The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Is Sibelius mainly for composers and arrangers - or is it useful for just normal basic jazz guitar hacks like me?


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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

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    Sibelius is professional grade music notation software. It would probably be overkill to purchase it if you just plan to use it to write out charts or jazz etudes, as you can save ~$500 by just using something cheap or free and still be able to do that. I own an older version of Sibelius and love it. I use it primarily for creating etudes for students and my own jazz studies and on rare occasion I even compose. I could probably do everything I do on cheaper notation software. But I did get Sibelius originally for somewhere around $150 because I used their competitive upgrade pricing.

  4. #3

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    I'm in roughly the same boat as Guitarzen -- I have it and I use it; but I got it originally as a gift, and it was very reasonable, after that, to upgrade.

    There's a bit of a learning curve, but maybe that's true for all such tools.

  5. #4

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    Just get free MuseScore.

    MuseScore | Free music composition and notation software


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  6. #5
    Thanks guys. I've downloaded the Sibelius 30 day free evaluation. Looks "feature rich".

    If I put a note on a treble clef stave - will Sibelius play that note if I ask it to?

    I gather you can plug your guitar into it and if you play a note, it will place the note on the stave?




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  7. #6

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    'If I put a note on a treble clef stave - will Sibelius play that note if I ask it to?' - Yes

    '
    I gather you can plug your guitar into it and if you play a note, it will place the note on the stave?' - No, you need a MIDI guitar (or keyboard) to do that, a normal guitar won't do it.

    Like Little Jay said above, I suggest downloading the free software 'MuseScore' - it may do all you need it to do and in many respects it works in a similar way to Sibelius. In one or two ways it is in fact superior to Sibelius and if you later decide you need more features you could then go on to Sibelius. I write and arrange music as part of my professional life, and I use MuseScore for most of that kind of work; I only use Sibelius for large scale things e.g. orchestral music or big band scores, so unless you intend writing music for large groups of people, you may well find that MuseScore is more than adequate for your purposes.
    Last edited by reventlov; 11-07-2016 at 06:46 AM.

  8. #7
    Thanks - you're making sense!

  9. #8

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    Quote Originally Posted by reventlov
    In one or two ways it is in fact superior to Sibelius
    How is that exactly?

    Quote Originally Posted by Thelonius
    Thanks guys. I've downloaded the Sibelius 30 day free evaluation. Looks "feature rich". If I put a note on a treble clef stave - will Sibelius play that note if I ask it to? I gather you can plug your guitar into it and if you play a note, it will place the note on the stave?
    Yes it possibly has all the possible features you can get in a notation software, that's why it would be overkill for casual use. It does have full playback and can read things like repeats, codas, segnos, dynamics, articulations and more. You can use either midi or sampled instrument sounds which come as part of the package. You may want to watch some tutorial & demonstration videos for Sibelius so you can see the full power of it. Here's a little tip for you as far as note entry goes -- don't use the mouse -- use your left hand to type the note name and your right hand on the number keypad for values (though the values don't correspond to the numbers, but rather the little floating notes display). It will choose the closest note of the letter you typed in by default, so if you need the further one you can simply use ctrl up arrow to move the last typed note up an octave or ctrl down arrow to move it down one octave. Using this method the note entry can be very fast. This is how it works on my 6.? version anyways, I would think they would keep that the same.

  10. #9

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    Imo, if you really have to pay some 599.- for it, then probably you'd use only about 25.- worth of things there. Depends what you do of course. Last sibelius was 7 that I used and to be honest, it can be very frustrating sometimes for several reasons. But the + side is that you can really do almost anything ..somehow.. that you have in mind.

    Free Musescore has a better UI for every day things. Don't know how it compares to Sibelius 8.

  11. #10

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    Guitarzen "How is that exactly?"

    Note input with accidentals is faster and easier on MuseScore; when you want to move a note up or down on the stave in Sibelius, the notes will move up and down on the stave one line or space at a time and then you insert any sharps or flats once it reaches the line you want. On MuseScore, notes move up and down chromatically when you hold down the relevant key. I find that less 'finicky', and speeds the note input process up. It's why I use MuseScore in preference to Sibelius for quick arrangements, or composing for small numbers of instruments. It lets me use more key strokes and less mouse.

