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The Making of An American Idol: On Stage and On Tour, Sibelius Helps Dreams Come True (Fast)

Arranging and Composing On The Fly Just Part of the Phenomenon.

When music director Rickey Minor asked Andy Weiner to join him as keyboardist and arranger for the Fox phenomenon American Idol, Weiner was thrilled. And after this past season, Weiner, who has played keyboard for James Ingram,

Chaka Khan, Pattie LaBelle and Stevie Wonder,found American Idol’s diverse and fast-paced musical format to be an exciting, and challenging, format. With five hit seasons behind it, American Idol has come to represent the ordinary Joe or Jane, who, from any background, can emerge as an international star with an extraordinary life. And different backgrounds they have. From Taylor Hicks and his “Soul Patrol” sound, to Chris Daughtry’s alternative rock, this year’s contestants brought a huge range of musical styles to Idol, and a brand new set of challenges for arrangers and composers. Says Weiner, “In the beginning of the season, you have about a dozen female and male contestants and every one of them needs a different song arranged and composed each week. The contestants choose a song to perform on a Thursday or Friday, and you’ve got until Saturday to create a new arrangement that works for their voice, range, or style.” Adding to the challenge are American Idol judges, like Simon Cowell, who pay close attention to unique musical arrangements (and will pan a bad one in front of millions of viewers). They just aren’t impressed with a rehash of an original recording. The format of the show also requires shorter versions of classic tunes, which means a lot of editing on the fly. To read the entire story click here

Sibelius Hints and Tips

Separating Two Instruments on One Staff in the Score While Maintaining Dynamic Parts

By Doug LeBow

1. There is no need to extract these parts.
2. The easiest way to handle this situation is to use the "Score" as a work view where you can create extra staves for each of the individual instruments, like Flute 1 and Flute 2.
3. Switch on "Focus on Staves", view only the Flutes 1&2, Flute 1, and Flute 2 staves. Copy and paste the individual Flute 1 and Flute 2 lines into the newly created staves using the filters, and keep the original staff for reference.
4. Adding the new staves will also create new parts for them.
   This process will render your original score unusable due to the increased number of staves, and the difficulty of managing them all  via "Focus on Staves", but you can easily make a new "Score" by creating an extra Dynamic Part™ called "Conductor Score" where you can put in all of those "composite" staves.
5. This process works very well, and in the end you keep all of the
   parts, score, and work area (original score) in the same file so that you can easily make whatever changes necessary.
   

Names and Bar Numbers
(You'll find this feature under the View menu. Select 'Staff Names and Bar Numbers')

When working on scores for large-scale ensembles, or when zoomed in, it is
very useful to be able to tell which staff you are working on, and which bar
you are working in, without having to cast about looking for the instrument
name and bar number.

This option draws bar numbers in blue above every bar, and draws the name of
each staff at the left-hand side of the screen when the instrument names are
off the left-hand side of the screen.

Two Transposition Tricks
In Sibelius the use of the Notes > Transpose feature (Shift+T) is fairly straight-forward in most cases. There are two transposition situations that require some ‘tricks’ to get the desired result. If you wish to transpose enharmonically (i.e. from C# to Db) or wish to transpose modally (i.e from Major to Minor). Let’s take a look at examples of both of these cases.

To transpose enharmonically from C# major to Db major:

1. Either ‘select all’ (Ctrl+A /Command+A) or use Ctrl+Click /Command+Click so you have the bars you wish to transpose selected with the double-walled purple box
2. Go to Notes > Transpose (Shift+T)
3. Select Up and Minor 2nd. [Unmark the ‘Use double sharps/flats’ box if checked
4. Go to Notes > Transpose (Shift+T)
5. Select Down and Augmented Unison
   

To transpose enharmonically from Cb major to B minor:

1. Either ‘select all’ (Ctrl+A /Command+A) or use Ctrl+Click /Command+Click so you have the bars you wish to transpose selected with the double-walled purple box
2. Go to Notes > Transpose (Shift+T)
3. Select Down and Minor 2nd
4. Go to Notes > Transpose (Shift+T)
5. Select Up and Augmented Unison

To transpose modally from C major to Cminor:

1. Either ‘select all’ (Ctrl+A /Command+A) or use Ctrl+Click /Command+Click so you have the bars you wish to transpose selected with the double-walled purple box
2. Go to Notes > Transpose (Shift+T)
3. Select Up and Minor 3rd. Click OK
4. Use the down arrow to move the notes diatonically back to the original starting pitch

To download these hints and tips and to view others click here