Small Sibelius question (sorry for the off-topic)

[Maarten Spruijt]

Hello other Sibelius users,

I agree with Donnie and others that Sibelius is a rock notation program, but I have a small question:

I looked in both manual and online help, but I can\'t find a way to ONLY select articulations and copy (transfer) those to another line. So WITHOUT the noteheads and other stuff. Only the stacc dots, accents etc.

Can this be done? With the Advanced Filter e.g.?

Thanks,

Maarten

[mitchb2]

Maarten,

There is a Sibelius list on Yahoo Groups.
The developers themselves are on the list, and they answer questions almost immediately.

Really great list.

[DDJack59]

Maarten,

It looks like Advanced Filter supports selection of articulations, but I haven\'t tried it personally.

Have your tried posting to the Sib help center. It is a good forum.

Sibelius Helpcenter Web site (\"http://www.sibelius.com/helpcenter/\")

--Doug

[DDJack59]

Hmm, I think I now see your dilema...

I just tried the Advanced Filter and it looks like articulation selection is in conjunction with note selection. You can\'t turn off selecting notes, but you can turn on selection of notes with particular articulation.

Better try Sibelius, if there is not a way to do this now, they have been very good about taking input from users for future enhancements.

Oh, I forgot to mention the User Forum on the Sib Helpcenter they refer to as the \'Chat\'

--Doug

[Maarten Spruijt]

Alrighty... thank you for the suggestions.

[apessino]

Can this be done? With the Advanced Filter e.g.?
<font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">Unfortunately not. This is one of the few things that the selection filters cannot do. The developers are well aware of the limitation, as this has been requested many times before, and I am sure it will be addressed in the future.

Applying articulations is very quick, though, but if you have a complex phrase with lots of articulations then entering the pitches instead of the articulations might be more convenient. In that case:

a) Copy the entire phrase (articulations and all) and paste it into its destination staff.
b) Now press the left arrow key. The first note in the phrase will be selected. Notice its duration, and how its corresponding indicator in the keypad is lit blue.
c) Press the corresponding key on the keypad and notice how a dashed blue line now appeared to the left of the selected note. You have entered \"repitching\" mode, a very convenient way of entering new pitches for existing music without affecting note durations, articulations, etc.
d) As long as you have the dashed line, each new pitch you enter with the keyboard or via MIDI will set the pitch of the next note, but everything else will be preserved. Using MIDI you can even enter chords this way.

Until the ability to select/copy/paste articulations is provided you might find this to be a time saving feature. Good luck!

A-

--------
Andrea G. Pessino (not female, just Italian)
Blizzard Entertainment

apessino@blizzard.com

[apessino]

A quick addition to clear up any confusion:

you can use the selection filters and find options to select or find the _notes_ having a particular articulation or set of articulations, but you cannot select the articulations themselves. In fact, you cannot even copy/paste an individual articulation. If you do select a fermata, for example, and then select a note and try to \"paste it\" on the note will turn into a rest with a fermata on it.

Indeed, this is a limitation and one that, hopefully, will be addressed soon. images/icons/wink.gif

A-

[Maarten Spruijt]

Thanks a lot Apessino, you really ARE the Sibelius Maestro images/icons/wink.gif

Perhaps you explained this before, but what do you use Sibelius for exactly? What\'s your \"field\" so to say?

Maarten

[apessino]

Maarten, no problem. I\'ve used Sibelius a lot and I have been overjoyed by it.. that\'s all. If you share my enthusiasm for this piece of software you will become a master user in no time at all, believe me.

As for my \"field,\" I am a software engineer with a major game company (Blizzard Entertainment) where I do mostly \"engine\" type programming. We are currently finishing up our next title: WarCraft III.

I had a long, formal musical education back in Italy.. but I\'ll spare you the details. I use Sibelius to compose, mostly for the concert hall. I am currently working on a five movement symphonic suite, which I am very excited about and should be done this summer, a string quartet which I hope to complete by the end of the year and I have yet to start on a commission by a eastern European group for a woodwind trio. I grew up in the musical theatre (literally.. images/icons/wink.gif ) and operatic music is still my greatest passion.

