Using Sibelius with Older Students - Midnight Music

Katie Wardrobe Midnight Music

www.midnightmusic.com.au

2012

Sibelius in the Classroom: Projects Session 4

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

2

Using Sibelius with older students................................................................................................4

Overall project: Moondance.........................................................................................................4

Aims........................................................................................................................................................................................ 4 Step 1: analyse the score ..............................................................................................................4

Annotating the score with Comments ..................................................................................................................... 5 Editing Comments ............................................................................................................................................................ 5 Minimising Comments.................................................................................................................................................... 5 Hiding Comments ............................................................................................................................................................. 5 Annotating Moondance.................................................................................................................................................. 5

Step 2: save a Version ..................................................................................................................5

What is the Versions feature?...................................................................................................................................... 5 Tracking your changes ................................................................................................................................................... 5 Save a Version .................................................................................................................................................................... 6

Step 3: identify and capture motifs...............................................................................................6

Using the Ideas window (Sibelius 5, 6 and 7): ..................................................................................................... 6 Ideas in action .................................................................................................................................................................... 6 Capturing a rhythmic idea ............................................................................................................................................ 7 Other tips.............................................................................................................................................................................. 7

Step 4: create original motifs........................................................................................................7

Creating new motifs......................................................................................................................................................... 7 Varying ideas already in the Ideas window .......................................................................................................... 8 Your turn .............................................................................................................................................................................. 8 Editing Idea info ................................................................................................................................................................ 8 Accessing your ideas across all scores .................................................................................................................... 8

Step 5: save another Version........................................................................................................8

Step 6: create the improvised solo section ...................................................................................8

Step 7: save another Version........................................................................................................9

Step 8: make a backing track ........................................................................................................9

How to export as an audio file .................................................................................................................................... 9 Tips ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 9

Step 9: record a solo over the backing track .................................................................................9

Using Audacity ................................................................................................................................................................... 9 Set up the mic and import the backing track........................................................................................................ 9 Record your soloist ........................................................................................................................................................10 Other uses for Audacity ...............................................................................................................................................10

Step 10: prepare a written report ...............................................................................................10

Copying music across to Word .................................................................................................................................10


3

Step-‐by-‐step ......................................................................................................................................................................10 Tips for making musical examples look good ....................................................................................................11 Saving separate graphics.............................................................................................................................................11

Step 11: present a compositional diary.......................................................................................11

Viewing Versions ............................................................................................................................................................11 What can you do with previous Versions of a score?......................................................................................12 Automatic saving of Versions ....................................................................................................................................12 Export a versions log.....................................................................................................................................................12

Transcribing tips.........................................................................................................................13

General tips .......................................................................................................................................................................13 Transcription “helpers” ...............................................................................................................................................13

Transcribing and Notating Drum Parts........................................................................................13

Other useful stuff: reference material and repertoire.................................................................14

The Worksheet creator ................................................................................................................................................14 That’s it!.....................................................................................................................................15


4

Using Sibelius with older students

This session will demonstrate ways in which you can use Sibelius for learning activities at the upper school level – for students in years 10-‐12. The activities below are useful for all senior music students, whether they are studying performance-‐based music subjects, composition and arranging or history/investigation-‐type subjects.

Overall project: Moondance

Using a single score – Moondance by Van Morrison – we’ll run through some of the ways you can use Sibelius effectively to analyse a song, identify and develop musical motifs, track the compositional process and create backing tracks.

Aims

• Analyse the Moondance score

• Identify and capture melodic motifs

• Identify and capture rhythmic motifs

• Develop the motifs and create a solo improvised section for the middle of the song

• Create an audio backing track (karaoke-‐style with no solo part)

• Record a solo performance over the backing track

• Create a recorded narrative about the piece

• Maintain a compositional diary (log)

• Present a written report

Step 1: analyse the score

A common task for senior students is to analyse a score, looking at harmony, scales used, melodic and rhythmic motifs.

Sibelius 6 and 7 have a useful “post-‐it-‐note” feature called Comments. Students and their teachers can add comments anywhere in a score and they can be edited, moved and hidden if necessary.


5

Annotating the score with Comments

• Sibelius 5 & 6: click on the New Comment icon in the toolbar at the top of the screen, or go to Create > Comment

• Sibelius 7: go to Review > Comments > New Comment

• Your mouse pointer will be blue – click in the score and then type your comment. Press Escape when finished

• Alternatively, select some bars in the score first and then click New Comment -‐ the new sticky note will automatically reference the instrument/s selected and the bar numbers

• Teachers can also use New Comment feature to make comments about student work in the Sibelius score itself

Editing Comments

You can double-‐click on a comment to edit it. Press Escape when finished editing.

