TME Week 2A Notes

Watched video: 'Dorico - Meet the Team Behind the Scenes'

• [All about the challenges of creating a new kind of notation software]

• Dorico is focused on players rather than instruments

• It also has a piano roll element, so that you can teach kids about MIDI and notation together

• You can also easily change meter without the mess

Readings for this week

• Computers in Music Education – Andrew Brown (Griffith University)

• Music Learning Today – William Bower

• Sibelius 7 Handbook – James Humberstone

• There are 33 instructional videos

• James’ Sibelius readings/videos are the best!

Slow programs and Speedy Markets

• While Sibelius and Finale have slowed down their upgrades, the market for scores has sped up

MuseScore

• MuseScore is really important because it is free, and you can use it on tablets on phones

• Version 2 doesn’t crash all the time!

• There is a ‘synchronise to a movie’ function

• Save score online

• If you have a free MuseScore account, you can go into your account and see the score play

**Mind Explosion of the Week**

Alt + G gives you a cross-hair which you can use to copy and paste high resolution score excerpts (rather than doing screen shots which are lower resolution)

Other Free and New Software

• Chrome is best for a lot of graphics-based things because it is most friendly for HTML5

• Flat is another free notation software

• Noteflight --> you can embed noteflight software in your blog post, so that way you can play scores while reading a blog entry

• Notate Me – good for iPad, can use a pen to hand write score elements

• Staff Pad – again you can hand write things into the score

A Common Language!

• Music XML is now a common language that goes between all these different programs

• You can import and export files in music xml, and that means that you can bring your scores over

Sibelius 7.5 – let’s get down to business

• Exporting graphics from Sibelius (see **Mind Explosion of the Week** above)

• You can actually export video as well

• File --> Export --> Video

• Tip: Don’t use the playback line cos it always looks behind

• Tip: Export in HD

• It should come into a .mov file

• You could also then mute the audio and put better audio behind the score

• You can also use ReWire (best feature ever) --> you can send the Sibelius audio out to a program like GarageBand, and then you can overdub the audio so that you can get rid of the awful sounds on Sibelius

• Ideas Hub: In Sibelius 7, go to View --> Panels --> Ideas

• Then find ideas you like, and you can paste it into your score

• Click on the ‘score’ tab in Ideas Hub, I can put some of my own music in there --> So within the Sibelius app, you can create baby steps for your students

• Reviewing files: At the end of the lesson, you can go to Review --> New Version --> then save a copy with comments about what you did that day

• Then when they upload their file, you can make comments on it

• Export log --> under review, you can then export a log of all of your changes

• Note input --> over on the far right hand side you can see options for retrograde, inversion etc.

• You can do this diatonically as well

• Also look at ‘more’ and you can get lots more happening

• Then of course you can add your retrograde/inversions etc. as part of the ideas hub

• Worksheet creator: File --> teaching --> there are 1700 worksheets that are copyright-free

• Everything is there! So good!

A Word about Copyright

• If you try and transcribe a whole song and then put files up online for free, you are breaking copyright (even if the transcription is entirely your own work)

• If you just take little samples or loops, although it is technically still breaking copyright, you can apply the 10% rule

• But as long as you are only doing things in your classroom, no one can argue that you aren’t doing it for educational purposes

• For score examples, just make your own on Sibelius, rather than taking a photo from your phone

• Check out IMSLP