trying to play middle C from the IDE serial window I send noteOn(0,60,127)
How are you doing that?
a value of 127 is a single byte but when you use the IDE serial monitor you are sending three bytes ASCII 1, 2 and 7, in hex that is 0x31, 0x32, 0x37 are you converting them into a single byte and sending them out through software serial like it said?