Category: Sibelius
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The Paul Grabowsky Sibelius Education Kit (from 2006)
There’s a funny story about this one. Sibelius 5 had lots of cool things to show off. A new audio engine, the Ideas Hub, support for VST and AU plug-ins, a new view in Panorama, super-easy cues and much, much more. Here in Australia Sibelius went all out and commissioned a work from composer Paul…
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Sibelius 7 Music Notation Essentials (Book, no longer in print).
Because this book is no longer in print, I have made the resources and tutorial videos (which are still quite relevant to the current version of Sibelius) available here! There are plenty of second hand copies of the book available if you need one. Sibelius 7 Music Notation Essentials was the only official, Avid-endorsed course for…
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Remixular bells
In this unit of work you will examine how Mike Oldfield built the opening of his seminal progressive rock work Tubular Bells. By following each step as instructed below, you will rebuild the work yourself, remix it, and then compose a new piece based on the original. Simply follow the process outlined as follows. Listening Learn…
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Piano, vibes etc. pedalling workflow in Sibelius
I’m in the middle of composing a large work for orchestra and choir at the moment, and as I was setting up my pedalling notation shortcut for the first time in Sibelius 7.5 it suddenly occurred to me that this may be a workflow that others haven’t thought of. I can remember back in the days…
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Please welcome the #SCMtech community of music educators for 2013
It will be no surprise to hear that I really relished the opportunity to rewrite the Sydney Conservatorium’s course Technology in Music Education this year. It was one of those tasks that was only difficult because I could write a 26 week course rather than a 13 week course (many of the 1h50m lectures have about…
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Website updates, SoundCloud integration and a free online Sibelius course. Yes, free.
Long time no blog – but that’s what happens when you take a new job! Since March I’ve been working at the Sydney Conservatorium as a full time lecturer in Music Education. I’m loving it, and I’m exhausted. This blog post is mostly to draw your attention to the many changes I’ve made at my…
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The Speaking Piano
I’ve just completed my fourth commission of the year, and I’m especially proud of this one. I’m going to blog only briefly on what it’s about, because you can learn everything by going to the website www.composerhome.com/piano anyway, but I thought I might also share a little of the process of making it here, because it has…
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#UWSMTeach Lecture 5
This week we started with a reading exercise instead of the usual learning by copying or by rote. We used a transcription I’d made of the Penguin Café Orchestra’s rather fabulous Music for a Found Harmonium and discussed what our teaching strategies would be if we weren’t a group of twentysomethings (self excluded) who could already…
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#UWSMTeach Lecture 4
Lecture 4 was a departure from the usual format, with our annual visit from the education technology industry experts at Roland. Ray and Attila took us through some of the coolest and newest gear. The things that really caught my eyes were: BA-55 PA with wireless mic – very cool for schools, put it on…
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Stage 5 Film Project
I feel compelled to write about a unit of work just completed with a very talented stage 5 class despite the fact that I’m aware it wasn’t quite perfect. The reason for this is because it had so many good points that you can’t guarantee when you set out: self-motivated students, community and collaboration, a…
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Avid Scorch for iPad in the classroom
Avid released their first iPad app only a few weeks ago, and it’s for my favourite ever software title – Sibelius. In fact, Avid Scorch is much, much more than a Sibelius file-reader for iPad. If it weren’t enough to be able to read and play back your Sibelius files, what about being able to…
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Tutorial notes week 7 – and resources from the lecture
In the tutorial this week we created our own Wiki on the topic of music technology for education. After discussing how the structure of our Wiki would work, I demonstrated setting up the first few levels, and created a page on the Korg iElectribe for iPad. I then asked you each to create a page…
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Do as I say, and do as I do.
Sleeping is definitely overrated. All I can say is that I’m jolly glad that my rather lovely father-in-law likes to buy me a coffee (and sometimes even cooked breakfast) on a Tuesday morning. Because again I returned home from our Monday night lecture and tutorials and couldn’t resist following up on what we’d done. I…
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Learn Sibelius in 1 hour videos now Flash, not Quicktime
A few people have written to me recently saying that the Learn Sibelius in 1 Hour videos weren’t loading for them. I think it depended on the browser and operating system you use. Anyway, there haven’t been any such problems with the Developing an Idea in Sibelius 6 videos which were Flash (uploaded to Vimeo…
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New composition tutorial series: Developing an idea with Sibelius 6
This series of videos, then, shows the student how to use the plug-ins. But it does a little more than that. It provides context by looking first at how Beethoven, the master of development, transforms ideas in the first subject of the first movement of his third symphony…
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Learn Sibelius in 1 hour passes 5,000 hits in various locations
Well, I only ever intended it as a rough collection of videos made as soon as possible after Sibelius 6 came out to teach my students how to use it. The videos were recorded and edited in just a few hours (hence all the noise in the background, the umms and ahhs that give away…
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SixEightThreeFour
This piece is part of my Symphony of the Child, commissioned and premiered by the International Grammar School in Sydney in 2009. It uses alternating six-eight and three-four time signatures, like a Flamenco, and is perfect for middle school classes to perform. In this unit of work students move from performing the piece in class to…
James Humberstone 