How and Why I Created My Sibelius 7 - EWQLSO Manual Sound Set Templates

        In autumn 2008, I was presented with a problem which I’m sure you’ve come across yourself: I encountered a situation in which I needed to create a “realistic” audio mock-up of some of my existing scores, but found Sibelius Sounds to be too unrealistic to achieve this.  For me, the solution was to purchase a third-party sample library; but I quickly found, to my horror, that connecting my score to my samples was more difficult than a simple plug-and-play solution.

        I spent a few months learning about how to assemble a basic manual sound set, which I used to marry patches from PeterSiedlaczek’s Complete Classical Collection to my existing scores – ruining the transposition settings, spacing, etc. in the process.  Shortly after finishing my project, I discovered EastWest-QuantumLeap Symphonic Orchestra (EWQLSO), which I purchased right away, and set about toying with and learning about.

        A major problem came out of my Demo CD project though.  As I listened to my carefully-prepared tracks (I have combined the samples with recordings of live musicians playing on a click-track), I noticed problems in the orchestral balance – melodies and textures which had sounded fine using Sibelius Sounds were less defined, even muddy, in live performance.  The orchestral balance was off, and part of the problem was that I had fallen for the common mistake of young composers: “writing for the sounds” – the act of modifying a computerized score until it sounds right with the notation software’s pre-packaged sounds, in turn creating a score which sounds imbalanced in real life. 

        While I launched myself into books on orchestration, I also realized that I needed a set of sounds in Sibelius which might better represent a real orchestral performance.  I knew how to build a manual sound set, and I had been learning about EWQLSO for some time; it only made sense to combine that knowledge and put together an EWQLSO Manual Sound Set!  After several small experiments on a mediocre computer system, I was having difficulty accessing the full spectrum of available articulations in the library using only a SoundID-based manual approach.  I eventually had a breakthrough though, in the form of my “Key-Switching Staves” idea, which takes advantage of Sibelius’ Panorama function to treat Sibelius more like a sequencer to play the patches with more intimately personal control.  As 2010 drew to a close, the possibility of a comprehensive EWQLSO Manual Sound Set was becoming much more realistic!

        In early 2011, I decided to invest in a better computer system which could handle all the Master KSW Patches being played simultaneously.  Once the computer had been assembled, a few weeks’ work created my first draft of the full system.  The release of Sibelius 7 in August of that year, with 64-bit processing, enabled me to finally load all the patches I needed, without concern for RAM limitations.  The result was the October 25^th release of the system’s first complete realization of an existing score: an abridged version of Tchaikovsky’s Scene from the Swan Lake Suite.  The sound set would not be finished though, until I could accommodate every key-switch on every pitched instrument; and combine this with all ‘common’ percussion instruments in a single ‘Master’ template.  The task took until January 2012 to plan and implement, and required a challenging re-think of the Key-Switching Staff model to include all available key-switches.

        Several months later, as I continued to receive positive feedback from viewers of the Swan Lake mock-up, I started to consider the possibility of making the whole system available to other users.  The ensuing effort took months of brainstorming and experimentation to bring to market a template which is as user-friendly as possible, while addressing both the needs of sound quality and the creation of beautiful-looking orchestral scores.

       I will be releasing my templates on 31 January 2013, in the hopes that other users will enjoy them and their unique approach to mock-up work.  They will be available on my website, here.

Elliot Wright's EWQLSO Manual Sound Set Templates Available for Download 31 January 2013

Happy Holidays, everyone!  Looks like the world didn't end on December 21st (thank goodness, because I had tickets to the ballet that night, and I would've been out by about a hundred bucks if there'd been a volcanic eruption during the Entr'Acte).

But guess what?  I have a present for you!  Now, the whole package won't be ready until a month from now, but it's still pretty awesome.  I'm pleased to announce that I am working on a User Manual for my EWQLSO / Sibelius 7 Manual Sound Set Project Templates, and I intend to release the whole set of template and configuration files for public download at ElliotWrightMusic.com on January 31st 2013.

