NewKeyBuy Centered
Contents
1. Sibelius 1 0 MUSIC NOTATION SOFTWARE PC Sibelius is a professional level music notation program for the PC and Acorn platforms with a Mac version in the works Pros Professional publishing quality output Accurate realtime transcription of MIDI note data Excellent floating split point transcription into a piano staff Easy to use Fast note entry and navigation Highly comprehensive notational abilities Cons Lyrics edited one word at a time No importing of lyrics Bottom Line Not too many notation programs come along that can tackle the professional music publishing market head on Sibelius is going for it and they ve got a good shot For Starters the program isn t difficult to learn how to use Its flexible note entry methods empha size speed without sacrificing accuracy and very few of the exhaustive editing options are more than a click or two away Extensive MIDI playback features are set up automatically so you can aurally proof not only pitches and rhythms but also dynamics repeats trans positions and nearly every other item on the page right off the bat The program excels at nearly every type of notational task from early music to jazz and from tablature to 20th Century scores It does have room for improvement particularly in the lyric department and you may run into occasional missing details as you get into the particulars of a nota tion style But then this is its first release for the PC In terms of2. onscreen N 78 Tiap Robini I kapej i Pade of each system staff and barline the white box indicates the viewing area which when dragged level In the lower right is the keypad which dis with the mouse provides a constantly updated plays the symbol palettes see Figure 2 for more green marbled it won t print out that way but among such popular shades as gray speckled and view of the score with no redraw time The white box changes size depending on the current zoom details And the color of the paper Youre correct its buff recycled That s right choose from it definitely makes your screen viewing more realistic Ah the WYSIWYG iness of it all Sibelius 1 0 CBee aan ean SUPER ml a U 2 077 al foi LLARS Rl Za Ih f gt f f inf tite rf finf f f DANA Fig 2 The layout of each of the five keypad palettes corresponds to your computer s numeric keypad You can select the different palettes using function keys 8 through 12 or by clicking on the second row of buttons from the top the graphics on which give you a clue as to the contents of each palette The onscreen keys can be selected with the mouse as well The top row of buttons represents the four independent voices Sibelius can place on a single staff You can make selections on any of these palettes and apply them upon entry of a given note even though only one palette can be visible at a time this illustration was created by the
3. what it can do I d rate this software among the handful of pro level scoring programs such as San Andreas Press Score and Coda Music Technology Finale As far as ease of use is concerned it s almost in a class by itself can hardly wait to see how it comes out on the Mac but in the meantime Sibelius has definitely earned its Key Buy award Sibelius Software 888 4 SIBELIUS InfoUSA sibelius com www sibelius com 599 299 academic Fig 1 Sibelius sports a clean user interface with aie kablen dipl ij 15 Ek EE yes Des Hotes DeFa he Pagar irae bel a remarkable degree of score display realism N s w ar Here you see a pop tune rendered in the E Inkpen font which resembles hand copy ing too bad there is no matching text font for Inkpen you can however use any other man uscript font for text The guitar fretboard diagrams are editable as is the tablature in the i bass part you can specify the number of strings and their tuning In the version I reviewed the pl I i Ep Wi a Ce E T Liri pae Groove i esto ans mf Eat drum notation does not automatically map a MIDI input to the proper location on the staff od or use the corresponding noteheads you have i Ei igs to edit it by hand after input According to 74 F i a Sibelius version 1 1 implements automatic o Bas guia drum notation Above the score are a couple of pi the programs handy toolbar items the play and realtime reco
