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Katie Wardrobe Midnight Music

ASME Conference 2011

Sibelius: Worksheets & Flashcards

Music technology training Free monthly email newsletter www.midnightmusic.com.au

Starting out

To create your own custom worksheets, start a new score (File > New). In the Manuscript list, choose treble staff (or bass staff) and then work through the remaining steps to set up your score.

Escape, Escape, Escape!

When working in Sibelius it’s VERY IMPORTANT to press the Escape key twice when you’ve completed any action:

• Pressing Escape the first time exits whatever mode you’re in (note entry mode, text editing mode

etc)

• Pressing Escape the second time deselects whatever it was you were working on (the note, or the

text object etc)

So, if you get into the habit of pressing Escape early on you’ll be a much happier Sibelius user!

Intervals or “Name the Note” Questions

Splitting the bars up:

• Make sure there are 4 bars in the line by selecting the barline at the end of bar 4 and pressing Enter

• Next, select the barline between the 1st and 2nd bars and go to Layout > Break > Split System to

create the break


• Repeat for the remaining bars in that line

• Add a semibreve into each bar

Centralising the notes:

• Select all four bars (click in the first bar and then shift-‐click on

the last bar) and then go to Window > Properties

• Click on the General tab and then increase the “x” value with

the up arrow until the notes are in a central position

Adding a line for the answers

• Press L to open the Lines menu

• Select the plain horizontal line from the Staff lines box on the left

• Click in the score underneath the first bar. You

will need to adjust the position and length of the line

• Repeat with the remaining bars

No barlines or time signature

In this example, students need to add in the barlines and time signature. When creating the question in Sibelius, you’ll need to put in both the time signature and barlines first so that Sibelius groups the notes correctly. Then you can hide them in your score so that they don’t print out.

• For a 4-‐bar rhythm, first make sure there are only 4 bars in the line by selecting the barline at the

end of bar 4 and pressing Enter

• Add a time signature by pressing T to access the Time signature window. Select 4/4 and be sure to

uncheck the Allow cautionary box. Click OK (you mouse pointer will turn blue) and you can click at

the beginning of the line to add the time signature into the score

• Create a rhythm or melody that fills the 4 bars

• Next, hide the time signature: click on it and then go to Edit > Hide or Show > Hide

• Create invisible barlines by selecting each one and going to Create > Barline > Invisible


Short questions (indenting staves)

If you are working with a melody or rhythm which is only a couple of bars long, it can look strange if it is stretched across the width of a page. You can indent the left and right ends of the stave to make the bars “shorter”.

• Create your short rhythm or melody first. Select the barline at the end of the question and press

Enter

• To indent the system on the left side, click at the very left hand end of

the staff. A small purple handle will appear just next to the treble clef

and you can click and drag it to the right

• To indent the right end, you need to locate the “secret” hidden handle (!)

which is level with the middle line of the staff and positioned a few

millimetres after the staff ends. Once you’ve located it, you can drag the

right end in

Stick notation (no stave lines; no clef)

Create the rhythm

• Because this is a rhythmic example, I created my rhythm using only the F space

Remove the treble (or bass) clef

• Press Escape to make sure you have nothing selected

• Press Q to open the Clefs menu

• Choose the “null clef” option and click OK

• Click in the score on top of the current clef


Remove the Stave Lines

• Press Escape to make sure nothing is selected

• Go to Create > Other > Instrument Change (Sibelius 5 and 6)

• In the Choose from box, select All instruments. In the

Family box, select Others and in the Instrument box, select

No instrument (barlines shown). Uncheck the two boxes at

the bottom of the window (see image)

• Click OK (the window will close and your mouse pointer will

be blue)

• Click just before the time signature. The staves lines will

disappear – apart from a small section under the time

signature

Remove residual stave lines

• Click and drag the vertical blue box to the left to completely

remove the stave lines (if you can’t see the blue box, go to View >

Hidden Objects)

