Streamlined Sibelius

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Fred G. Unn
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Joined: 05 Oct 2015, 13:24
Location: NYCish

Streamlined Sibelius

Post by Fred G. Unn »

There's a new Sibelius book being released tomorrow 2/15 called Streamlined Sibelius by David Berger, Christian Dancy, and Marc Schwartz. If anyone is interested, the authors will be presenting the book on a Zoom workshop tomorrow at 2pm. Here's a link if anyone wants to register: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_anSg-PdfRrmQwZybzD8JDw

It's a pretty unique book as it's sort of a Sibelius instructional guide and jazz/commercial/Broadway notation guide all in one, and comes with Sibelius templates to help achieve that look. Basically a Sibelius how-to meets Clinton Roemer's The Art of Music Copying. Berger has decades in the music business, is a great arranger, was the first conductor of Jazz at Lincoln Center (before Wynton Marsalis), and is one of the world's foremost experts on Duke Ellington, so he has plenty of experience in this style.

I'm definitely a Sibelius novice, but as I was reading through the book, I found the Sibelius info clearly presented and there are a lot of visual examples. The chapters are:

Getting Started - Basic Sib info including importing the template that comes with the book, and installing plug-ins that are referred to in the book
Lesson 1. Creating a Lead Sheet - Including info on chord symbols and lyrics
Lesson 2. Creating a Small Group Score - Including info on doubles, drum set notation, proofreading, and a proofing checklist
Lesson 3. Creating Parts - Including info on casting off, layout, positioning, avoiding collisions, etc.
Finishing Touches - Including info on printing, taping, tacet sheets
Shortcuts

For anyone interested in getting their Sibelius skills up, or looking for notational style advice in jazz/commercial/Broadway idioms, there's a lot of useful info here. I use Sib rarely, but will probably refer to it often when I have a job that has to be done in Sib. In the interest of full disclosure, I know David well and have received an advance copy, so I'm clearly not unbiased.
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