what are you trying to do exactly??... It can be easier but that is the job for front end programs, not realy a job for the csound engine itself, think of the engine as writing the vst instrument that you wish to use for alot of composers it is already done.. You should be able to do everything from the complex doctorate stuff that alot of us don't realy wish to look at to just using it for midi or time based tracker style layouts and drum patterns (grid style or tabs)... (maybe this would be a good start of a csound article)... I would sugest restating the problem (or question) as I wish to to a b or c with csound and maybe even suggest it should look like (whatever you want it to look like) when you are doing it. It is possible to do almost anything in csound that is done in any other music program and to make it look somewhat like that program when you are doing it. The one thing that can through people off when trying to use other peoples instruments without learning how to program in csound is the ifn fields, because unless you are using a parser you have to change the fields in both the instrument and the score. It is possible to use a parser for this and then recombine the instruments thereby making it the fault of the tools available for csound and not a design flaw. midi is another area where the tool would be better if it was included in the distrubution.

If you are after an eisier programming envirement you can try something functional like faust.. It all depends on the programming problem. If you have a particular sound and envirement you are after let me know and I'll see if I have a way to pull it off.

Yes, the tutorials can be a little bit confusing at the onset. But stick with it, and a little effort will go a long way. When I began a few years ago, I found it helpful to read through as many tutorials as possible, and then re-read the ones I read first, as the information is somewhat scattered across all of the tutorials. Also, if you have not installed QuteCsound, I suggest doing so and looking through all of the examples included in the "examples" menu. Good Luck.