"D E F# G A Bb C D E ------------- F# G A Bb --------- A."
Sing these notes in your head. Now sing them again but out loud. Sounds familiar? Yep, you guessed it. This is indeed the startup tune to the Sibelius 6 Notation Software, also coincidentally (or not so coincidentally) the final bars of the second movement of Jean Sibelius's 6th Symphony! Oh the joys of doing 'composition tasks' in music class...
So who hasn't used or seen a notation software before? Let me tell you all about it.. or even better, let's meet someone who's worked for a notation software company before!!
Our very own Technology in Music Education lecturer, Dr. James Humberstone! It was very cool to have James not only introduce to us all these notation softwares available for music students and teachers, but to share with us so many useful shortcuts and functions that Sibelius provides which almost nobody in the room knew about! If only I had this lecture back some years ago, perhaps I would have saved up to 30 hours of time from making rearrangements and resources the long way?
Honestly, I wouldn't even know where to start in sharing the 'extra' things I learnt about Sibelius from that lecture, so here's the link to James's video tutorials on how to navigate the software efficiently and find out all the fancy things Sibelius can do for you! Thanks a lot, James!!
Okay, so here's the discussion on which notation softwares to use in the school music classroom. It is often quite a struggle for a music teacher to decide which notation softwares are most suitable and available for students to use when it comes to score notation, especially for composition tasks and activities. Of course you have Sibelius and Finale which are extremely versatile and reliable softwares, but surely there have to be other softwares that work and are cost-effective!
We had a look at Musescore, Noteflight, Flat.io, and apps such as Notate Me and StaffPad, which all had their pros and cons. For example, xml files made in Flat.io can be exported into Soundtrap (yes, it excited me when I found out that DAWs can be so easily compatible with Notation Softwares) and Musescore files can now be saved online etc. However, free versions of certain softwares have their limitations such as, only being able to download the full score and not the individual parts unless you upgrade to the full version. There's so much out there for students and teachers to use, but now it's up to ourselves to do some research into finding the most suitable notation software that meets our needs!
Lastly, one simply cannot go wrong with using the old pencil and manuscript! As they all say, it's often on pen and paper that gets the creative juices flowing...
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