For those of you who are new to my work, I'll fill you in.  About two years ago, after a year of minor experiments with the idea, I set about building a Playback Configuration in Sibelius (and of course, a Score and Playback Dictionary to go with it), which, all together, could be used to play the full orchestral range of EastWest-Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra (Platinum) patches, using a fundamentally manual approach to controlling the playback.  The result, after plenty of time and effort, is the EWQLSO / Sibelius 7 Manual Sound Set Project, a template based, sequencer-like key-switching method for controlling your EWQLSO patches in order to create scores and audio mock-ups simultaneously in Sibelius 7.  A demo of this was produced in October 2011, when I posted this little abbreviation of two selections from Swan Lake:

"Swan Lake Selections" October 2011: An Entirely 'in-program' Sibelius performance, produced using an early version of my EWQLSO / Sibelius 7 Manual Sound Set Template.

When released, the system will consist of a Score (a .sib file) with all the pitched instruments in the library, as well as several drums, a triangle, and a crash cymbal (full instrumentation list below).  It's accompanied by a set of Playback Configuration files, which tell Sibelius how to set up the various instances of PLAY in order to play back the score.  In case of any complications, a set of multis (patches which can be loaded into PLAY which include several instruments and their various adjustments) have been provided, which can be loaded manually if needed.  A further set of "individual instruments" multis are included, which feature individual instruments like the First or Second Violins, Solo Flute, Bassoon, etc.; all with the appropriately-adjusted key switches so that the user can modify and create their own templates using the same system.

As described (approximately) in this video I released last year, the system works by using a small, hidden staff under each instrument staff, which silently plays the key switches for that instrument's patch - the same as you might do in a sequencer program, only instead of a piano roll, you have a score (which acts like an auto-quantized piano roll anyway).  Some simple automation exists for certain sounds, while manual key-switching control can be used for shaping phrases or various other tricks which can help  The genius behind the system is that every possible key switch in the library has been auditioned and arranged so that every instrument's miniature 'key-switching' staff behaves essentially the same way; making it possible to copy a phrase and its accompanying key-switches from one instrument to another, while maintaining approximately the same expressive effects.

A much smaller 'free' version of the template will be available for download on the site soon after the release, so you can try out the basics of the key-switching system and see if you like it first. The main package will consist of the "Master Template", and the accompanying Playback Configuration files and PLAY multis, and may include a 'silent' version with no patches loaded (for users on slower systems of other versions of EWQLSO to load patches as desired), and a Sibelius 6 version of the template, also "silent".  An "add-on" pack of smaller wind, brass, and string ensemble templates will be made available as well, shortly after the main release.


Master Template Instrumentation:
(All patches described are 'Solo' patches, unless otherwise noted)

Piccolo
Flute
Alto Flute
Oboe
English Horn
Clarinet
Bass Clarinet
Bassoon
Contrabassoon

Horn (2 staves, polyphonic)

Piccolo Trumpet
Trumpet (2 staves, polyphonic)
Trombone (2 staves, polyphonic)
Tuba

Timpani
Triangle
Snare Drum 1
Snare Drum 2
Snare Drum 3
Field Drum
Tenor Drum
Funeral Drum
Concert Bass Drum
Crash Cymbals
Orchestral Bells (swappable with Vibraphone)
(all 'keyboard'-style percussion patches are also available)


Harp

Solo Violin 1
Solo Violin 2
Solo Viola
Solo Cello
Solo Contrabass

Violin [Ensemble] 1
Violin [Enswemble] 2
Viola [Ensemble]
Cello [Ensemble]
Contrabass [Ensemble]

[Hall Noise]

"12 Pieces for Cadet Band" is now available on Lulu Press

Happy November, folks!  As of fairly recently, my March Book, "12 Pieces for Cadet Band" has gone live on Lulu Press, and is available for a 15% discount until the end of November!

For those of you who follow me more closely, the book (originally under the working title "The 2012 March Book Project"), is a collection of twelve short, simple pieces for youth band with flexible instrumentation.  Each piece is written in the same 4-Part "March Book" format in popular use across the Canadian Cadet Movement with their brass and reed bands.

"March Book" format refers to a simple but flexible style of writing for beginner and intermediate ensembles of various instrumentation.  The piece is broken down into its key elements - in the case of March Books, it's usually four elements - and each element is copied to every available instrument.  The result is the ability of the musical director to select any element (melody, countermelody, harmony, bass line, etc.) to assign to whichever instrument in the ensemble they feel can best handle that element.

This means that less-experienced players can be given easier parts, while more advanced players play more complex parts - allowing musicians of varying degrees of proficiency to play together in the same ensemble.  It also means that any ensemble can perform the music, as the score states no absolute requirement for any specific instrument.

