonly referred to as step-time note entry. And if you're coordinated enough to work with one hand on the numeric keypad, while your other hand is on the MIDI keyboard, this style of note entry can potentially be the fastest way to work in Sibelius. To begin, let's go ahead and tab into the score. You can see I have the bar rest selected in bar 1, and the good news is, the process is very much the same as it was with alphanumeric note entry.

Once you tell Sibelius where you'd like to begin, you can select a note value in your numeric keypad, like number 4 for a quarter note, and instead of using the letters A through G to input notes with your left hand on the QWERTY keyboard, you're going to use the keys on your MIDI keyboard. So I'm going to select a few notes on my MIDI keyboard. (music playing) And make sure you move slow enough so that Sibelius doesn't think you're playing a chord. You need to move step by step, and that's why it's really called step-time. There are several advantages of working in step time instead of alphanumeric note entry.

First, you don't have to think to add an accidental; you just play the note, and Sibelius writes it for you. So if I play an F sharp, Sibelius writes an F sharp. You can also enter all of the notes of a chord or cluster together at once. So if I play,like, a C major chord, Sibelius writes that in for me. And you can also enter notes in all of the correct octaves. So I can play a very low note, or a very high note, and Sibelius will write those notes immediately into the right octave. Now, to enter rests in step time, you'd enter them just as you did before with alphanumeric entry; with the 0 key.

So if I wanted to enter this quarter note rest, I have a quarter note selected, and I just hit the rest key on my keypad. You also enter ties just like you did before. So I have a quarter note selected, I'm going to play the note C on my keyboard, and if I'm going to tie it that to an eighth note, I would hit the Tie key, or the Enter key on my keypad, maybe select an eighth no value now, and then play that C again on my MIDI keyboard, and now it's tied over. You also attach articulations just like you did before. So if I want a couple of eighth notes with staccatos on them, I have the eighth note value selected. In my keypad, I'm going to select the staccato to add that to it, and now just play a few notes on the keyboard.

(music playing) And they'll have the staccatos on there. And again, don't forget to toggle off the articulation in your keypad. So using the MIDI keyboard and step-time can be a very fun and quick way to enter notes. There's one other way you can use the MIDI keyboard to input notes, and that's in real-time with a click. And I'll introduce you briefly to that option, which we call flexi-time, in the next video.