Sibelius in the Classroom

One of the most rewarding aspects of my role as Product Manager for Sibelius is meeting Sibelius users and talking to them about what they do with the software, what they'd like to be able to do more easily, and how they'd like to see it develop in the future. When we were planning which features to add in Sibelius 4, I was lucky enough to talk to hundreds of users of all kinds, including dozens of educators.

What they told me was that they find Sibelius an incredible resource for teaching and learning, but that producing classroom materials could be something of a chore. Worksheets often require not only a great deal of research in order to produce suitable exercises, but also need some advanced layout and formatting to make them look good. Despite Sibelius' easy and flexible methods for laying out pages, some teachers told me that they often resorted to quickly scribbling out their worksheets on score paper, bypassing Sibelius altogether.

This got us thinking: we already provide a range of software for music educators of all kinds, including best-in-class packages like Sibelius Instruments and Sibelius Compass. What if we were to add educational content to Sibelius itself, complementing and supporting the curricula of our existing range of products, and give teachers a super-easy way to create a comprehensive range of teaching materials, taking care of both the required research and the difficulty of producing good-looking worksheets quickly?

So was born Sibelius 4's Worksheet Creator feature!

To read the entire article Click here.

To watch a demonstration video of the Worksheet Creator™, Dynamic Parts™ and/or Digital Video features of Sibelius 4 in action, please Click Here.

International Songwriting Competition

Only three weeks remain to enter your songs in the International Songwriting Competition, one of the largest of such contests in the world. Entrants compete for more than $100,000 in cash and prizes, including an Overall Grand Prize package of $10,000 (US) in cash and $20,000 in merchandise. Since Sibelius is one of the competition's sponsors, all grand-prize and first-place winners will receive copies of Sibelius 4, and all second-place winners will receive copies of Sibelius G7.

Songwriters, bands, and solo artists of all levels are encouraged to enter. If you are looking to gain exposure in the music industry, ISC offers you the opportunity to have your music heard by leading recording artists and esteemed industry professionals. This gives you the chance to have unprecedented access to some of the most influential decision makers in the music industry.

For more details, visit http://www.songwritingcompetition.com/entry.htm

SoCAL Sibelius Users Group Formed

The first meeting of the Southern California Sibelius Users Group took place at the beginning of the month at the NoHo Arts Center in North Hollywood. Already approximately 90 members strong, 80 Sibelius users attended the first gathering. Spearheaded by a steering committee consisting of Doug LeBow, Chairman; Secretary, Stephen Cohn; Education Committee Chair, Paul Ludden and Treasurer and Member at Large, Jamie Robertson, the evening’s main event featured a presentation by Sibelius Western Region Manager, Bruce Munson, on the new features of Sibelius 4. The group has also created a SCSUG forum on Yahoo with Sibelius 4 product manager, Daniel Spreadbury and Sibelius USA Technical Support Manager, Tom Betts, joining in.

If you are interested in joining the SCSUG, please contact Stephen Cohn at: scohnmusic@earthlink.net. Perhaps you are interested in forming a Sibelius users group in your area? If so, drop us an email at editor@gracenotes.com and we'll be happy to assist in getting you started. An in-depth article on the formation of the new users' group will appear in the next issue of Gracenotes.

Hints & Tips for Sibelius Users

NOTE: We’re re-submitting Bruce Munson’s formatting tutorial as it was improperly linked on our website (our fault) to a more abbreviated Hints & Tips document.  This is a fantastically useful tutorial however, so we apologize to our readers, and hope you’ll go and take a look at this. Bruce did a great job on this one.  And yes, we’ll be updating this to Sibelius 4 in the coming weeks.

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 Click here.

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