"Ah feel your pain." to coin a phrase. I think that I started with BIAB 2006 ver. I'm an amateur musician and my musical notation knowledge has quite a ways to go. Yep, me too, when I first opened BIAB. Way too complicated for this old dude. I did upgrade to 2007 but I just let it sit on the shelf. Then I realized that there were some things I would like to do with BIAB, like make some backups so my wife and I could play at retirement homes and hospitals. The older folks like the old standards and we couldn't always find a recorded tune that we could alter and use for a backup. It was time to pay the piper. I knew that I had to use a couple of references that I already had including "Idiot's Music Theory", Sibelius, and Wavepad. Hey I didn't even know all of the major and minor scales not to mention the modes. I knew what a chord is and can read music okay. There are big gaps in peoples' musical knowledge even right here on this forum. I consider myself a rookie and BIAB seems quite complex to me. However, I have learned over the years to attack a problem like eating a pie; 1 piece at a time and make those pieces small, please. Set a reasonable (maybe even a small one at first) goal. Yeah, I get discouraged with BIAB sometimes, too. OTOH, I know that part of the problem is that I have not just jumped in and played with and experimented with the various features. That applies to Sibelius, the music notation program, too. No, I'm not crictizing you for your comments. To me it's a matter of choice and motivation. I play the trumpet. I've tried a couple of times to learn the guitar and have given up each time. I can't seem to get my left hand position right so I quit. Could I learn to get my left hand in the correct position? With a helluva a lot of work, I probably could. But am I motivated enough to learn to do it? You say you are a non-musician. The term "musician" encompasses a wide array of abilities and talents. Still, there are certain basics that we all have to learn if we want to make music. There are "naturals" out there who don't even need music notation at all. Everything just comes naturally to them. Improvisation is easy for some and others like me really have to work hard to even scratch the surface. I'm not ashamed to admit that I look in "Idiot's Music Theory" fairly often. I suggest that you spend a little time in defining your goals and work toward them even if you have to start with a very basic keyboard course book. Learning music is like learning another language, It's certainly not easy and it takes patience and tenacity. The rewards are really worth the efforts though. Oh, and to the person said that all musicians know what a digital recording studio is-----for some of us, maybe not

Cornet Curmudgeon