No low brass? Give the bass line to the lowest instrument that you do have.  No lead trumpet? Give the melody to whichever player is your strongest.  It doesn't matter which instruments you have, or don't have in your ensemble.  Any combination of common brass and wind instruments will do.  "12 Pieces for Cadet Band" currently accommodates any combination of the following instruments:

• Piccolo
• Flute
• Clarinet
• Alto Saxophone
• Tenor Saxophone
• Baritone Saxophone
• F Horn
• Trumpet
• Trombone / Baritone / Euphonium
• Tuba
• Percussion (Snare Drum, Bass Drum, Cymbals)
• Glockenspiel (Bell Lyra)

This is Elliot's first musical print-publication.  For learn and hear more of Elliot and his work, you can check out his Lulu Press Author Spotlight, or visit his Official Website and "Like" him on Facebook.  Thanks!

Sibelius: How to Set up Two Staves with one Instrument Label

Have you ever looked at your favourite scores just to see what aesthetic changes you can make to your own compositions to make them look nicer?  I mean, the way you’ve written your piece is perfectly acceptable, but you’d like to make your score look a little less... chunky?  A little more... elegant?  A little more like the scores you learned to write from; stuff by Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, or fittingly enough, Sibelius?

Well you can start by using a ‘Helsinki’ house style from the get-go, for one thing - it’s a little more elegant than the usual ‘Opus’ house style, and I hear that choosing it when you create the score is best, rather than converting to it halfway through.  And choosing good fonts helps too - I like Cochin and Hoefler Text.  Zapfino can be nice as long as it’s not overused, and in some cases I don’t mind using Footlight MT Light, or Mshtakan, if it suits the mood.  But today I’d like to share how to do something with Sibelius which can add that extra little ‘authentic’ feel to your score.

What I’m talking about is multi-part brass labelling.  How many times have you seen two or more staves dedicated to multiples part of the same instrument, and labelled with the same field of text?  Pretty often I’m guessing, if you’re looking at most standard orchestral music of the 19th century and thereabouts:

 Figure 1.  

Multi-stave sections, labeled with the same field of text.  From Sibelius’ Symphony #2.

Well, you can accomplish the same basic effect by just adding two instances of the same instrument (by choosing Create>Instruments and adding the same instrument twice, then re-naming each instrument individually - see fig. 2, where I’ve done just that and then joined the two staves with a brace).

Figure 2.  

‘Wrong’: Using two instances of the same instrument to approximate the effect of the scoring in fig. 1

But you want something better - something that looks like those scores you love so much.    Now, for starters, if the two staves are going to be labeled with one field of text, they have to be derived from the same instance of that instrument (that is, you can’t join two separate “Trumpet” parts - you have to create one Trumpet part which uses two staves).  

STEP ONE: Creating the Instrument

To do this, go to Create>Instruments and insert the instrument you want (say, for example, a horn part).  Then select it on the right-hand column and click “Extra Staff Above” to make however many extra staves you need.  In my case, I just need two staves, total.  Now click OK and go back to your score.  You should see two staves on your score, connected and labeled with one piece of text, saying something like “Horn in F”.  Good job.

STEP TWO: Labeling the Instrument

Okay, step one was easy.  Step two is easier.  In this step, you just need to label your instrument.  In fig. 3 (left), I typed:

I[enter]

[enter]

Cors en Fa[5 spaces][enter]

[enter]

II,III 

You can see the result.

Figure 3.  

Two staves of the same instrument, labeled with a single field of text in Sibelius.

Okay, now something just a touch harder, but not by much.  If your score is not longer than one system at the moment, add bars until it is.  First thing you may notice is that Sibelius may choose to hide the ‘extra’ staff of your two-staff instrument.  That’s easy to solve.  Just ‘Select All’ (Apple-A or Edit>Select>Select All ), and go to Layout>Show Empty Staves... - Make sure to tell Sibelius to show empty staves for parts (a) and (b) of the instrument you just created, and click ok.  Now Sibelius should be showing two staves for your new section throughout the entire piece.

Now then.  See how Sibelius labels the horn part on the second and successive pages?  It’s still only using one piece of text, and unless you don’t mind that, you’ll have to do something similar to what you just did about labeling.  Double-click the text field and type in something similar to the text above, but use the appropriate abbreviation for the instrument being used.  Remember, Sibelius repeats this piece of text for all successive pages, so you don’t have to worry about re-writing it or anything.