Minimising Comments

You can minimise a comment by double-‐click the bar that shows the commenter’s name and date. The comment will reduce in size and show the initials of the commenter only.

Hiding Comments

You can hide all the comments in a score if you wish.

• Sibelius 5 & 6: go to View > Comments

• Sibelius 7: go to View > Invisibles > Comments

Annotating Moondance

Go ahead and add some comments to the Moondance score: identify the structure by selecting each section in turn and adding a comment that identifies the name of that section (ie. introduction, verse, instrumental etc).

Step 2: save a Version

What is the Versions feature?

Sibelius’s Versions feature saves milestones in the compositional or arranging process. When you make a significant change to your score, you can save a Version.

It’s a different process to “Save As”: all Versions live within the original Sibelius file.

Tracking your changes

When you save a Version, you can make a comment about the changes you made to your score, for instance:

• Added bass line

• Created modulation at section B

• Add variations to the melody: augmented and retrograde


6

Save a Version

Create a current Version of this score:

• Sibelius 5 & 6: click on the Save Version button on the toolbar (right), or go to File > Save Version

• Sibelius 7: go to Review > Versions > New Version

Type in a comment about this version of the score and click OK.

We’ll look the Versions feature in more details a little later on.

Step 3: identify and capture motifs

Using the Ideas window (Sibelius 5, 6 and 7):

In the previous session, we learnt that the Ideas window is a great place to capture and store musical ideas.

Older students can use the Ideas window as a part of their analysis process: by identifying and capturing melodic and rhythmic motifs that appear in a piece of music.

Ideas in action

We’ll identify and capture motifs that appear in the Moondance score. These motifs can later be varied or edited so that they can be used in the solo instrumental section of the piece.

Capture some motifs from the score. Don’t forget that you can capture an idea in a single instrument stave, or across a few instrument staves – just select as little or as much material as you like, then press Shift+I.

Some suggestions:

• The piano riff during the intro/verse

• The bass riff during the intro/verse


7

• The bass riff during the “Can I just have one more moondance…” section

• Fragments of the melody line

Capturing a rhythmic idea

If you would like your students to capture a rhythm that’s used by a melodic instrument, you can do the following:

• Add a temporary single-‐line percussion stave (press I to open the Instruments window). It’s called Percussion [1line]

• Select a melodic idea and copy/paste it on to the new percussion stave. It will look strange for a moment!

• Use the Reinput pitches feature to move all of the pitches to the percussion line (think of it as the middle line of a treble staff – the “B” line)

• Select the rhythmic idea and capture it by pressing Shift+I

• You can delete the stave when you’ve finished capturing rhythmic ideas

Other tips

• The Ideas window is useful for capturing motifs across a range of musical styles: licks, riffs, solos, embellishments, ostinati and cadenzas

• You can capture an entire chord progression: capture the progression in both hands of a piano part, or capture 2-‐3 instrumental staves that play the different parts of the chords involved in the progression (ie. guitar and bass guitar; string section, horns)

• You might also like to encourage students to create and capture an idea which simply shows the scale/s used in the piece

Step 4: create original motifs

Creating new motifs

Now that the student has captured existing melodic and rhythmic ideas, they might like to develop and capture their own ideas, which will form the basis of the improvised solo in the middle of Moondance.

To do this, they can write their new motif in any blank space in the score, capture it to the ideas window and then delete it from the score when they’ve finished. If there are no empty spaces in the score (or the ones that are there are not big enough), they can add a temporary “working stave” which will be deleted at the end:

• Add a temporary treble and/or bass stave (press i to open the Instruments window, locate the treble staff and add it to the list of instruments in the score)

• Create new melodic ideas on the temporary stave

• Select the melodic idea and capture it by pressing Shift+I

• Delete the stave when you’ve finished capturing ideas


8

Varying ideas already in the Ideas window

Students can also vary the ideas that have already been captured by copy them back into the score (into the “working” stave), editing them and them capturing them as a new idea.

Your turn

Try this now:

• Notate a couple of new motifs in your “working” stave (they can be just one or two bars in length) and then capture them into the Ideas window

• Then copy and paste one of the other score ideas back into the working stave, edit it (ie. change the pitches) and then capture it again as a new idea

Editing Idea info

It’s advisable to edit the information about each idea as it is captured. This will make it easier to find later on.

