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Sibelius is a scorewriter program, created by Sibelius Software for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, and RISC OS. It is used by composers, arrangers, performers, music publishers, teachers and students, particularly for writing classical, jazz, band, vocal, film and TV music. In addition to editing and printing scores, Sibelius can also play music back using high-quality sounds, scan in printed scores for editing, and publish scores on the Internet.

Sibelius claims to be the world's best-selling scorewriter, with "hundreds of thousands of users in 100 countries".

'Lite' versions of Sibelius (with reduced features at a lower price) have also been released, and have various add-ons.

History

Sibelius was originally developed by British twins Ben and Jonathan Finn for the Acorn Archimedes and Risc PC computers, under the name 'Sibelius 7'. Development (done entirely in assembly language) was started in 1986, just after the Finns left school, continuing while they were at university. The program was released to the public in April 1993.

The first ever user of Sibelius was Richard Emsley, who used it prior to its release and provided advice on music engraving aspects of the software. The first score published using Sibelius was Antara by George Benjamin, published by Faber Music and copied by Emsley. Other early users included composer John Rutter, conductor Michael Tilson Thomas and publisher Music Sales.

Sibelius rapidly dominated the UK market, despite being for the niche Acorn platform, for which it became one of the best-known products. It also sold in smaller numbers in a few other countries, restricted by the availability of Acorn computers. 'Lite' versions were subsequently released; these were successful in UK schools, where Acorns were widely used.

In August, 2006, Sibelius Software Ltd. was acquired by Avid Technology, an American manufacturer of software and hardware related to audio and video production. Avid has continued publishing Sibelius as a stand-alone notation product, as well as integrating it with some of its existing software products.

Windows and Mac versions

In 1998 and 1999, the first versions for Windows and Macintosh were released (now simply called 'Sibelius', and with the version number reset to 1.0). To produce these the software was completely rewritten in C++, while retaining most of the original's functionality and user interface with numerous enhancements. Releasing Sibelius for standard computers brought it to a worldwide market, particularly the US, where Sibelius Software had opened an office in 1997. Following the break-up of Acorn Computers shortly after Sibelius's Windows release, no further Acorn versions were developed.

Sibelius 2, an improved version for Windows and Mac, was released in 2001.

Sibelius 3 was released in 2003, with new features such as Kontakt Player and the ability to create audio files and CDs.

Sibelius 4 was released in July 2005, including many new features such the ability to write music synchronized to video, automatically updating instrumental parts, and a redesigned user interface.

Sibelius 5 was released on 8 June 2007, with support for VST effects and instruments, a sample library (Sibelius Sounds Essentials), 'Panorama' view, and other improvements.

Sibelius 6, the latest version, was released on 19 May 2009 and features 'Versions' (revision control of changes made to a score), 'Magnetic Layout' (comprehensive score object positioning and collision avoidance), keyboard and fretboard windows, Live Tempo (recordable tempo changes), ReWire support, input via microphone, and various other notation and playback enhancements.

Sibelius is available in English, German, French, Spanish, Italian and Japanese. Manuals are available in various further languages. For the education market, educational pricing, multi-user and network licences are available.

Features

Sibelius's primary function is the creation, editing and printing of musical scores. It supports virtually all music notations, enabling even the most complex of scores (such as modern orchestral music) to be reproduced to publication quality.

Additionally, it allows scores to be played back realistically or turned into MIDI or audio files, e.g. to create a CD. A range of sounds called Sibelius Sounds Essentials is included, and Sibelius Software sells other sounds. Sibelius also supports any MIDI device, and allows VST and Audio Unit plug-ins to be used as playback instruments, giving Sibelius users access to third-party sample libraries (such as Vienna Symphonic Library or MOTU's Symphonic Instrument). Score playback can also be synchronized to video, or to audio software via the ReWire standard.

The third-party program PhotoScore can be used to scan and create a Sibelius score from printed music; a lite version of PhotoScore is bundled with the Sibelius software. Similarly, the third-party program AudioScore (with bundled lite version) can be used to turn singing or an acoustic instrument into a score.

The program plays a brief passage from a Jean Sibelius symphony as it starts. Each Sibelius version has used a different excerpt.

