Sibelius notation program

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Image:Sib logo.png Sibelius is a scorewriter program, created by the company Sibelius Software.

History

Sibelius was originally developed by British twins Ben and Jonathan Finn for the Acorn Archimedes computer. It was launched in 1993, beginning a competiton with the program Finale for market dominance that continues today. In 1998 and 1999, the first versions for Windows and Macintosh were released.

The current Sibelius version, version 4, was launched on 5 July 2005. New features include 'dynamic parts', whereby instrumental parts are stored in the same file as the score so that one is automatically updated if the other is changed. The software also includes features to assist the creation of worksheets and for scoring to video.

Additional features

Sibelius scores can be played back at high quality and burned to CD from the program. It is also possible to use the third-party program Photoscore to scan and create a Sibelius score from printed music, although the quality of results can vary. A lite version of Photoscore, which may be upgraded, is bundled with the Sibelius software.

Sound sample libraries, from Sibelius' partner Native Instruments or others, may be installed to enhance playback quality further. The Sibelius bundle includes a lite version of Native Instruments' Kontakt Player which may be used instead of a computer's own sound card and upgraded accordingly.

Sibelius has also dominated the online music publishing market with its free score reader and web browser plugin Scorch. Scorch enables publishers and individual users to publish their music on the internet securely, such as at SibeliusMusic.com.

Lite versions

Lite versions of Sibelius have been released for Acorn computers (Sibelius 7 Student, Sibelius 6 and Junior Sibelius) and more recently for Windows and Macintosh platforms (Sibelius Student). A Sibelius version for guitarists and songwriters called G7 is also available.

Name

It is tempting to think that the name Sibelius for both software and company is a namesake of the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. Some users have also speculated that it was a kind of reverse namesake, starting from the developers' surname "Finn" : Finn → Finnish → Finnish composer → Sibelius. Nonetheless, the Finn brothers maintain that while one or other of these may have been the reason, they can't really remember.

The original Acorn version of the software was called Sibelius 7, but the "7" was not a version number. It may have been an allusion to Sibelius' 7th Symphony. For the Windows and Macintosh versions the company dropped the "7" and began using conventional version numbers instead. (It is not clear what will happen to the name if and when the current software's version number reaches 7.)

Whenever it is run, the program plays a brief passage from a recording of Jean Sibelius' 5th Symphony as it starts, unless this option is switched off in the program's preferences. So far, each Windows/Macintosh Sibelius version has used a different passage.

See also

• Finale
• Scorewriter

External links

• Sibelius Software Ltd
• SibeliusMusic, Sibelius Software's own online music publishing website.
• Reviews of Sibelius 3 and Sibelius Compass by Keith Gemmell.de:Sibelius (Programm)