• Select the idea and click the Edit Idea Info button at the bottom of the window

• Edit the title, add some tags (search terms) and give the idea a colour

Accessing your ideas across all scores

If you would like to access captured ideas across all scores (and not just the score you captured them in) you can add them to the Library.

• Select the idea

• Click the Add to Library button at the bottom of the window

Step 5: save another Version

Now would be a good time to save another Version of this score.

Step 6: create the improvised solo section

Choose some of the ideas you created and copy them back into the score in the section from bar 37-‐51 to create an improvised solo.


9

Step 7: save another Version

Again, save another Version of this score.

Step 8: make a backing track

You can easily turn your Sibelius score into an audio file that you can import into other music software programs, or into iTunes and Windows Media Player. Doing this means you can make your own backing tracks, record solos over the top of the track, or add a commentary.

How to export as an audio file

• Go to File > Export > Audio

• Choose a location to save your file

• Give the file a name

• Click Export

Tips

• Before you export the audio file, make sure your score plays back properly (ie. all repeats, codas)

• Make sure all the instruments are balanced. Adjust the levels in the Mixer or add dynamics to score if necessary

• If you want to make a karaoke version of the song (or Music Minus One or Abersold version) mute the melody/solo in the Mixer before exporting from Sibelius

Step 9: record a solo over the backing track

Using Audacity

Once you’ve created a backing track from your Sibelius file, you can import the audio file into Audacity (or another audio editing program) and then have the singer or instrumentalist record the solo over the top.

Audacity is a free audio editing software, which is very easy to use and many schools already have it on their computers. You can download Audacity here: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Set up the mic and import the backing track

• Plug in your microphone (you can plug a USB mic directly into your computer)

• Open Audacity and then choose your microphone from the Input Device drop-‐down menu in the toolbar


10

• Go to File > Import > Audio

• Locate the audio file you exported from Sibelius

• Click OK and wait a moment while Audacity imports the file

Record your soloist

• First of all, plug headphones into the computer and give them to the soloist

• Make sure the mic is in a good position

• Click the red Record button

• Audacity with automatically add a new track for the soloist and they can start singing/playing

Other uses for Audacity

You can also use Audacity to add commentary to a composition:

• If a student has created their own composition or arrangement in Sibelius, they can export their Sibelius score as an audio file and then import it into Audacity as described above

• They can then record a narrative on a separate track, describing what they did in the composition/arrangement

Step 10: prepare a written report

Copying music across to Word

This technique is great for adding a musical example to an essay or adding musical examples to your presentations in Powerpoint or Keynote.

Step-‐by-‐step

• Create your score or musical examples in Sibelius

• To “grab” a section of the score, first make sure you’re in Page view (not Panorama view)

• Type Alt+G (Opt+G on Mac). The mouse pointer will turn into a crosshair

• Click and drag a box around the bar/s, phrase or single note you’d like to copy to Word

• Type Ctrl+C (⌘C) to copy it

• Open Word (or other program) and then type Ctrl+V (⌘V) to paste the example into your document. The music will appear where the cursor was

• Resize the music example by dragging the corners (it will distort if you drag anywhere else)


11

Tips for making musical examples look good

If you’re capturing an example from a score with a single instrument, the example will look great straight away. However if you’re taking an example from a larger score, you might end up with barlines that extend past the staves and “go nowhere” like this example:

To fix this:

• Select a bar in the stave/s you want to use as your example (click on one stave and then Ctrl-‐click or Command-‐click on any additional staves)

• Sibelius 7 Go to Layout > Hiding Staves > Focus on Staves

• Sibelius 5 and 6 go to View > Focus on Staves

Sibelius will show you only the stave/s you need. Now when you capture your example, the barlines will finish cleanly.

• Alternatively, you can view the instrumental Part to capture an example from one instrument only

Saving separate graphics

You can also save graphics as separate entities (rather than just to the clipboard)

• Select the graphic in same way

• Go to File > Export > Graphic

• Choose your preferred settings and then click Export

Step 11: present a compositional diary

Viewing Versions

As we’ve been working on Moondance, we’ve saved a few versions of the score.

You can view a version in the following way:

• Sibelius 6: click on the drop-‐down menu in the toolbar


12

• Sibelius 7: click on the plus sign at the top right of the screen (just below the Ribbon)

• The Versions will be listed in chronological order

• Click on one of the earlier versions to view it

What can you do with previous Versions of a score?