Perfect. Now you’ve got just what you wanted: two staves of the same instrument, labeled by one piece of text, and the abbreviation is taken care of too.  But wait!  There’s one more very important thing left to do, and it’s a little more complicated.

STEP THREE: Setting up the dynamic Parts

As it stands, Sibelius recognizes the two staves as one instrument.  This means that the extracted part for “Horn in F” (if that’s the instrument you made) will contain two staves.  But that’s not what you want - you want, for example, horns 1&2 on one staff, on one part; and horns 3&4 on one staff, on one part.  That’s how it’s usually done; and you want it done that way.  No problem, friend - here’s how you do that:

Open up the ‘Parts’ control panel.  You’ll see your special instrument, given a funny-looking name like “1 Horns in F 2,3” don’t be alarmed, it’s just the letter-for-letter condensation of what you first typed in step 2. Select that part.

Now, see the bottom of the control panel, where there’s an icon with a paper and a pen on it?  That’s the ‘Staves in Part’ button.  Click it.  It will open up a control panel with a column on the right showing which staves of your score will be copied to that dynamic part.  Just click one of those staves and remove it.  Then click ok.

Now we need to create a part for that other staff you just deleted.  Easy.  Click the icon at the bottom of the ‘Parts’ control panel that looks like a blank page.  That’s the ‘New Part’ button.  Click it.  It opens another control panel similar to the one you just used.  Select the staff you want from the column on the left, and add it to the part.  NOTE - Sibelius may automatically try adding both staves to the part, because in the computer’s mind, they’re the same.  Easy fix: just select the staff you don’t need and remove it from the part.  Easy as that.  Click OK.

Alright, Captain Awesomesauce - now you’ve just got one last thing to do.  Double click one of the two separate parts you’ve just created.  It will take you to a page showing an instrument with one staff, just as you wanted.  Problem is, the top-left corner still shows the instrument as “1 Horns in F 2,3” when you want it to read either as ‘Horn in F 1” or “Horns in F 2,3”.  

That’s easy.  Double-click the text.  Sibelius will put up a dialogue box telling you that you’re crazy.  Click OK.  In the panel that comes up, under “Part Name”, type in the name of the instrument (like “Horns in F 2,3” for example).  Now click ok.  Do the same thing for the other part.

And there you have it!  Just a few minutes of work, and you’ve created a horn section (or trumpet section, or trombone section), labeled it the way you want it, and made sure that the dynamic parts work too.  From time to time you may need to ‘show empty staves’ again, but aside from that, you don’t even have to think about the work that just went into making that part - just go right ahead and write the way you normally would, and Sibelius will handle the rest. Cheers!

How to Make a Study Score in Sibelius 7 Using Dynamic Parts

I love it when a feature in a program allows me to solve a problem it wasn't necessarily intended to solve.  This happens a lot for me working with Sibelius 7, as its features have at this point in the program's life, become so comprehensive that nearly anything conceivable in a score can be applied after some quick familiarization with the reference manual, if not by thinking creatively about the features I already use regularly.

I'm setting up a set of new templates for myself, and this time I'm going all-out; including my EWQLSO system for playback, and taking a much closer look at the formatting of parts, to make the result as professional as possible.  The end goal for me is to have a set of templates I can work in, which allow me to self-publish to a pre-determined set of page sizes, fonts, etc. - essentially setting up my own publishing 'house style'.  And then something occurred to me: Study-Scores.

The idea of publishing a study-score appeals to me in situations where the piece is several movements, or otherwise exceedingly long.  What doesn't appeal to me though, is the idea of re-formatting my score, or managing multiple copies of the score's file.  Fortunately, there is a neat little way to publish both the main score and the study score from the same file, using the Dynamic Parts feature in Sibelius.

All you need to do is create a new dynamic part, and set it to contain all the instruments in the score.  You'll probably want to set the page size to a more 'study-score-appropriate' dimension (I publish on Lulu.com, so I've gone with 6x9" ); and there are a number of other adjustments to consider, like including instruments names at the start of new sections, the position and formula for page numbers, remembering to 'hide empty staves' in the study score before publishing, etc., etc.  I would recommend at this stage in the pursuit, finding existing scores that you find to be clean, easy to read, and reflective of the type of music you're writing, and try to model your main score and study score after them; and look as well at the individual parts to decide how you want your individual parts to look.  I went onto IMSLP and looked up scores there, as well as looking at more recent paper-scores, depending on the intended purpose of the template.

