The invention is a method and system for assigning notes to be played by a musical synthesizer to a predetermined number of channels of said musical synthesizer, so that the musical synthesizer may emulate the note allocation of a live orchestra section. The method includes the steps of selecting a note/channel assignment table corresponding to the number of notes to be played and the number of channels allocated to the playing of such notes, and assigning notes to the channels pursuant to the assignment table. The number of channels would typically be the same as the number of instruments in the orchestra section being emulated As new note events occur, notes are dynamically reassigned to channels so that hard and soft attacks are taken into account and, to the extent practicable, each channel plays a single note at a time.