Gracenotes

Sibelius USA, Inc. Newsletter - January, 2006

 

Welcome to the January issue of Gracenotes—our e-mail newsletter to Sibelius enthusiasts in North, Central and South America. The purpose of Gracenotes is to inform and involve a rapidly growing Sibelius community that includes educators, students and professionals - to share our challenges, ideas and achievements.
 
There are so many things going on in the Sibelius community lately that it’s all we can do to keep up - and I’m keeping the intro deliberately short to make more time for it all. One thing I feel compelled to mention is that the new Sibelius Sounds sound libraries (including the Garritan Personal Orchestra for Sibelius) are shipping - details below. The new sounds really are terrific, and we’ve included some web links below to fill you in on the details.  We’ve also put together a short list of useful tips from our support team, to help you get up and running quickly and efficiently.

We have a number of articles about extraordinary Sibelius artists and educators this month; I hope you enjoy them. 

We appreciate your feedback and encourage you to e-mail us at gracenotes@sibelius.com to share your thoughts about past, present or future editions of Gracenotes.

Mark Ruch, Editor

 

Sibelius in the Classroom


Sibelius Unlocks the Keys to Music Mastery at High-Powered School District

The seventh graders entered their music lab classroom quietly and sat down in the middle of the room. When the teacher gave them the green light to go to their workstations, they exploded with excitement, donned their headphones and tinkered with their compositions. Though the students seemed to be having a good time, giggling and interacting as they huddled around their computer monitors, they were learning the fundamentals of music with the help of Sibelius 4.

Under the tutelage of teachers Todd Beaney and Helen Cannistraci, Sibelius has given students at Rye, N.Y. Middle and High Schools an opportunity to master basic concepts of music theory. The program, which has grown exponentially since the school adopted Sibelius three years ago, is geared for students who neither play an instrument nor participate in band or chorus.

This year, 170 students enrolled in elective digital music classes, a remarkable number in a district known for high achievement that prizes performance in Advanced Placement classes as all-important determinants of a student’s future.

“God bless the people who developed Sibelius,” said Cannistraci. “They know and understand musicians. They’re obviously not just technicians, and that makes a huge difference.”

For one thing, other programs require too many steps, she said. “Even something so simple as inputting text is difficult in other programs. We were at a workshop and the instructor couldn’t even do it. With Sibelius, adding bars, deleting measures, and changing key signatures is so easy.”

To read the entire article click here.

In this issue

Sibelius in the Classroom
Sibelius Product News
Featured Sibelius Users
Upcoming Trainings, Shows and Events
Gracenotes Archive

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Contact us

Sibelius Sales
1407 Oakland Blvd
Suite 103
Walnut Creek, CA 94596
Fax: 925-280-0008
Email: infoUSA@sibelius.com

Sibelius Product News

Sibelius Sounds

Sibelius Sounds is a range of high-quality collections of sound samples for Sibelius 3 and 4.

Each collection comes with a special version of the acclaimed Kontakt sample player from Native Instruments, with controls for reverb, brightness, tuning and other audio characteristics. As well as playing back, you can also export an audio file to create a CD or an MP3 file.

Kontakt Gold
Kontakt Gold
A mixture of 63 orchestral, band, jazz, rock/pop and vocal sounds, plus 111 unpitched percussion sounds.

Read more...

NEW Rock & Pop Collection
Rock & Pop
All the sounds you'll need to write rock and pop music in Sibelius 4, from guitars, keyboards and drums to horns, strings, voices, and even a Hammond B3 organ.

Read more...

NEW Garritan Personal Orchestra (Sibelius Edition)
Garritan Personal Orchestra
The acclaimed collection of orchestral sounds, in a special version for Sibelius 4.

270 pitched instruments plus five unpitched percussion ensembles (containing 58 separate percussion sounds), of which you can play up to
32 at once.
Read more...

Sibelius Sounds - Some Helpful Suggestions

  • In order to install the GPO Sibelius Edition or Rock and Pop Collection, you will need a DVD drive.  A regular CD-ROM drive won’t work. 
  • You can adjust the preferences for the Kontakt Player in Play > Playback and Input Devices by clicking on the Kontakt Player Options button.
  • In Kontakt Player Options we’d recommend unmarking the boxes for Automatically load sounds when loading scores and Use reverb.  You should mark the boxes for Unload sounds when switching scores and Use same slot for identical instruments
  • Because it can take quite awhile to load all the samples when playing a score containing many instruments, you may want to use your computer sounds or external MIDI device for playback while working on a score.  You can then switch to the Kontakt Player when finished to hear the score played or when you wish to create an audio track. 
  • Using the Kontakt Player when inputting via Flexi-time is NOT recommended.  Sample players tend to have a high amount of latency and you will experience a delay between when a key is pressed on your MIDI keyboard and you hear the sound from the speakers.  This makes it quite difficult to record in real time.  It’s best to use your computer sounds or external MIDI device when recording in Flexi-time.

