Notation Software: illustration, worksheets and quality resources. Copyright

Last week we looked deeply at Andrew Brown and his book 'Computers in Music Education.

Today, we focus more on James Humberstone's book in the library - how to use Sibelius and refer to the video tutorials he made to accompany this book.

Today, we had a look at certain notation softwares (including Sibelius and MuseScore) that are beneficial to our own use as teachers (when creating our resources) and also to our students (who transcribe their compositions). We also understood the importance of copyright and how to avoid using pre-made graphics.

We watched the following video:

• Dorico - Meet the Team behind the scenes:

• James used to work with them for 9 years before leaving them to work on his PhD and working as a lecturer at uni.

• Interesting thing about this software:

• Thinks of players rather than instruments in the score

• Separate voices (arranges it automatically for you).

• Moving more into Garageband package - to introduce notation

Some Interesting points - Different Views

• MIDI blocks in the MIDI view, it would be easy to change something about meter

• If you change how long a bar is, then you have to recalculate everything around that including notation.

Educational uses in notation software:

Muse Score Shortcuts:

• press numbers 1-6 to change note heads

• Press 'S' to include a slur

• Extremely nasty hard difficult task for year 9 (press the camera image at the top right in Muse Score - highlight what bars you want to use, then copy and paste as an image).

• Choose to save score online - privately. Goes to the website and your account straight away.

• Manage audio uses once score is saved online (this could be your project).

Noteflight:

• You can send and receive assignments / notation via Noteflight.

Music XML files?

Student using MuseScore and then asking them to save their work in XML format to be able to open it via Sibelius or something.

Copyright:

• Little elements of ostinati that we can rebuild a piece out of is still considered to be breaking copyright.

• Educational use is the only time you cannot be put in jail for making educational resources.

• Score examples - make the graphic yourself instead of actually taking a picture off your phone and then badly cropping it, copying it and pasting it to your assignment.

Check out my own arrangement (which I created using MuseScore) of Justin Bieber ft. Big Sean's 'As long as you love me.' Feel free to download it by clicking here.