Streamlined Sibelius: Shortcuts to Professional-looking Music in 3 Easy Lessons

This is a well written resource tool. The authors are very obviously knowledgeable about the subject matter and communicate it clearly and succinctly throughout the pages of this book. It would be a wonderful addition to the library of any musician, serious music student or anyone desiring to expand their knowledge and understanding of composition and notation. This would be a valuable tool to have available for music programs of all levels.

Not much more than a brochure . Not much more helpful than a table of contents. And very expensive for very few pages of very little information.

This book is a well organized wealth of information on preparing jazz scores, lead sheets and parts. The authors guide you specifically to recreating their house style, which is not a bad style to start off as David Berger is well known and established as a composer and music copyist/transcriber. This is the kind of book you will refer to again and again as there is so much practical information to streamline your work. It is unlike any other book for Sibelius in that it really caters to the jazz arranger. This is especially important and helpful for Sibelius, which has always felt more classically oriented to me than Finale. Solid, easy to follow instructions!

I have used Sibelius notation software for many years and I love it. But, often long periods of time would go by without me opening the program, and I would find I couldn’t remember the important steps of formatting. Sibelius does do a lot of the heavy lifting in the formatting department, but I would then spend a lot of time moving the hyphens in lyrics, moving lyrics, spacing the staves so they weren’t crowded, etc. And, still I would miss something that would only be apparent after I’d published the piece. I have always wished for a clearly written actual book that would give me practical tips on how to make the finished lead sheet look like it was printed by a major publisher instead of from my office. So, I was thrilled to find this book which is a wealth of easy to understand, practical tips to take your lead sheet to that next level of professionalism. Not only do the authors provide House Style templates to make your chart look as professional as possible but they print examples of before and after so you can see the difference yourself.I know that the super helpful recommendations in this book are going to save me a ton of time. The book does assume you have a working knowledge of Sibelius which is easily gained by the Sibelius tutorials. This book fills in the gap between basic knowledge and polished final product which no other Sibelius manual that I’ve purchased has addressed. I highly recommend this book.

I took the plunge and forced myself to learn Sibelius several years ago and I have used it to prepare lead sheets as well as music for a couple of shows. I fire it up only when I need to create a document and often weeks or months will go by between uses. I have often wondered how much better looking my charts could be and how much faster I could get my work done if I had the time to invest in really learning the software and optimizing my workflow. This book provides the answer! The authors give you the benefit of their vast experience generating lead sheets and arrangements to show you how to get your music generated quickly, with high quality, that is easy to read.The book is written as several guided lessons where you create a lead sheet and a small group score and print parts. Don't be dissuaded by the lesson format, as it is the only way to pass on knowledge of such detail in a manner that will help you retain it. The authors do a good job of identifying the differences between versions of Sibelius, so you don't have to have the latest version of Sibelius in order to use the text.The book contains a checklist for proofing music, a keyboard shortcut cheat sheet (including handy shortcuts the authors recommend and show you how to add) and a detailed index. I think this book fills an important void between a beginners guide and a complete instruction manual for musicians creating modern instrumental music in Sibelius.

I've been using Sibelius for years to write charts for my bands, create exercises and etudes for my students, and write arrangements for other people. I love the software, as it's quick to input and edit music, and easy to learn and get good at, but the main thing that I've always struggled with is the last part of the arranging process: making parts come out looking nice. I always end up spending so much time going through each part and moving things around and adjusting everything so that it's readable. Well, this book nails that problem right on the head. It shows you how to make and use templates and house styles to avoid that problem, and have your parts just default to looking right. Already it's saving me a ton of time, and everything I'm writing and arranging looks better than it ever did before.

As a collegiate jazz educator, I frequently encounter student compositions, arrangements, and transcriptions with a wide latitude of notational issues. Even in the professional arena, there is a great deal of inconsistency across charts, parts, and lead sheets. This book addresses those issues by presenting a clear, concise, and practical step-by-step guide -- from the perspective of working musicians, for working musicians -- to creating beautiful modern manuscripts. It’s worth purchasing for the ancillary website materials and templates alone, which take much of the hard work of crafting an elegant House Style out of the equation. This is an invaluable resource for students and professionals looking to create high quality and consistent scores in Sibelius, as well as a smooth and efficient workflow.