Enter notes

Entering notes and editing is done on the notation bar.

Entering a melody note-by-note can be done in several ways. The duration of the notes to be entered depends on the setting on the toolbar. The input method

Arrow keys and Enter

Make sure that text input mode is set to chord symbols. With <> and <> you move the cursor diatonically (within the scale) over the height of the stave. The note cursor changes from a cross to a circle. Once the note cursor is positioned where you want to insert a note, press <Enter> to place the note. With <+> and <-> you can then raise or lower the cursor note chromatically (by semitones). push down. Sharps, flats and naturals are automatically placed where necessary.

Note letters

Make sure direct text input mode is set to notes (a-g). Using the keys <a>,<b>,<c>,<d>,<e>,<f> ,<g> you now directly enter the note (depending on the key, the <a> produces the note a, ais or as etc.). If necessary, you can adjust the octave with <*> (octave up) or </> (octave down).

Mouse

Make sure that is not pressed (the mouse cursor is a cross instead of an arrow), and click the mouse on the notation bar where you want to place a new note. The note you drop like this gets the duration as selected on the buttonbar. When is pressed (mouse cursor is an arrow), the note cursor is moved to the mouse position with a click.

PC keyboard

Set text input mode to Keyboard (1-z) and enable keyboard input with The PC keyboard now looks like a two-manual organ keyboard : the rows <q>-<\> and <z>-<?> are the white (piano) keys, the other two rows are the black ones. The <c> and the <e> represent the note C (in different octaves). Each keystroke appears as a note on the screen. Note duration is determined as with MIDI keyboard.

MIDI keyboard

Make sure a MIDI keyboard is properly connected and enable keyboard input in the toolbar. With each keyboard touch, a note with duration as selected on the toolbar is added after the note cursor. A long press on a keyboard key enters double the duration, a very short press half the duration ("short" and "long" relative to the current tempo).

In score view you can use <Tab> to move to the next bar. With <Backspace> you can delete the previous note (to the left of the note cursor).

After each change, the measures on the notation bar are recalculated and, if necessary, (partially) drawn again. With <n> you can redraw the notation bar. This may be necessary if editing only rewrote part of the screen.

With <ESC> you can finish entering and editing on the notation bar. If no errors are found, the melody reappears in full screen. If an error was detected, for example because two semitones were set in 3/4 time, MusiCAD will show an error message. If you now choose [OK], MusiCAD will go to the first note of the measure where the error was found in the notation bar. It is possible that the error has actually already been made in a measure before, but only leads to a report later on...

It is also possible that more than one error was found. In that case a button with [>>] is visible, which allows you to show the different errors one after the other. If you want to ignore error(s), choose [Cancel], and the melody will play with error(s) and all (hopefully) all over the screen. Any accompaniment parts will now go wrong 10 to 1, and your score will probably be a mess...