In my teenage years I wrote two \"small\" operas, one of which was staged, and I worked a lot as an accompanist for opera singers. I was a \"pro\" pianist, composer and I taught music in public schools until my early 20s. I was introduced to computers at age thirteen as part of an electronic music class at the conservatory, and from that moment on my life continually oscillated between my passions for computer entertainment and music.

Ultimately, I hope to get back to the theatre, but not before I feel I am ready for it. I occasionally write some music for our games (I did some orchestration work on the Diablo II cinematics, for example), but I tend to have.. er.. \"strong opinions\" as to what game music should be like, and since my views are not frequently shared by others, who tend to prefer a more film-music type of sound, then I rather be on the side and wait for opportunities to do things my way.

And there you go.. I am sure that\'s more than you wanted to know, so I\'ll get back to work now. Take care!

A-

PS: I really love your music.. your sense of pacing and texture is quite extraordinary, IMHO. I predict a brilliant career for you. images/icons/smile.gif

[Maarten Spruijt]

Thanks for the inside info & for the nice compliment! images/icons/smile.gif

If you like you could comment on my new \"Secret Rendez-vous\", a romantic piece. It\'s here: http://www.maartenspruijt.com/audio/secretrendezvous.mp3 (\"http://www.maartenspruijt.com/audio/secretrendezvous.mp3\")

You can e-mail me if you want ( maartenspruijt@wanadoo.nl ) or ICQ: 37834976

Thanks for the help again!

[esteven1]

Warcraft rules!

[Maarten Spruijt]

Yeah I loved it too... \"Yes me Lord?\" images/icons/wink.gif

[DDJack59]

Andrea,

I know my sons are anxiously awaiting the release of the WC-3.

And although your musical preference may not always be reflected, I think the music tracks I\'ve heard in the Blizzard games they play have always been high quality.

Perhaps you could comment or have one of your co-workers who do some of the compositions/orchestrations comment on their creation of those tracks?

Sequencers? HW? Synths? Giga? Samples?

Regards,
--Doug

[mschiff]

Apessino,

So it\'s you that I have to blame for my kids sitting glassy eyed at the computer for days [grin]. They are big Warcraft fans.

-- Martin

[apessino]

Wow.. it looks like we have some gamers here! Thank you everyone for your kind words!

I have been working on this game for 3 and a half _intense_ years, and I can hardly believe we are almost there. We are very, very excited about it, and I am convinced people are going to be blown away once they experience the finished thing.. reception of the closed beta was amazing, and that was but a glimpse of the whole game (the single player campaign redefines the meaning of the word EPIC.. you\'ll have to see it to believe it). Yes, I am quite thrilled about it.. images/icons/wink.gif

Maarten,

once again a wonderful piece! As I said before, there is something about the pacing, the phrasing of your music that works incredibly well. I love those slow, evolving, clear textures.. am I right in detecting a bit of Aarvo Part\'s influence there? In all of your pieces I feel like there is \"air\" in between the musical thoughts, and a lot of attention obviously goes into contrasting color and subtle poetry, as if the music were gently carrying the listener towards the climax, as opposed to pushing him/her violently there as much other music does. I think you should try your hand at longer forms and see how you do with extended development.. I suspect you\'ll do very well. images/icons/wink.gif

All the best,

A-

[apessino]

DDJack59,

older games (up to WarII) were all simple, straight up MIDI playback, some of them General MIDI! A lot of the WarII soundtrack was played back by a SoundCanvas, believe it or not.. images/icons/wink.gif

Things are very different now, we have a number of pro studios here at our offices (six of them, I think..) and there is a staff of at least 6 sound designers/musicians/etc. working full time. They use pretty much everything you can think of. My friend Jason Hayes, who did most of the Diablo II cinematics, uses Logic and every sample library you can imagine.

