Top Tips For Using Sibelius On Your Interactive Whiteboard

An interactive whiteboard (IWB) can be used with any application that you run on your computer – including Sibelius. The key with using anything on an interactive whiteboard is to test everything out at the board (more than once!) before doing it in front of a class. Here are my top tips for using Sibelius on your interactive whiteboard.

Versions of Sibelius

Sibelius 6 and 7 work best on an IWB, mainly due to the re-introduction of the “de-select” key on the keypad in Sibelius 6 (it was removed in version 2). This key has the same function as pressing Escape on the computer keyboard and will de-select any note or rest you may have selected, leaving you free to move on to the next task in creating your score.

Tips for Teachers

Practice: Practice ahead of classtime. Get used to using Sibelius on your IWB yourself because it “feels” quite different to using it on your computer

Student Age: Decide whether your students have the motor skills to use Sibelius on the IWB. Some very young students may find it difficult and become frustrated if they can’t place notes on the score correctly

Tips for Displaying and Playing Ensemble Arrangements

You can display class ensemble arrangements, solo pieces or songs that you’ve created in Sibelius straight on the IWB.

Zoom in: Zoom in as much as possible (quick shortcut to zoom in or out: Control + or – on PC or Command + or – on Mac) without cutting off barlines or clefs

Short pieces: If students are going to play along with Sibelius, short pieces work well, particularly when you can see the entire score on the screen. Pieces with only a few instruments also often work well

Panorama: Use Panorama view (Sibelius 5, 6, 7) where possible. Panorama allows you to view your score in one long strip and students can follow their part in a continuous line.

Longer pieces: Reading across “page turns” (maybe that should be “screen turns”?!) can be difficult with longer pieces, or with pieces that have many instruments. Sometimes you can avoid this by reducing the number of instrumental parts in view. If students are only reading one part in a score, switch to the Part view instead of the Full Score view

Display limited staves: The Focus on Staves feature allows you to choose which parts will be displayed on the screen. Click on the stave you want to show on the screen and then go to View > Focus on Staves (version 6 and earlier) or Layout > Focus on Staves (Sibelius 7). You can view multiple staves by control-clicking (PC) or command-clicking (Mac) on each stave. The bonus with Focus on Staves is that the other parts will play back even though they’re not showing, making Sibelius your accompanist

Solo or Mute Parts: Open the Mixer (press M) and make use of the Mute and Solo buttons to vary the playback of the score

Count-in: If you’d like students to start playing right at the beginning of the piece, it can be useful to add a one-bar count-in. Create an extra bar at the beginning of the piece with a wood-block playing on each beat of the bar

Zoom Level During Playback: You may find that the score zoom level of your changes as soon as you press play. If you’d like it to stay the same, go to File > Preferences (Sibelius > Preferences on Mac) and click on Score Position on the left side. Un-check the box that says Use Different Zoom

Tips for Group Composition Tasks At The Board

Composition tasks work best on Sibelius when you prepare a little first: it’s a good idea to save time by setting up your score with the correct number of empty bars ahead of class

Zoom in: Again, zoom in as much as possible without cutting off any barlines or clefs

Lock Format: You might like to lock the format so bars don’t move around too much when students add notes into the score. Select the whole score by pressing Control+A (PC) or Command+A (Mac) and go to Layout > Format > Lock Format

“Touch and Hold”: To add a note or rest to the score, students can press the rhythmic value on the Keypad with their finger. They can then touch the line/space where they want the note to go. Teach them to “touch and hold” when entering the note, that way, if they touch the wrong line/space they can easily slide their finger up or down to move the notehead into the correct position (if they don’t “touch and hold” you may find they accidentally start creating chords!)

Undo Mistakes: If students enter the wrong note (or other musical object), make use of the Undo function. In Sibelius 6 or earlier, they can press the Undo button on the Toolbar at the top of the screen (if they’re tall enough!) and in Sibelius 7, go to Edit > Undo.

Escape: Teach students to finish their turn by pressing the black deselect arrow on the Keypad twice. If you have Sibelius 5 or earlier, you can sit one student down at the computer keyboard and put them in charge of pressing the Escape twice at the end of each person’s go. Why twice? When in note entry mode, pressing Escape once will take you out of note entry mode, but your last note will remain selected. Pressing it a second time will de-select that note, allowing you to move on to the next task. Twice is the safe option!

How About You?

Have you used Sibelius on an interactive whiteboard? Do you have any extra tips to share? Leave a comment by filling in the form below.

Interactive Whiteboard and Sibelius Online Courses and Workshops

If you’d like to learn more about the ways you can use interactive whiteboards and/or Sibelius in music education visit the following links:

Interactive Whiteboards in Music Classroom Online Course

Sibelius online courses for music teachers: Sibelius Basics, Sibelius Advanced, Sibelius Projects for Students, Speedy Arranging with Sibelius

Upcoming events

2 Comments

  1. […] From @katiesw1, a list of 50 useful websites for guitarists. Also, tips for using Sibelius with an IWB. […]

  2. Nottelmann Music Company November 30, 2018 at 7:43 am - Reply

    […] Top Tips For Using Sibelius On Your Interactive Whiteboard […]

Leave A Comment

You might also like...

