Note Entry with Virtual Piano Keyboard

• Nov 20, 2010 - 23:03

Here is a proposition for a new page in the handbook or as a tutorial somewhere? Please let me know if you think it is valuable. I will try to do the same for Mac and Linux as well.

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You can setup MuseScore to work together with Virtual MIDI Piano Keyboard to be able to input notes from the piano into MuseScore.

Setup MuseScore and VMPK on Windows

Download and install VMPK. VMPK is free and open source. If you are not familiar with virtual midi cable, VMPK's website has a nice tutorial.
Install LoopBe1 or Midi Yoke
Restart your computer
Please note that both MIDI cable are free as in beer but not as in speech...
Start MuseScore, and select Edit -> Preferences -> I/O. Choose Port MIDI interface and select LoopBe Internal MIDI or Out to MIDI Yoke 1
Start VMPK and select Edit -> MIDI connection -> Midi out port, choose LoopBe Internal MIDI (all windows 32 or 64 bits) or In from MIDI Yoke 1 (does not work on Windows 7)
Layout your screen to see both VMPK and MuseScore.
In MuseScore, select a rest, press N, then select a duration. In VMPK, click on a key or press a key on your computer keyboard.
In VPMK, you can use your computer keyboard to add a chord by pressing several keys.

Demo in video (can go to youtube and be more pro)

Edit : Removed Maple VMC since it blocks MuseScore on stop : http://musescore.org/node/1335
Edit 2: Added MIDI Yoke

Comments

David Bolton

• Nov 21, 2010 - 18:23

How did you play more than one note on the Virtual MIDI keyboard?

[DELETED] 5

• Nov 21, 2010 - 18:57

You can play several notes in VMPK with your computer keyboard. VMPK accepts XML files to define which keys on the keyboard is mapped to a key on the virtual keyboard. By default, it's a QWERTY mapping, and it tries to map a normal keyboard. The last row are white keys (CVBN), the second row (SDFGHJKL) are black keys and the first letter row (QWERTY) are white keys an octave above.

I edited the post accordingly.

longtalker

• Dec 10, 2011 - 20:10

Thanks for this tutorial! This setup works fine in one direction (clicking piano keys and obtaining the corresponding note on the stave), but is there any way to also make it work in the other direction, i.e. click on a note in a MUseScore sheet, and have the corresponding key light up in the VMPK keyboard? This would be a really useful feature for beginners. Thanks!