4/22/2021 0 Comments Sibelius Sound Essentials
Imagine you start working on a composition and sketch out some ideas.Id read various reviews and articles and met the Dorico team at several music conferences, where I was able to try out the software.Knowing that the Dorico staff used to work on Sibelius, I was also curious to see how they had improved the user experience and whether they had managed to create a superior product.In this post Ill share my initial thoughts as a new user of Dorico.
So, why bother I wondered whether there was a programme more efficient than Sibelius, where I wouldnt be pressing the escape key every other second and wouldnt have to restart a whole piece if I had changed my mind and did want an upbeat at the start after all. Sibelius doesnt look too kindly on composers who change their minds and want to write something a bit out of the ordinary. ![]() Rather than having to make lots of compositional decisions at this early stage, Dorico simply asks you to choose players and then assign instruments to those players. Were already thinking in terms of actual humans playing instruments which will encourage more musical outcomes the oboist can switch to cor anglais, with all the music on one part. Depending on your ensemble, your violinist could pick up the maracas and then perform saxophone solo, if thats what you want The point is, Dorico is designed to allow complete musical freedom from the outset. Everything you need from clefs to accidentals, bowing marks to slurs and ties, is visible on one screen rather than having to open various new windows and menus. It took me a little while to find everything and so it is worth allowing yourself some time just to explore where everything is. There are some helpful Dorico resources for beginners which are well worth a read. It took me a little while to get used to working in these modes, but it allows the user to move smoothly between composing activities. For example in Write mode I am composing inputting notes, adding score details such as dynamics, and making tempo changes. ![]() The music all looks the same on the screen, you just need to change the mode to fit the activity. Engrave mode allows more sophisticated control of the visual aspects of the score. For example adding in system breaks, creating musical frames (for images) and exploring staff spacing. Sibelius Sound Essentials Full Dorico VersionThis mode is only available in the full Dorico version (not Dorico Elements ) however its likely that students wouldnt need this level of detail. As with any new skill, I knew that I would initially be slower in Dorico, and this was a little frustrating, but it was worth persevering. For example, one thing that took some getting used to was the use of updown arrows. In Sibelius these arrows move the pitch of a note up or down, however in Dorico I found that the cursor kept jumping up or down through the systems. It makes perfect sense for the arrow to do this just as in a Microsoft Word document the arrow will move the cursor up to the next line of text rather than changing the letter to the next one in the alphabet but it still foxed me at first Other shortcuts are the same as in Sibelius, for example, press P to play and space bar to stop. This is very different to Sibelius: the best way to describe working in flows is to think of it as a manuscript pad.
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