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Featured Sibelius Users


 

Sibelius and Narnia - The Story Begins

“Sibelius was absolutely vital for Narnia,” says Harry Gregson-Williams, the multi-award winning composer of the Disney blockbuster score, who was recently nominated for a Golden Globe for the soundtrack.

The score for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe was composed entirely within the Sibelius environment and both Gregson-Williams and his assistant, Stephen Barton, are effusive in their praise for the new features in Sibelius 4 and the overall role the program played in contributing to the efficient creation of the score.

Gregson-Williams, who is currently working on Shrek 3 and whose previous score credits include Shrek 2, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, Father of the Bride and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, is a committed and enthusiastic professional Sibelius user.

To read the entire article, please click here.


Harry Gregson-Williams

Sibelius Helps bring Harry Potter to the Screen

The music for the new film Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was prepared using Sibelius 4, the world’s best-selling music notation software.

Sibelius 4 is used extensively by film, classical and jazz musicians to write, play and print scores. It is also widely used in education. Film customers include composers, orchestrators, copyists, and studios such as Disney, Paramount and Universal. 


Harry Potter article

Vic Fraser at Harry Potter recording session

In addition to Harry Potter, other films and TV shows for which Sibelius has been used include The Chronicles of Narnia, The Constant Gardener, Nanny McPhee, James Bond, Shrek 2, The Simpsons, and Lost to name a few.

To read the entire article, please click here.


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Grammy awards 

A Nod to Grammy® Nominees
Congratulations to the many Sibelius users and 2006 GRAMMY Nominees! This year’s ceremony will be held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles and air in early February. We are thrilled to see so many Sibelius-using nominees and wish to congratulate them and the many others we’ve undoubtedly and inadvertently left off our list. This includes dozens of contributing artists such as Chris Potter (also nominated for “What Now?” with Kenny Wheeler) and Robin Eubanks, who are critical components of the deservingly nominated Dave Holland Big Band. 

Best Pop Instrumental Performance:

T-Jam
George Duke
Track from: Duke
[BPM Records]

Best Contemporary Jazz Album:

Bill Evans - Soul Grass
(BHM Productions)

Pat Metheny Group - The Way Up
(Nonesuch)

Dave Douglas - Keystone
(Greenleaf Music)

Momentum
Joshua Redman Elastic Band
(Nonesuch)

Best Jazz Instrumental Solo:

Herbie Hancock - The Source - Track: Flow-Terence Blanchard
(Blue Note)

Ravi Coltrane - In Flux - Track: Away
(Nonesuch)

Best Jazz Vocal Album:

Good Night, And Good Luck.
Dianne Reeves (Sibelius User Peter Martin - Piano and Arrangements)
[Concord Jazz]

Best Engineered Album, Classical:

Chesky: Area 31
Barry Wolifson, engineer (Anthony Aibel & Area 31)
[Chesky Records]

Best Classical Contemporary Composition:

Ayre
Osvaldo Golijov (Dawn Upshaw)
Track from: Golijov: Ayre; Berio: Folk Songs
[Deutsche Grammophon]

Best Classical Crossover Album:

4 + Four
Turtle Island String Quartet & Ying Quartet
[Telarc]

To see the full list of Grammy nominees, please click here.

 

Upcoming Training, Shows and Events

Are you interested in learning more about Sibelius 4 ? We are offering training sessions in many locations around the U.S. over the next several months. Two types of sessions are available : Sibelius - Beginning, and Sibelius - Intermediate/Advanced.

Training Schedule

New training sessions are being added all the time. Please refer to the link below for the latest schedule of classes.

For more information, or to reserve your space, please visit: www.sibelius.com/training

 

Sibelius will be exhibiting at the following regional seminars, expos and national trade shows:

Upcoming shows and events

Event Dates Location Booth Number Link
Texas MEA 2/15 - 2/18 San Antonio, TX 6131 www.tmea.org
Minnesota MEA 2/15 - 2/18 Minneapolis, MN 609 www.mmea.org
Washington MEA 2/17 - 2/20 Yakima, WA 605 www.wmea.org

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