What's New at Sibelius

Sibelius Debuts Auralia 3

—New Version of the World's Leading Aural Training Software Adds More Power for Teachers and Students Alike —

Auralia 3

Sibelius announces the arrival of Auralia 3, the new, extensively updated version of the highly acclaimed Auralia aural training and assessment software from the Australian-based software developer Rising Software.

The new Auralia 3 user interface has been completely redesigned, making it clearer and brighter, creating an interactive aural training program that is easy and fun to use. It now includes hundreds of new, graded exercises along with the drill and practice routines that provide instant feedback to create a stimulating learning environment for the students. Students can even sing or play answers into the program using a MIDI keyboard or microphone – and this latest version includes a virtual guitar fretboard for more input flexibility. Assessment is no longer a challenge for music teachers, who can easily track student progress and even import lists of students from other applications such as Microsoft Excel™.

To learn more please Click here.

Dynamic Parts: The New Revolution in Part Production
By: Daniel Spreadbury, Product Manager for Sibelius 4

Application Screenshot

Making instrumental parts has long been the element of preparing a score for performance that composers, arrangers and copyists have found most time-consuming. In the days before computers could be utilized, of course, parts were painstakingly copied by hand, and when notation software like Sibelius first appeared, the ability to extract a complete set of instrumental parts in a matter of moments at the click of a button seemed like nothing short of a miracle.

However, even with all the smart things Sibelius does to make parts look as good as possible by default, they still need tweaks, many of which have to be done on each part.

And once rehearsals for the work have started and the composer decides he needs to add a bar here, cut a phrase there, making these alterations in the part becomes a real chore: do you fix each of the parts individually, or do you fix the score and then extract all the parts again, losing all of the manual tweaks you've painstakingly created?

Whichever decision you make, you're facing hours of edits. Sure, it's better than re-copying them all by hand, but aren't computers suppose to make this stuff easy?
Yes they are. And now, Sibelius 4's new Dynamic Parts™ feature, they do.

To read the entire article Click here.

Sibelius in the Classroom

Award-Winning Young Musician Kyle Athayde Gets His Downbeat With Sibelius

John Sloat, Alto Sax; Jake Geier, Bass; Kyle Athayde, Vibes and Trumpet; Bill Reilly, President, Sibelius USA; and band leader Chase Baird, Tenor Sax.

The Kyle Athayde Quintet has been honored by DownBeat magazine, the "bible" of jazz musicians and fans, as the nation's top high school instrumental group. The quintet's 17-year-old namesake and leader also won a DownBeat Outstanding Performance award for his solo work on trumpet and vibraphone—one of four since he started entering the competition in 2002, when he captured first place.

The quintet, a jazz group from Acalanes High School in Lafayette, Calif., was picked from a field of 878 applicants and also includes Chaise Baird, 17 (tenor sax); John Sloat, 18 (alto sax); Will Ewing, 16 (drums); and bassist Jake Geir, 17.

Athayde, who also plays piano and drums, began playing violin at age four, switched to trumpet when he was nine and took up the vibes at age 14. In seventh grade, he began playing professionally with his father, trumpeter and pianist Robert Athayde, who teaches music at Stanley Middle School in Lafayette.

To read the entire article Click here.

Hints & Tips for Sibelius Users

Sibelius 3 Formatting

By Bruce C. Munson

When working in Sibelius, the software's auto-formatting features are at work behind the scenes, always making your scores look good. This is because Sibelius would like you to concentrate on your music making rather than on constantly grappling with formatting issues while you are inputting notes. Therefore, it is advisable that you input all of your notes and markings before you make any formatting adjustments. Usually, Sibelius' auto-formatting creates beautiful layouts, so you need not make any additional formatting adjustments. Occasionally you will want to make some adjustments to the layout, and again, it is better and easier to do this after you have finished inputting. However, there are times when you want to format your score before inputting notes. This would be the case with format-intensive layouts like worksheets and perhaps lead sheets.

This tutorial will give you a close look into Sibelius' comprehensive formatting features.

To download this indispensable new Hints & Tips tutorial and others from our on-line archive please Click here

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