Internet publishing

Sibelius Scorch, a web browser plugin, enables users to publish scores created in Sibelius on the Internet. It is used by SibeliusMusic.com (see below), various music publishers' web sites, and web sites of individual musicians. Publishers can license a special version of Sibelius, Sibelius Internet Edition, for commercial online publishing.

SibeliusMusic.com is a web site where composers & arrangers can upload scores they have created with Sibelius, so that anyone can view, play back, buy, and print the music using Scorch. Some scores are sold, others are free. If a composer/arranger decides to sell music, Sibelius Software will take a commission off each sale.

SibeliusMusic began in 2001, and by May 2009 had over 90,000 scores – more than any other web site.

Cut down and 'Student' versions

Cut down or 'Lite' versions of Sibelius (with a smaller feature set) were released for Acorn computers from late 1993 onwards (Sibelius 7 Student, Sibelius 6 and Junior Sibelius) and more recently for Windows and Macintosh platforms (Sibelius Student, Sibelius Instrumental Teacher Edition and Sibelius First). A Sibelius version for guitarists and songwriters called G7 was also available for several years.

Sibelius Student is now updated with the regular Sibelius editions, but the new features in fully-featured editions are often left out.

Add-ons

Add-ons for Sibelius include extra sound libraries, extra plug-in features (which are free of charge, and often created by Sibelius users), full versions of the PhotoScore (scanning) and AudioScore (microphone input) software, and keyboards and keyboard covers showing shortcuts. At one time a range of Sibelius-branded merchandise was also available.

A range of software for teachers and students, Sibelius Educational Suite, is not directly connected with the Sibelius program, but is often used by the same people.

Users

Sibelius is used by professionals and amateurs for composing, arranging and writing out music, in addition to being widely used as an educational tool.

In the professional world, it is used by composers Alf Clausen, Steve Reich, Michael Tilson Thomas, Jamie Cullum, Howard Goodall, Harry Gregson-Williams, John Rutter, Lalo Schifrin, and others. Hal Leonard Corporation and Music Sales, the world's two largest publishers of sheet music, use Sibelius for their publications.

The software is used at music colleges worldwide such as the Royal Northern College of Music, Royal Academy of Music, Royal College of Music, Trinity College of Music, Mannes College of Music, Juilliard School of Music, Schulich School of Music, Berklee College of Music, and Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Additionally it is used by thousands of schools in the UK, USA, Australia and other countries, including over 75% of UK secondary schools.

Name

The name Sibelius for both software and company is a namesake of the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. Many people have also speculated that it was taken from the original developers' surname 'Finn', as Sibelius was a Finn (i.e. Finnish). Nonetheless, the Finn brothers maintain that they cannot really remember the reason.

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's 7th Symphony. For the Windows and Macintosh versions the company dropped the "7" and began using conventional version numbers instead. A lite version for Acorn was called Sibelius 6, a name which has now been re-used to denote version 6 of Sibelius for Windows and Mac; so it may be that the next such version will re-use the name Sibelius 7.

Competitors

When Sibelius was first released in 1993, it had little competition in the UK market. Since its worldwide release for Windows and Mac in 1998/9, Sibelius's main competitor has been Finale.

Sibelius Software claims that Sibelius is now the world's best-selling notation software, and that its sales overtook Finale's in the early 2000s. It appears that no other scorewriters have a substantial market share.

See also

• List of scorewriters
• Scorewriter
• Sibelius Software

References

1. Sibelius corporate information
2. "Sibelius Corporate Information". Sibelius Software. Retrieved 2007-05-21.
3. "VST play back in Sibelius 5". Sibelius Software. Retrieved 2007-06-09.
4. "Sibelius Product Information". Sibelius Software. Retrieved 2007-05-21.

External links

• Scorch, a Web browser plugin for reading digital sheet music
• QI Theme by Howard Goodall, an example of music created with Sibelius, played in scorch
• Sibelius Software Ltd
• SibeliusMusic, Sibelius Software's own online music publishing website
• Sibelius Wiki, The Unofficial Sibelius Wiki featuring tips and tricks to the software

• Scorewriters
• RISC OS software