Introducing

The Midnight Music Community

An online community where music tech professional development, lesson ideas, and accountability come together.
Ultimate Free Music Tech Resource Guide Guide 2023/24

Download Now for FREE...

The Ultimate Music Tech Resources Guide for 2023-2024

Claim your copy of our annual guide to free music technology resources, designed especially for music teachers. Discover interactive music websites, software, productivity tools, and assessment resources you can use in your music classroom for free.

Follow Me on Social Media

PRIVACY POLICY

This is the Privacy Policy for the Midnight Music website located at www.midnightmusic.com (“Site”).

The Site is operated by Midnight Music Pty Ltd ABN 87 619 652 603 (“Midnight Music” or “Company” or “we” or “us”).

Midnight Music understands the importance of protecting your personal information and undertakes to adhere to this privacy policy at all times to ensure your personal information is effectively safeguarded.

Information you provide to us

The Site provides various places for users to provide information. We collect information that users provide by filling out forms on the Site, communicating with us via contact forms, responding to surveys, search queries on our search feature, providing comments or other feedback, providing information when ordering a product or service via the Site, and other circumstances where collecting personal information is reasonable and permitted by the Laws of the State of Victoria, Australia.

We use information you provide to us to deliver the requested product and/or service, to improve our overall performance, and to provide you with offers, promotions, and information.

Information we collect through automatic data collection technology

As you navigate through the Site, we may use automatic data collection technologies including Google Analytics to collect certain information about your equipment, browsing actions, and patterns. This will generally include information about your location, your traffic pattern through our Site, and any communications between your computer and our Site. Among other things, we will collect data about the type of computer you use, your Internet connection, your IP address, your operating system, and your browser type.

The information we collect automatically is used for statistical data and will not include personal information. We use this data to improve our Site and our service offerings. To the extent that you voluntarily provide personal information to us, our systems will associate the automatically collected information with your personal information.

Use of cookies and pixels

Similar to other commercial websites, our Site utilises a standard technology called “cookies” and server logs to collect information about how our site is used. Information gathered through cookies and server logs may include the date and time of visits, the pages viewed, time spent at our site, and the websites visited just before and just after our own, as well as your IP address.

A cookie is a very small text document, which often includes an anonymous unique identifier. When you visit a website, that site’s computer asks your computer for permission to store this file in a part of your hard drive specifically designated for cookies. Each website can send its own cookie to your browser if your browser’s preferences allow it, but (to protect your privacy) your browser only permits a website to access the cookies it has already sent to you, not the cookies sent to you by other sites.

The Company reserves the right to use technological equivalents of cookies, including social media pixels. These pixels allow social media sites to track visitors to outside websites so as to tailor advertising messages users see while visiting that social media website. The Company reserves the right to use these pixels in compliance with the policies of the various social media sites.​

How we manage personal information

Midnight Music undertakes to take all commercially reasonable steps to ensure that all personal information collected by us is accurate, up-to-date, complete and stored securely. When your personal information is no longer required for the purposes which Midnight Music uses personal information, all commercially reasonable steps will be undertaken to securely destroy that information.

How your personal information will be used

We use personal information for purposes of presenting our Site and its contents to you, providing you with information, providing you with offers for products and services, providing you with information about your subscriptions and products, carrying out any contract between you and the Company, administering our business activities, providing customer service, and making available other items and services to our customers and prospective customers.
From time-to-time, we may use the information you provide to us to make you offers to purchase products and services provided by third parties in exchange for a commission to be paid to us by such third parties. Should you opt to take part in such promotions, the third parties will receive your information.

Disclosure of your information

Midnight Music considers personal information we collect about you to be confidential and will not disclose such information to third parties except in the following circumstances:

  • Where you have consented to your personal information being provided to a third party;
  • Where Midnight Music is required by law to disclose your information; and
  • Gaining access to your personal information held by Midnight Music

Except in circumstances where access to your personal information may be denied by the Privacy Act or other Law of the State of Victoria, Australia, your personal information will be provided to you upon request.

Visitors’ General Data Protection Regulation rights

If you are within the European Union, you are entitled to certain information and have certain rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). These include the following:

  • We will retain the any information you choose to provide to us until: (a) you ask us to delete the information; (b) we decide to cease using our existing data providers; or (c) the Company decides that the value in retaining the data is outweighed by the costs of retaining it.
  • You have the right to request access to your data that the Company stores and the rights to either rectify or erase your personal data.
  • You have the right to seek restrictions on the processing of your data.
  • You have the right to object to the processing of your data and the right to the portability of your data.
  • To the extent that you provided consent to the Company’s processing of your personal data, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of processing based upon consent that occurred prior to your withdrawal of consent.
  • You have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority that has jurisdiction over issues related to the General Data Protection Regulation.
  • We require only the information that is reasonably required to enter into a contract with you. We will not require you to provide consent for any unnecessary processing as a condition of entering into a contract with us.

Contact us

Should you have any queries in relation to the above or require further information regarding the Privacy Policy please contact us:

Midnight Music Pty Ltd
PO Box 219
Glen Waverley
Victoria 3150
AUSTRALIA

Email address: support@midnightmusic.com