4. ef initely the best MIDI transcription I ve experienced to date There is a scanning plug in available that recorded parts imports Standard MIDI Files interprets scanned graphic files handles the scanning interpretation and cor Piano staff split point floating rection of a printed score from within the program Fonts used Opus Inkpen any user font Sibelius handles the placement of lyrics Graphic symbols supplied and user definable automatically with no limitation to the number Alternate noteheads and rests percussion shape notes slash early music jazz graphic of verses Most programs have a word processor Tablature linked to staff notation and MIDI user definable tunings style lyric input window which though it may mak thealignmientof notesand texta hitor miss and number of strings fret position sensitive affair at first at least allows the importing past Chord symbols transposable user definable ing and editing of lyrics from a word processor Gross barline symbols beams slurs This ability allows you to align the same text to Cross staff symbols beams slurs parts with different rhythms Sibelius has you User adjustable elements manual and global setting of beam slant slur position input the words directly into the score and ae and thickness while the alignment is quite good the lyrics are kept as individual words and syllables which Symbol spacing options user definable style sheets makes editi
5. layed in the wrong position on the wrong strings you can Just drag the notes to the correct string and they ll automatically be at the correct fret In fact you can specify the number of strings and their tuning for any tablature and even combine tab and standard notation in a single part If you need to select a particular note throughout a part you can use filters that let you select notes based on up to two criteria This can be handy for even though Sibelius provides excellent score view zooming options it s some times difficult to accurately select a particular note or a group of notes within a polyphonic passage Speaking of viewing levels Sibelius s zoom percentages are a lot bigger than they ll appear on your printed page Placement of systems on each page of a score is largely handled by the House Style You can have systems justify themselves as their vertical dimensions increase or you can have them hold fast to a specific location I found myself wishing though that there were some way for me to drag systems vertically by hand and have the systems on all other pages match the move automatically Moving measures from one system to an adjacent one is easy and I found the placement of articulations and text to be largely unaffected by such edit ing Sibelius has somewhat of an open archi tecture and if you find that it s lacking some feature it s quite possible that you could write your own plug in to perfor
6. m it Several plug ins are provided Most involve score proofing Bar Barling Llef Grace note r F F F Guitar frame U Instruments Key signature k Rehearsal mark k Symbol 2 Text Time signature T Tuplet Chrl 2 4 Bar number change Bracket Estra staff Staff type change Transposition change Fig 4 Here is an example of the convenient access Sibelius provides to its deeper notation abilities Clicking on the right mouse button on an empty part of the score brings up the menu on the left on the right is one of its sub menus Note that user editing of symbols lines in this case can be selected at the bottom of the right menu These particular line symbols work fabulously You can Other staff lines Po System lines eo Slur above note 5 Slur below note ShF S Add arc to lur Ctrl S rift Crescendo H Dimnuendo Shift H Edit lines enter them across multiple systems just by dragging and they affect MIDI playback Yep the slur will give a legato effect the crescendos and decrescendos change note velocities the octave sign plays back the affected passage one octave up ottava bassa 15ma and 15mb available too and the trill creates an appro priate diatonic trill Way cool features and with the right button implementation easy to find to boot duties such as checking for prope
7. magic of digital trickery Most symbols are self explanatory but if you can t recall which tremolo is in the third palette just hold the mouse over the key and an I D will appear You can use the keypad palettes for both note input and editing heck they make life so easy you ll be inputting more notes than you ever thought your music needed as well with screen redraw time being nearly imperceptible and travel around a score as easy as shifting your gaze from one page to another Professionals require speed to be sure but they also have a wide variety of notational needs that must be met Sibelius darn near goes the distance providing publisher quality output for scores of many types orchestral vocal pop jazz tab lature 20th Century and Baroque This range is unusual even in a top quality full featured pro gram usually they re good for academic work clas sical publishing or popular folios or some com bination thereof Many lower quality jack of all trades packages give you a nice sampling of scoring tools but rarely does notation software provide the depth and breadth of Sibelius Plus it s really easy to use I actually had fun composing with this program and I can t remember the last time I enjoyed myself while learning to use a notation product All right enough comments about my personal life you noteheads Here s what Sibelius is about at least in its PC incarnation S et u p I used Sibelius o