  12. #11

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    Quote Originally Posted by Thelonius
    Is Sibelius mainly for composers and arrangers - or is it useful for just normal basic jazz guitar hacks like me?


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    I use Sibelius First....it is a great for guitarists also...and not expensive.

  13. #12

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    I use MuseScore and used Sibelius in the past. I've written multi-part big band scores with both products but mostly have used the software for lead sheets and transcription purposes. MuseScore does everything that I need and that was included in Sibelius.

    However, I think input is slightly faster in Sibelius because of the way Sibelius uses the numeric keypad which to me is intuitive and fast in changing note rhythmic values. It's easy to use the numeric keypad without looking away from the score; without the hunting and pecking required in Musescore's use of the numbers on the alpha/numeric keyboard.

    Other than that the input is extremely similar... for example, letters for note pitches, ctrl arrow moves a note by an octave, ctrl k to add chords, ctrl L to add lyrics, etc.

    With all that said, Sibelius is just slightly better to me (based on how I use the software) except... for price.

    MuseScore get's the overall nod as it's free and accordingly I can put it on multiple computers, I can more easily get band mates to use and share files etc.

  14. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by fep
    I use MuseScore and used Sibelius in the past. I've written multi-part big band scores with both products but mostly have used the software for lead sheets and transcription purposes. MuseScore does everything that I need and that was included in Sibelius.

    However, I think input is slightly faster in Sibelius because of the way Sibelius uses the numeric keypad which to me is intuitive and fast in changing note rhythmic values. It's easy to use the numeric keypad without looking away from the score; without the hunting and pecking required in Musescore's use of the numbers on the alpha/numeric keyboard.

    Other than that the input is extremely similar... for example, letters for note pitches, ctrl arrow moves a note by an octave, ctrl k to add chords, ctrl L to add lyrics, etc.

    With all that said, Sibelius is just slightly better to me (based on how I use the software) except... for price.

    MuseScore get's the overall nod as it's free and accordingly I can put it on multiple computers, I can more easily get band mates to use and share files etc.
    I've always used the numeric keypad on muse score for rhythmic values. Print the shortcut keys, and paste on the wall. "N" toggles note editing features I believe.

  15. #14

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    Hmm, don't know how I missed that. I wonder if that's a recent change. So the only thing that I thought was a disadvantage to me with MuseScore vs. Sibelius was due to my lack of knowledge. Winner: MuseScore.

    Quote Originally Posted by matt.guitarteacher
    I've always used the numeric keypad on muse score for rhythmic values. Print the shortcut keys, and paste on the wall. "N" toggles note editing features I believe.
    Last edited by fep; 11-08-2016 at 09:11 PM.

  16. #15

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    Quote Originally Posted by reventlov
    Guitarzen "How is that exactly?"

    Note input with accidentals is faster and easier on MuseScore; when you want to move a note up or down on the stave in Sibelius, the notes will move up and down on the stave one line or space at a time and then you insert any sharps or flats once it reaches the line you want. On MuseScore, notes move up and down chromatically when you hold down the relevant key. I find that less 'finicky', and speeds the note input process up. It's why I use MuseScore in preference to Sibelius for quick arrangements, or composing for small numbers of instruments. It lets me use more key strokes and less mouse.
    I don't move notes manually with the mouse, I use left hand to type notes, right hand on the keypad for note values and other things such as accidentals. So yeah if you manually moved the note up or down it would be slow, but if you do it the way I do it, it's not really slow, only requires one more button press with the right hand.

    Any other reasons why you think musescore is faster? Just curious, as maybe I would use it too if I thought it would be faster for something. I rarely use the mouse when I input scores into Sibelius, maybe just to open menus, which I'm sure many have hotkeys I have just not learned yet.

