Hi,

My eight-year-old son has been learning the piano for a year now, and his homeworks starts to get a bit over my head... But in order to help him remember how the piano piece should be played, I thought of buying a piece of software that I could enter the notes from his music sheets, and which could then play back the piece the way it should be via the MIDI-interface on his Casio piano. I have downloaded a test version of Finale Song Writer, and this software can do this, and I can even change tempo and mute the right-hand staff, for example.

However, I thought that there might be a good idea to add some thing extra when he is struggling with his excercises, and that's why I thought of Band-in-a-Box, which hopefully could add some nice sounding accompaniment to his piano pieces and make the excercise moments more of a joy???

But as I am not a musician myself, I thought it best to ask you folks who have more experience with the software!

So in brief, my question is:

Is it possible to easily enter the notes from my sons paper music sheets and then let Band-in-a-Box play it back?
Is it also possible to "mute" the piano staff? So he can practice one hand at the time, and both hands, and let Band-in-a-Box accompany his piano via the MIDI-interface?

If it is not possible to enter the notes directly into Band-in-a-Box it might be able to import the files from e.g. Finale Songwriter in some exchange format???
Any other suggestions that might help my son learning the piano and making the excerices more fun are most welcome!