Stick notation without noteheads

• Select the bar (or multiple bars) containing the notes you want to change

• Go to Window > Properties

• Click on the Notes tab

• Select Notehead 25 from the drop-‐down menu


Empty stave

• Select the barline at the end of the bar and press Enter

• Hide the semibreve rest by selecting it and going to Edit > Hide or Show > Hide

• Hide the time signature in the same way: select it and go to Edit > Hide or Show > Hide

Note names inside noteheads

• Select the bar or bars containing the notes

• Go to Plug-‐ins > Other > Add note names to noteheads

Note names above/below the staff (automatically!)

• Select the bar or bars containing the notes

• Go to Plug-‐ins > Text > Add note names

• Under Text style, choose Lyrics for note names below the staff

(as pictured above). If you’d prefer the note name above the

staff, choose Technique


Text for Questions

Add in the text that tells students what to do:

• Go to Create > Text > Other staff text > Plain text (or Boxed text). Your mouse will turn blue

• Click in the score where you’d like the question to appear and type the instructions. Don’t worry

about exact positioning – you can adjust that afterwards

• Press Escape once you’re finished. To reposition the text, just drag it

Using Musical Examples in Word (or Powerpoint, IWB software)

Sibelius makes it easy to select a small (or large) part of your score and copy and paste it into another program such as Word or Powerpoint as a graphic. There are many uses for this including:

• Citing musical examples in an essay

• Creating rhythmic or melodic flashcards

• Including musical examples in Powerpoint (or Keynote) presentations or IWB software

Step by step: • Create your musical examples/questions in Sibelius and then type Alt+G

(Opt+G on Mac). The mouse pointer will turn into a crosshair and you can

drag a box around the bar, phrase or single note you’d like to copy to Word

• Type Ctrl+C (⌘C) to copy it, switch to Word and then type Ctrl+V (⌘V) to

paste. The music will appear in your Word document where the cursor was.

Adding images (graphics)

Sibelius is able to import images in the TIFF format. If your image is another format such as JPEG or PNG you’ll need to convert it first (do a Google search for online image converters).

It’s quite simple to add images to your worksheets and scores:

• Select an object (ie. a note, rest or bar) in your score where you want the graphic to appear

• Go to Create > Graphic

• Select the image and click Open


Kodaly tip: melody with lyrics and “auto” sol-‐fa

• Input the notes of the melody

• Lyrics: select the first note and press Ctrl+L (Cmd+L)

• Type the lyrics: use a space between words or a hyphen between syllables

• Sol-‐fa: select all bars (click on first bar and shift-‐click on last bar) and then go to Plugins > Text > Add

Tonic Solfa

• For sol-‐fa that appears above the stave, click on the drop-‐down box next to Main Text Style and

choose Lyrics above staff (Sibelius fills in the sol-‐fa for you)

Kodaly tip: “2 ta” time signature

• Setup your score with a regular time signature. We will end up hiding this time signature and placing a “fake” one over the top

• Hide the time signature by selecting it and going to Edit > Hide or Show > Hide

We’ll create the “fake” 2-‐ta time signature in two steps.

Step 1: Create the “2”

• Go to Create > Text > Other Staff Text > Time signatures (one staff only)

• Click at the beginning of the stave and type 2

• Press Escape

Step 2: Create the crotchet (ta)

• Open the Symbols menu by pressing Z

• Select the crotchet with the downward pointing stem (see image) and click OK

• Click in the score, just below the number 2 you created


• If you’re using Sibelius 6, the Magnetic Layout feature will prevent you from placing the crotchet

close to the number 2. Turn Magnetic Layout off for this object by right-‐clicking on the crotchet and going to Magnetic Layout > Off

• You can then fine-‐tune the position of the 2 and the crotchet by using the arrow keys