  17. #16

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    Quote Originally Posted by fep
    However, I think input is slightly faster in Sibelius because of the way Sibelius uses the numeric keypad which to me is intuitive and fast in changing note rhythmic values. It's easy to use the numeric keypad without looking away from the score; without the hunting and pecking required in Musescore's use of the numbers on the alpha/numeric keyboard.
    Exactly, this is why I like Sibelius so much, though I can't comment on Musescore, never tried it. But free is a pretty huge plus for Musescore.

  18. #17

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    I use Lilypond (LilyPond – Music notation for everyone: LilyPond... music notation for everyone) with Fresobaldi as the frontend/editor (Frescobaldi: LilyPond muziek met gemak bewerken). The learning curve is steep but once you've got the hang of it, it's fast and the charts look great. I can go from manuscript to finished charts for guitar, bass, saxes and trumpet in under 30 minutes. It produces PDFs that I sync to my tablet.

  19. #18

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    how about for writing books? Do any of the notation packages allow you to do text/music layout ? Finale has some rudimentary capabilities but it's nothing to write home about.

  20. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by fep
    Hmm, don't know how I missed that. I wonder if that's a recent change. So the only thing that I thought was a disadvantage to me with MuseScore vs. Sibelius was due to my lack of knowledge. Winner: MuseScore.
    My office wall at work. I've never been Mr. tidy. :-)


  21. #20

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    I found a detailed and unbiased review of MuseScore vs. Sibelius on the MuseScore Forum. It's here: A Comparison of MuseScore 2, Notion 6 , Finale v25 and Sibelius 8 | MuseScore

    A couple tidbits from that review:

    MuseScore 2 vs. Sibelius 8

    Sibelius feels very familiar, sort of like MuseScore's smarter, older brother. I can summarize the Sibelius review by saying that Sibelius does everything that MuseScore does, it just does more of it and better.

    Bottom line: Sibelius offers more features, reduces edit time and performs faster. The downside: it's $600. You can reduce this to $350 by purchasing Notion for $150 and then the cross-grade for $200.

  22. #21

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    I've been using Forte for my big band parts. It's a free, German program I saw advertised here.
    When I run out of score paper, I'm going to have to get Finale or Sibelius.

    I need something that can extract parts from the score. Is there something cheaper than Finale or Sibelius that does that?

  23. #22

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    I've been using Sibelius for years. It's great software, way better than MuseScore, but then again it isn't free :P

  24. #23
    Yeah. I honestly think anyone who has to ask the original question is probably best served by trying one of these free offerings to at least get acquainted technology, generally. Muse score is so robust compared to free software 5 or 10 years ago. This isn't exactly MS Paint versus Photoshop, or ProTools versus audacity, or even Reaper. Paid versions for music notation are going to be mostly for power users or for those already familiar them.

    If someone really wants to know WHY they should use Sibelius vs musescore etc., they probably should be using something like Musescore until they know the limitations themselves. Get to know it for a while, and then download trial versions of other software like Sibelius.

    There are still people out there who think audacity is all they'll ever need and that Reaper is a waste of money. I can't imagine that, but people have vastly different needs for software, depending on what they actually want to do. To get the most "value" out of a free trial for expensive software, get to know the free version for as long as it takes to be informed on basic.

  25. #24

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    Issue is the learning curve. Very few really want to spend the time learning several of these complex tools.

    All depends on what money one is OK to invest at the beginning and of course what the expectations are.
    Sibelius or finale allows for creating good sound files from a score. Not sure the latest Musecore can do it that good.

  26. #25
    Finale? Hadn't heard of that one. Downloaded Musescore. Just starting to explore it's UI.

    I was at a presentation the other day where a composer (Douglas Knehans) showed on a big monitor his orchestral compositions. He'd used Sibelius to put it all together. He said he doesn't write much music on paper. It all goes into the computer.

    The arrangements get emailed to Europe. He collaborates with a librettist in Europe online in real time (and off line). When it's ready to be performed, he travels to Europe to rehearse the compositions with the conductor and orchestra.

    I think The Necks do the same thing.