Mouse Input and the Keyboard Panel

Inputting notes with a mouse is simple in Sibelius, but it can be quite time-consuming, so you should try to use the shortcuts just dis-
cussed to speed things up.

Before you begin inputting notes, choose View > Panels > Keyboard to open the Keyboard panel. This is a virtual, on-screen piano key-
board which can display over seven octaves of keys at three different sizes. Click on a key with your mouse to hear the note played back.

Keyboard panel

You’re going to input a section of the counter-melody from the start of the clarinet staff, to complement the vocal melody.

To input a section of the counter-melody from the start of the clarinet staff (example):
1 Select the first note from the Keypad.
2 Ensure nothing in your score is selected by pressing Esc (or clicking the top left button on the Keypad).
3 Now press 4 (on the numeric keypad) to select a quarter note. The mouse pointer turns dark blue, to show that it is “carrying” a note.
4 Press “.” (on the numeric keypad) to make the quarter note dotted.

As you move the mouse pointer over the score, a gray shadow note is drawn, showing you where the dotted quarter note will be created
when you click. Notice how it even draws leger lines above and below the staff, so you can position high and low notes accurately.
5 Now click the mouse pointer near the start of the clarinet staff, pointing at the A space, second space up:

    

If you clicked in the wrong place, you can use the Up and Down Arrows to adjust the pitch of the note after you’ve input it.

Notice that the note you just added is dark blue, showing that it’s selected, and a vertical dark blue line—called the caret—is just to the
right of it.

The caret means that Sibelius is ready for you to input more notes. You should think of the caret like the familiar line you find in word
processing software. The caret is especially useful for alphabetic input, which you’ll come to a little later.
6 Press 3 to select the eighth note on the Keypad.
7 Click with the mouse to add a G on the second line up on top of the eighth rest.
8 Press 4 to select the quarter note again and click to add a note in the F space on top of the quarter rest.

The quarter note button on the Keypad stays selected, so you can carry on creating more notes by clicking with the mouse—you don’t
need to re-choose the quarter note button.

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Note Input and Editing