8. n a Dell Pentium 200MHz with 32MB of RAM and a Sound Blaster AWE64 card I ran the MIDI out put to a General MIDI GM module Getting Sibelius to recognize my modest rig was no problem in fact the program is trained to take advantage of GM setups playing back instru mental and vocal scores with appropriate sounds as soon as you click play The only initial hassle is registering your copy which requires a phone call to Massachusetts reading a confusing string of characters over the phone and typing a cor responding set of confusing characters If you don t the printing and file saving features will be disabled after three days of use with version 1 1 only file saving is disabled and then only after five days After you register youre set If you don t use a GM module you can configure any score instrument to play back on any MIDI channel program number and bank number your gear requires for that sound The program comes with a number of score templates called manuscript paper styles that are ready to accommodate your compo sitions You can create your own too specify ing such parameters as symbol placement and spacing text font and style slur thickness size of time signatures and get this the look of the onscreen paper see Figure 1 Input amp Playback Sibelius provides you with a variety of ways to get music into your score many of which you can eas ily switch between as you go along The main em
9. ng them somewhat of a pain You can Maximum number of staves per system unlimited copy individual lyric lines but you can only Lyric input line by line paste them into parts having the same rhythm as MIDI playback dynamic symbols expression text repeat signs multiple the original line It s ironic that Sibelius treats nota endings user definable symbols tion with word processor like skill but lyrics as i i Part extraction automatic saved as separate files though it were a graphics notation program The MIDI playback abilities of Sibelius are Export formats EMF BMP entire page only guata nM n noe am m OTT i3 3 5 Hiat er a aooo a N a a a Ce Fe ey eT eer See N 7G S G L ET T R ee J JE eS ee se ee a sosfenuto Cr sc r 7 Jo 3 3 a MOP AN FOL oy ee eee Oe oe ge Fo oe a E oe a T IT E G a B a E TT ee E E S E ER O POA D TP ee ee eel E F DA H O SS SS YL S ET RT LITE tw t gt T h R i a i P r AEP aaa E a eee me eee ie So a E ee ee ee a S ip ee a ee ee a R a a a ET A L G O T ea Fey ES a l S i e E es i T pr o o o E H gg f p e ppe Fig 3 This score excerpt came out looking this good almost right out of the gate The only hassle was with the phrase markings when you input one its right end attaches to the subsequent note by default Pm used to stretching phrase marks with the mouse and in Sibelius it
10. on is nearly instantaneous and with two handed input into two staves I found it to be nothing short of excellent Sibelius consistently separated my right and left hand parts cor rectly no matter where the split point was or how close my hands were Triplets and even more complex tuplets were notated spot on and rhythms in general required the barest mini mum of editing after the fact I had similar results with importing Standard MIDI Files with the added benefit that Sibelius will select the appropriate clef instrument name and play back sound if there are GM program changes in the file When Sibelius did put notes in the wrong staff I was a bit miffed to find that there is no one button method for getting the offending passage back into its proper staff as there is with some other programs You have to cut and paste instead which isn t a big deal The problem is that once Sibelius 1 0 any notation program tries to interpret sepa rate rhythms into the same voice it produces all Computer requirements PC 486DX 100 running Windows 95 98 NT 8MB RAM manner of tied sixteenth notes and triplets 10MB free disk space Supports standard MIDI interfaces Sibelius doesn t seem to be able to separate lines Input methods QWERTY keyboard point and click with mouse MIDI step with different rhythms once it has interpreted them entry realtime MIDI entry while listening to previously into a tuplet based framework Even so this is d
11. phasis in the user manual is on QWERTY key board input and what with the clever integration of keypad and Control Shift style commands this musical touch typing method has a lot going for it The keypad palettes Figure 2 are a great way to organize symbols and you can select any number of attributes from any of the five layouts for a single note even before you input it The right mouse button on the PC ver sion gains you access to nearly everything else that you could possibly need that isn t available directly from the keypad Holding the button down brings up the Create menu most items on which lead to further sub menus or dialog boxes see Figure 4 page 112 In either case the parameters you need to get to are rarely more than a click or two away and you never have to mouse across the screen to get at them Whether you use only the computer key board the mouse and the keyboard or a com bination of the two with step entry from a MIDI keyboard I d wager that you ll find this one of the easiest notation programs to learn and use Even all those keyboard shortcuts are not too difficult to memorize as quite a few have some type of alliterative connection Flexi time is the term Sibelius uses for realtime MIDI note entry It flexes in the degree to which it follows your tempo as you play and you can determine in advance the smallest note value and the types of tuplets that it will allow Transcripti