Kodaly tip: Creating zaa

• Create your song with a normal crotchet rest

• Hide the rest by selecting it and going to Edit > Hide or Show > Hide

• Press Escape

• Go to Create > Text > Other staff text > Plain text and type the letter Z on the stave (don’t worry about the size or position at this stage)

• Press Escape once (the Z should be still selected -‐ blue)

• Go to Window > Properties and click on the Text tab

• Change the font to Arial and increase the font size (to around 15)

• Fine-‐tune the position of the Z with the arrow keys

Removing Empty (Extra) Bars

Method 1

• Click on the first bar you want to delete

• Shift+click on the last bar you want to delete. You should have a blue box around all the bars

• Go to Edit > Delete bars

• A message will appear asking whether you want to delete these bars from the score. Click Yes

Method 2

• Hold down the Ctrl (⌘) key and click on the first bar you want to delete. A double purple line

should appear around the bar

• Ctrl+Shift+click (Cmd+Shift+click) on the last bar you want

to delete

• Press Delete


Formatting Tips For Worksheets

In terms of formatting, a worksheet works differently to a regular score. The staves and systems in a regular score are usually evenly-‐spaced on every page and Sibelius has some excellent quick ways to achieve a uniform layout.

Tip: in a regular score, DO NOT drag the staves to create more room in your score. Formatting adjustments are best made in the House Styles > Engraving Rules > Staves menu. In a worksheet you often need varying amounts of space between each question and this is the exception to the “Do not drag staves” rule (see Tip above). By default, Sibelius justifies the staves on a page – that is, it spreads them out evenly from top to bottom of the page. Because you often need complete control over moving staves in a worksheet or test paper, you may like to turn off justification:

• Go to House Style > Engraving Rules and click on Staves in the column on the left

• Where it says “justify staves when page is at least 65% full”, change that number to 100%

• As soon as you click OK, the staves on your page may squish up a little (it’s a good idea to turn off

justification when you first start the worksheet), but you now have the freedom to move them up

or down as you wish

Fine-‐tuning adjustments

If you only need to make more room for a couple of questions on your page, you may like to try this tip:

• Move a single stave freely amongst the other staves on the page by holding down shift while you

drag the stave up or down

The Worksheet Creator

Sibelius’s Worksheet Creator is a little-‐known gold mine of over 1700 ready-‐made worksheets, quizzes, songs, rounds, posters and lots more. Here are some of my favourite things:


01 Elements of Music

• 01 Notes & Rests > 01 Note Duration > 01 Match

Notes with Names

• 03 Timbre/Tone Colour > 01 Match Pictures with

Instruments Names > 01 Match Common

Instruments

• 07 Intervals, Chords, Progressions and Cadences

• 08 Score Analysis

• 09 Conducting > 04 Conduct the beat in 4

03 Selected Repertoire

• 04 Songs for Teaching

• 05 Rounds and Canons

• 06 Poetry for Lyrics

04 Reference

• 01 Encyclopaedia of Scales and Modes > 01 Useful Scale Libraries

• 02 Chord Library

05 Posters, Flashcards and Games

• 01 Posters

Tutorial Videos

I’ve made a few Sibelius tutorial videos which can be found on Youtube. If you’d like to be informed when new videos are made, you can sign up to my monthly newsletter, or subscribe to the Youtube channel. The videos include:

• Melodic flashcards

• Rhythmic flashcards

• Short worksheet questions (intervals questions)

• Copy and paste to Word

• How to create drum parts

Click on this link to visit my Youtube channel: http://midnightmusic.com.au/youtube


Contact me (I’m happy to answer questions )

Contact me regarding • training enquiries or presentations for your school/network/event

• music technology-‐related questions

Email: [email protected]

Mobile: 0412 403 704

Website: www.midnightmusic.com.au

Facebook: www.facebook.com/midnightmusic

Twitter: www.twitter.com/katiesw1

ASME%Conference% · !!!! KatieWardrobe! Midnight!Music!!! ASME%Conference%2011!...

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