Friday Fave: Sibelius

Those of you who are non-musicians might not find this particular "Friday Fave" very interesting, but I've been spending so much time using this program (and loving *almost* every minute of it) lately that I just had to share.  Sibelius - named after Finnish composer Jean Sibelius - is a scorewriter program that can do just about anything you could think of when it comes to producing or editing sheet music.

I actually have my mom to thank for my version of Sibelius.  My contribution was my student discount, which she was able to apply when she purchased the program a few years back, during my undergrad days.  I'll say that the price is definitely a bit steep, but it has been worth every penny.  I used Sibelius to create all of the sheet music for my songbook, after all!

The learning curve for this program is also steep, especially if you are used to more basic software like Finale Notepad (which is what I used prior to Sibelius).  But the key is sitting down and experimenting; the more you  use it and explore its features, the easier it gets.  Here are some of the cool things you can do with Sibelius:

• Scan in printed sheet music and edit it
• Input music using a microphone, keyboard, or other MIDI instrument
• Record playback and turn it into an audio file
• Create worksheets (comes in very handy for studio teachers like me!)

And the list goes on and on.  I haven't even touched half of the plug-ins that come with Sibelius, but I'm hoping to get around to that someday.  In the meantime, I'll stick with my current project: creating sheet music for each and every Listen & Learn song written thus far.  I compose my songs in lead sheet form, but now that I have more and more orders coming in for sheet music (you can place yours here), I decided to convert my entire library.  I've been using Sibelius so often that I'm even having dreams about it, but hey, I could think of worse things :)