Glenn Stafford, the director of the sound department and the author of most of the WarCraft I, II and StarCraft music, uses Cubase and libraries as well. Matt Uelmen, who did all of the in-game music for Diablo I and II and works at our Blizzard North division up in the Bay Area, uses mostly acoustic instruments he plays himself and records into this ancient sequencer (I don\'t even know the name) on Windows 3.1 (!). For Diablo II Expansion: Lord of Destruction he wrote the score using pencil and paper first, then Sibelius, and we had it performed by the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kirk Trevor.

There you go, if you have any specific questions I can certainly answer them.. take care!

A-

[mitchb2]

Originally posted by apessino:

Matt Uelmen uses mostly acoustic instruments he plays himself and records into this ancient sequencer on Windows 3.1 (!).
A-<font size=\"2\" face=\"Verdana, Arial\">Good Lord! That\'s the most extreme case of \"if it ain\'t broke, don\'t fix it\" I\'ve ever heard of! :-)

[Maarten Spruijt]

Hey Aspessino,

Thanks for the great compliments! Really nice words, thank you!

Now you made me curious: if you (partly) disagree with the popular filmic game scores, what is *your* idea of game music/score?

Maarten

[Maarten Spruijt]

Aspessino? images/icons/wink.gif

[apessino]

Hello again, Maarten!

Sorry about the delay.. we are on the final stretch with the game, so I try to spend as little time in the forums as possible. These days I only check the board once a day, if even that much..

Regarding your question, well.. it would take a very long post for me to answer properly images/icons/wink.gif but let\'s just say that I love film music (don\'t we all?) but I really don\'t like that Hollywood\'s-poor-cousin sound that many games end up with (including some of ours.. hehe). I think one should approach each project as a blank canvas, as opposed to connecting the game to its \"closest motion picture relative\" and then providing one\'s best imitation of its soundtrack.

The reality is that many composers who write for games would drop their pencil and run like the wind the second they were given the opportunity to write for film. Most of them don\'t play, understand or even enjoy games; they see scoring games as a sort of waypoint on the route to a career scoring for film, and I believe that their output reflects such attitude. If I hear one more cheesy \"media ventures-style\" action cue I am going to puke, I swear.. Games are not ways to build one\'s demo reel for future film projects, they are an art form of their own, and one that offers fresh possibilities for expression of musico-dramatic ideas.

A few successful examples, IMHO: the in-game scores for Diablo and Diablo II, where Matt was able to make this amazing connection to the game world using simple, echoing guitar chords. People loved it because it was its own thing, the \"Diablo mood,\" if you will. If he had tried to imitate your typical horror movie score I am convinced the game would have greatly suffered, and certainly it would have not become one of the most beloved game soundtracks ever. The score to \"Homeworld,\" by Jon Anderson from Yes, which was barely musical and yet amazingly immersive and did more for the atmosphere of the game than anything displayed on screen. Any of Uematzu\'s scores for the Final Fantasy games, as traditional, melodic and sentimental (and often corny..) as the afore-mentioned two were contemporary, textural and \"cold.\" Peter McConnel\'s jazzy/Mexican-flavored soundtrack for Grim Fandango. Jeremy Soule\'s turn-of-the-century sound for Icewind Dale..

There are many more, of course, but in general I like those soundtracks that put the game or its concept first, even if they contradict the user\'s most immediate expectations, or if they dare to present ideas in sharp contrast with accepted motion-picture scoring formulas. As always this is just my opinion, worth very little.. images/icons/wink.gif

Take care..

A-

[Maarten Spruijt]

Thanks for your reply!

Well ofcourse I can only agree with you, but I think the same goes for movies itself. For the score you have to write and think in the concept of the thing you\'re scoring for, and not what you would have *liked* to write if this was your dreamproject starring Bruce Willis in his action days. images/icons/wink.gif

Actually it\'s a shift I\'m feeling myself. I\'m starting to get more satisfaction in creating music from a new and fresh perspective (what you call a \'blank canvas\') than from a more traditional perspective. I still think \"the orchestra\" produces the most beautiful combination of sounds on this world, but there\'s much, much more.

Please don\'t hate me for it, but I\'ve never played Diablo and (so) never heard the music. I\'ll look it up and pay attention to those guitar echos! images/icons/wink.gif

Thanks for the refreshing,

Maarten