12. r clefs repeat signs and articulations One will warn you if you ve written parallel fifths or octaves that would ve been handy back in counterpoint class More are available on the Sibelius Web site If you want to write your own plug ins the pro gram comes with its own programming lan guage the documentation for which is also available on the Web site O utp ut Sibelius looks great printed out publishable quality all the way It s very easy to read both in score and from parts and the font and default spacing are pleasing to look at Parts are extracted automatically and saved as separate files in a single folder and all multi bar rests are automatically concatenat ed around rehearsal letters There are provisions for the program to export BMP and EMF graphic files of entire single pages but I was never able to make this work Sibelius comes with an Internet publishing feature that auto matically creates an HTML document with your Sibelius score embedded in it All you have to do is upload the file to a Web site and vis itors to your site can read play back and transpose your score W Associate editor Ernie Rideout noodles sketches and performs in the San Francisco Bay Area He is also the editor of the Music Technology Buyer s Guide Reprinted with permission from Keyboard Magazine April 1999 Miller Freeman Inc All rights reserved www keyboardmag com
13. rd buttons the zoom menu and the score transpose button which switches the display of transposing parts such as B flat trumpet to concert pitch and back In the lower left is the Navigator which shows a thumbnail of each page including the position by Ernie Rideout t s not often you see a new music nota tion program come down the pike and still rarer for one to run on mul tiple platforms Sibelius is the brainchild of Ben and Jonathan Finn genius twin brothers and London residents who wrote the program originally for the then high perfor mance RISC based Acorn computer Fortunately for us PC and Mac based music notators on this side of the pond they ve rewritten the pro gram for our more widely available platforms Designed for speed the program empha sizes a two fisted approach to note entry This isn t a new idea many other notation programs have utilized QWERTY keyboard entry for note dura tion and pitch as well as other attributes But Sibelius seems to have been optimized for total control from the computer keyboard using a com bination of access to all symbol palettes from the numeric keypad with a host of additional func tions wired into the alphanumeric keys and the right button on the mouse If playing the black and whites is faster for you you ll find realtime MIDI transcription both instantaneous depend ing on the speed of your computer s processor and remarkably accurate Sibelius is fast
14. s not so easy to grab the end of a slur even at high magnifications Using key commands and arrow keys however proved to be a very accurate and facile method for putting them right where I wanted Oddly there s no way to position slurs with grace notes that s one of the few omissions I found Once you get all of your phrase marks expression text and articulations in position though you ve got a solid score that you can format and subject to extensive copying and pasting without losing much of your symbol alignment Sibelius 1 0 phrasing to individual parts such as vibrato crescendos and diminuendos I was particularly impressed by how this sounded with vocal scores and woodwind sections Articulations and expression marks play back via MIDI by default and you can determine the MIDI play back properties of nearly every symbol avail able This takes aural proofing to a whole new level Editing in the score it doesn t take too much to make it Once you ve got your music look good Figure 3 page 110 was entered using a combination of methods including QWERTY mouse and QWERTY QWERTY and MIDI keyboard and realtime MIDI keyboard input Using the arrow keys the keypad and the mouse it s easy to make every imaginable kind of alteration to the notes staves systems or score If the default spacing doesn t quite do it you can drag or nudge symbols to more pleas ing positions If your tablature has notes p
Download Pdf Manuals
Related Search