Sibelius Music Notation Software Product Review

Recommended places to order online:
• Sibelius Notation Software Musician's Friend
• Sibelius Notation Software Kelly's Music.

Sibelius, Professional Music Score Software

Sibelius: Music Notation Software at it's very best!

Unlike other scorewriters, the Sibelius screen is simple and uncluttered at all times, so you can concentrate on writing music without the constant distraction of menus and dialogue boxes. To look around the music, just click and drag the score - it really feels like you're moving manuscript paper in front of you. 

Sibelius makes music scoring simple.
Being complex and elegant in functionality, yet easy enough for an absolute novice to use is the whole philosophy behind Sibelius and is the reason children can be introduced to Sibelius from the age of 11 years old, and start writing music compositions immediately. Writing music notes on to a score is easy stuff using a mouse and standard keyboard. Of course, music can also be played and recorded with any MIDI keyboard, with the notes appearing on staves on the screen. 

Once your masterpiece is complete, Sibelius rapidly reformats a music score, making everything run smoother and faster. The playback feature makes the process very interactive, and it is a lot more fun than traditional pen and paper methods of composing and scoring music. 

The interface is so simple to understand that even the first-time user can pick it up very quickly. When you want to start writing music, you shouldn't have to spend forever setting up a score or persuading your computer to notate what you want and Sibelius behaves intelligently in all situations - as if it knows what you're thinking. Sibelius even plays so well that you can hear just how your music will sound - far more realistically than you would expect. 

As you add instruments, notes and lyrics to your score, Sibelius instantly applies hundreds of built-in engraving and spacing rules to organize your music on the page in the most appropriate and pleasing way.

Sibelius also has superb guitar tablature functionlity, far better than other music notation programs.  

Sibelius comes free with PhotoScore Lite (Neuratron Software), a plug-in program which scans and reads printed music into Sibelius. Once the music is read, you can edit or transpose the score in Sibelius, play it back, extract parts and print, just as if you'd input it yourself. The process is so quick it's the best way to make arrangements, transpositions and editions. However, Sibelius is just as fast when you're making really major changes to your score, such as altering the size or shape of your page. In fact, it takes just a fraction of a second for Sibelius to change the layout of your entire score - regardless of its length! 

For the grand finale, Sibelius lets you put your scores on to a Website so that other people can view, transpose and play them back - an ideal way to promote your music all over the world at minimal cost. 

Sibelius is also perfect for music teachers, students, and music instruction schools:

It is important that notation is taught as a skill in music classes and Sibelius starts children learning music earlier. If you truly believe that children, teachers or composers should write music easily, be creative and use their time more effectively when doing so then Sibelius is the essential element. It reinforces the learning process and so makes it easier to learn the tunes on musical instruments. It is already being reported by schools using Sibelius, that it enables their music students to achieve higher standards in composition. Sibelius is absolutely the best choice for music teachers and their students. 

From the Educational Computing and Technology web site (www.ect.hobsons.com/)

• Sibelius Notation Software Musician's Friend
• Sibelius Notation Software Kelly's Music.

Sibelius in the Press  

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