The Ideas Hub

These pages refer solely to the upgrade from Sibelius 1.x, 2.x, 3.x and 4.x to Sibelius 5. Please refer to the FAQ relating to the more recent upgrade to Sibelius 6.

The Ideas Hub

Ideas Hub is a unique new feature that lets you capture, use and re-use snippets of music. As well as using your own ideas, over 2000 ready-made ones are included – ideal for teaching.

Never lose another idea

When writing music you often come up with a bit of melody, rhythm, accompaniment or chord progression with some potential. Now, instead of wondering what to do with it, just tap a key to store it in the ideas Hub. Then you can re-use these ideas later in any score, just like pasting from the clipboard; Sibelius even transposes ideas into the right key and range.

Flash Watch movie: Ideas hub »

Ideas keywordsTag, organize and search

An idea can be a passage of music of any length, any kind and for any number of instruments. Once you’ve captured an idea you can edit it, tag it with your own keywords (e.g. canon, lyrical, riff) to help find it later, or even colour-code it. The Ideas window lets you browse and search through all the available ideas by keyword tags, instrument, time signature, key and so on, and even play them back. Plus, you can export them later to share your ideas with other people.

Ideas window top
Ideas window bottom

Ready-made ideas for students

Over 2000 ready-made ideas are included for students to use, in a huge range of styles from classical, jazz and band to world music, rock and hip-hop.

« Scroll through a sample
   of Ideas in the Hub

By using these ideas in their music, students of all abilities can discover how melodies, harmonies and rhythms can be put together to create differing textures and musical structures.

They could start with just one or two ideas for inspiration, or alternatively use ideas as building blocks to create a complete piece. You can keep track of what they’ve done, because Sibelius marks where ideas are used in the score.

If you prefer, you can switch off all of the ready-made ideas, or just give students a few specific ones, for more focused exercises.

« Previous: Overview | Next: Panorama »

What users say

“A Eureka experience! No more scribbled bits of paper and backs of envelopes. Sibelius 5 captures all of my ideas and miraculously I can find them again in an instant.”

Howard Goodall,
composer

"I've wanted the Ideas Hub feature in every music program I've ever used!"

Ronan Macdonald,
Editor of Computer Music Magazine

"Ideas Hub is an indispensably brilliant tool..."

Sound On Sound magazine

What's new

Overview
Summary of what's new in Sibelius 5
Ideas Hub
Capture, use and re-use snippets
Panorama
A new, clearer way of viewing music
Stunning new sounds & playback
150+ high-quality built-in sounds
VST & Audio Units
Mix and match from different libraries
Easy cues & instrument changes
Instrumental parts made even easier
Complete layout control
Flexible page layout and numbering
Power tools & undoable plug-ins
New fonts and plug-ins
More new features
Over forty other improvements
Upgrade FAQ
Questions about the upgrade