The
Music Typing Keyboard

Did
you ever dream of an easy, intuitive, natural, fast and user
friendly way to enter music with a computer?

This
is now a reality, with the Music Typing Keyboard.

Your
benefits

The main
benefits of this keyboard are:

The possibility to increase the speed with which you enter music

A natural and intuitive logic for entering the music

If you are
looking for a more logical way to enter music than by combining
the computer keyboard, the MIDI keyboard and the mouse, this
keyboard is for you.

Up to now, there
was no keyboard specifically designed to enter music.

This keyboard
was conceived right from the beginning to provide a natural and
intuitive way to enter music.

The
basic principle

The central part
of the keyboard has one octave (7 notes) and a rest value, for
three rhythmic values (eighth note, quarter note and half note).
This forms a table of notes and rhythms. Two pairs of keys are
used to shift octaves and rhythmic values very easily.

You can use the
10 fingers to type the notes, which helps you to accelerate music
entry, as you get more and more accustomed to the keyboard. This
is a music typing method.

The other keys
give access to the various options needed while entering the
music, like the accidentals, the ties, nuances,... They are
placed in such a way that the most needed keys are closest to the
hand.

You can
use it with Finale and Sibelius

The keyboard is
sold with Pizzicato Notation (but you can buy it alone if you
already have Pizzicato). This software handles the interface with
the keyboard and then exports a musicXML file, that you
can use with most music software like Finale, Sibelius,...
You can of course also arrange the page layout and print the
score in Pizzicato if you prefer.

You can view
this keyboard and the software as a fast and intuitive
way to enter music. You export it to musicXML and you
can continue to work with your favorite music software.

It is in some
ways similar to using a music scanning program, as such a program
is also an easy way to enter the music. In the case of the
keyboard, it is a fast way to enter the content of a sheet music,
whether you are copying it or you are composing it (Mozart, Bach
and Beethoven would for sure have appreciated this keyboard!).

So, you can use
the advantages of this new revolutionary method to enter notes,
with most of the professional music software and edit and
finalize (or sibeliusize...) the score in your favorite software.

Why is
this keyboard a revolution?

The search for
faster and more efficient methods to enter music with a computer
started a long time ago. Nowadays, most music software offer
several methods to enter the content of a staff on the screen, so
as to publish it and/or arrange and play it.

The most common
method is a tool palette offering the rhythmic values, which is
used with the mouse to place the notes on the staff. Shortcuts
from the computer keyboard make the process faster to select the
rhythmic values, the pitch and various other utilities like
slurs, ties, accidentals,...

If you connect a
MIDI keyboard to the computer, you can often select the pitch of
notes with that keyboard (but this implies you can use a music
keyboard) and combine with the computer keyboard for rhythmic
values.

You can also
play the music in real time to get the score, but anyone who
tried that knows that if the score is somewhat complex, even
performed with precision, there are often corrections to do,
which limits the efficiency of the method.

Furthermore, in
most cases the shortcuts and details of the ways to enter music
are different from software to software. If you change software,
you must learn again how to use the shortcuts.

A computer
keyboard has not been designed to enter music and its use for
that purpose can only be a compromise, as it is first designed to
enter text.

Similarly, a
music piano keyboard has been designed to play a piece of music
and not to enter music on a staff with all its subtle graphic
details. The most obvious problem is that each note may be
written in different ways, like F# or Gb. And when you play
eighth notes, do you beam them by 2, 3 or 4? Do you assemble two
simultaneous notes as a chord or as different voices? And so
on... A MIDI keyboard is not designed to express this kind of
details.

The use of the
mouse, even if it is quite intuitive, is a relatively slow way to
enter the music.

Here comes the Music
Typing keyboard, as its advantage is that it has been
specifically designed according to the needs of entering music
with a computer. Its logic to enter notes and rhythmic values
provides a quick learning curve and after some practice can
considerably increase the speed to enter the music.

The central part
of the keyboard is used to enter notes and rhythms. The other
most important keys are placed around this central part so as to
be easily accessible, like the accidentals, ties, dotted
notes,...

To help you in
the beginning, a window can display the various functions of the
keyboard in an interactive way, but once you master the keyboard,
this window is no more useful and the screen can be used fully to
display the score you are writing.

Is it
only a question of speed?

While its speed
is indeed a major step forward of this new keyboard, its specific
design to enter music makes it an intuitive, natural and user
friendly tool, as it is perfectly adapted to the needs of music
notation. It is therefore also well adapted in the field of music
education.

Try it
for yourself and see...

If not yet done,
download the demo of Pizzicato 3.6. This software has a window
that represents the keyboard and you can use it with the mouse.
Of course, it does not offer the advantages of the real keyboard,
but at least you can see how it works and how intuitive and
natural it is to enter the music with it.