A previous version of a score is an archived copy. You can open the version to view it, but you can’t edit it in any way. You can, however, select notes bars or entire passages.

• Once you’ve select some music in an archived version, you can copy the material into the current version of the score

• You can also choose to revert to an earlier version of your score altogether. The current score will then become an archived Version

Automatic saving of Versions

• By default, Sibelius will ask you whether you want to create a Version whenever you close a score

• You can turn this automatic "save version" function off (or turn it back on again) by going to File > Preferences > Versions. Check the Create a new version when closing the score box

• Sibelius automatically stores date/time information with each Version

Export a versions log

Sibelius can export a Rich Text Format (RTF) file that includes:

• A list of the differences between each pair of versions

• All comments saved in each version

• A thumbnail graphic of each page of each version

• To export a versions log, choose Review > Versions > Edit Versions, select any version, and click Export Log


13

Transcribing tips

Students are often required to transcribe music from recordings (jazz solos, cadenzas, riffs) and many don’t enjoy the task, even though it’s an excellent ear-‐training activity.

General tips

• Students can transcribe with pencil/paper first and then transfer to their transcriptions to Sibelius

• Alternatively, they can transcribe straight into Sibelius: set up score first with correct instruments, key signature, time signature and so on

• Make sure the Sibelius score is set up in the same key as the audio file of the piece. You can change the key in Sibelius if necessary and then transpose entire score later

• Playback the piece your transcribing using iTunes, Windows Media Player, Audacity (free), Transcribe! (paid software). Have the playback application open on your computer at the same time as Sibelius. Resize both applications on the screen so both can be seen and used at the same time

Transcription “helpers”

Audacity (free software) is a fantastic transcription “helper”.

• You can easily select a small part of the audio file to play back (much better than using rewind/play repeatedly)

• You can transpose the audio file up/down an octave in order to hear a low or high part better

• You can slow the audio file down whilst maintaining the pitch

You might also like to read an article on one of my websites titled Top Tricks for Transcribing Music Quickly:

http://www.musescoretips.com/2011/04/top-‐tricks-‐for-‐transcribing-‐music-‐quickly/

Transcribing and Notating Drum Parts

Transcribing and notating drum patterns is another good ear-‐training activity since most patterns use at least two rhythmically independent parts. During student workshops, I usually break down the steps as follows:

• Ask students to identify the three main parts of the kit (bass, snare and hi-‐hat)

• Provide a printed grid with 8 squares across and 3 down and ask students to label each row

Hi-‐hat

Snare

Bass

• Ask students: the drum part is in 4/4 time. What rhythmic value does each of the squares represent? (quaver). Optional: have them to take a coloured pen/pencil and draw a line at the end of each of the four beats in the grid


14

• Listen to drum part on a recording (pop song -‐ simple beat)

• Identify what bass drum is playing and then play the rhythm using body percussion (use a low sound for bass drum – like a stamp)

• Write the bass drum part into the grid

• Do the same for the snare and hi-‐hat parts: listen, identify the part and play it using body percussion. Divide the group into two and have one play the bass drum part and the other play the hi-‐hat/snare parts. Try playing all three parts at once

• Write the snare and hi-‐hat parts into the grid

Hi-‐hat x x x x x x x x

Snare x x x

Bass x x x x x

• Transfer grid notation to a printed drum kit stave: hand-‐write the drum pattern using regular notation

• Lastly, recreate the drum pattern in Sibelius

Including the entire step-‐by-‐step process of entering drum notation from scratch is beyond the scope of this course (it’s covered in detail during the Sibelius Advanced online course), but I have made a Youtube tutorial video which describes the steps: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AsWCqx2yB8

Other useful stuff: reference material and repertoire

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.

In addition to the collection of worksheets, there is some excellent reference material and public domain repertoire, which is perfect for using with senior students.

Opening The Worksheet Creator

• Sibelius 5 & 6: go to File > Worksheet Creator

• Sibelius 7: go to the File tab > Teaching > Worksheet Creator


15

Here are a few useful things:

01 Elements of Music

• 07 Intervals, Chords, Progressions and Cadences

• 08 Score Analysis

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

That’s it!

Well done – you’ve made it to the end of the course. Please don’t hesitate to contact me regarding

• Training enquiries or presentations for your school/network/event

• Future online courses

• Other 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

Using Sibelius with Older Students - Midnight Music

Documents

Transcript of Using Sibelius with Older Students - Midnight Music