What do I need to notate as I play?

Question

I hope this isn’t a silly enquiry. My daughter improvises on our piano, classical style, and I would like to know if there’s a means to notate on computer as she plays. We bought Sibelius software but haven’t taken it out of the box yet! I gather we would need an electric keyboard to connect with our laptop, but do we need anything else? Is it as straightforward as that? We home educate so can’t ask for advice from music teachers.

Answer 1

Hi, as a Jazz musician and a long time Sibelius user I can have 2 suggestions for you. If she is improvising and coming up with melodic themes, the best way is to record those ideas. Record on a garage band or even on a phone. After that if she wants to notate certain parts, then she can do on Sibelius. She could record real time but it may not give the best results sometimes. To have an accurate input, I will follow another common approach, which is inputting the note values on computer numeric keypad, followed by playing melodic themes on MIDI keyboard. I hope it is helpful.