At the end of it all, my goal (and maybe yours) is this: by thinking creatively about Sibelius' dynamic parts feature, you can build and customize three key elements (Main Score, Parts, and Study Score) all in one file, and all of them automatically updated as you compose and edit your main score.  This, combined with the 'panorama' view when composing and editing, creates a single file that acts as your workspace, and publishing house, all in one convenient file.

Cheers!

The 2012 March Book Project, and stuff I learned from it.

Today I released The 2012 March Book Project in its entirety (score and parts), marking the end of this fun, engaging project I've been working on since April.  I've published videos of the scores and basic piano mixdowns here and here.  The distribution of the actual full document with scores and parts is being kept limited for now.  And as a side note, yes - I am totally citing this as my excuse for not posting or updating for so long. The nature of the project has been a bit specific, so I chose not to write about it until it was all done; but now that it's been uploaded, printed, and given out to all the folks who either asked for it or should otherwise get a copy, I figure I can talk about it a bit now, and some of the lessons it taught me about more complex orchestration.

"March Book" refers to a format and style of writing which is in wide use in 'brass and reed' marching bands of the Canadian Cadet Movement. It's not my invention; the three original march books for Air, Army and Sea cadets respectively came out from roughly 1995 to 1997; and they've enjoyed plenty of use for the last 15 years or so.

The key to it is simplicity and ease of use. An officer who is assigned to head a cadet band may not necessarily be, themselves, a musician - and that means that they cannot be presumed to know how to transpose, or read music. And, since having a band is completely optional, the instrumentation and skill level of any one ensemble varies from unit to unit, and can fluctuate constantly as cadet join or leave for various reasons.  The march book format takes this into consideration, and, makes it much easier for a non-musician to use it.

Here's how it works: each piece is written in four parts, not to be confused with four-part harmony. It is rather a four part texture, were each part has been written for musicians of a different experience level, assigning them appropriately matched functions in the ensemble. The parts are labeled A, B, C, and D (and percussion, which is written on one staff for bass drum, snare, and crash cymbals all together). The A part is melody. The B part can either complement the A part as close harmony, or contribute to chords (or other textural elements) found in the C part. The C part is the simplest part, intended for inexperienced musicians, and can serve as part of the middle harmony, or a simplified bass line. The D part is the 'complex bass line', ideally what the whole low-end of the ensemble should be playing in unison.

Every instrument, from piccolo right down to tuba, is provided a copy of all four parts, each transposed and range-checked for their instrument. This means that any player in the ensemble can choose which part they are most comfortable with, based on their skill level - melody (advanced), close harmony (intermediate), simple harmony or bass (easy), or regular bass line (intermediate, lower instruments). It means that a group with a constantly fluctuating instrumentation can still perform the music, so long as all four parts are represented somehow. And, if the Band Officer is a non-musician, they just need to know that advanced players get Part A, intermediate get part B, beginners get part C, and intermediate low-end instruments get part D.

Those of you who have followed me for a while may remember that I once had some trouble getting an orchestrated march performed by cadet ensembles, and part of that was because no two cadet bands can be assumed to have the same instrumentation. Writing in March Book format ensures that the essential elements of a piece will be represented in performance no matter what- and what it lacks in choice of timbre, the format makes up for in clarity, simplicity, strength, flexibility and just plain 'performability'.

Now, to be clear, I wouldn't think of striding into an orchestration class and bragging about this format.  A piece written in March Book does not allow for the melody (or any other element for that matter) to switch between sets of instruments throughout the piece, for one thing; if you give the A part to the lead trumpet, flute and alto sax, the melody will be played by those instruments, from the start of the piece until the end.  And the idea of writing music in a four part format which doesn't use four-part harmony and even seeks to apply a sort of  'copy & paste' procedure to orchestration?  I'm sure it wouldn't go over well with any professor trying to teach their students to study each instrument intimately and individually - a very .  But how could a young orchestrator learn from a clunky-looking system for youth bands? Well, consider this system, or a modification thereof, being used as one of several tools in your compositional toolkit. It's much easier, in my opinion, to construct a simple passage by writing out the melody, harmonizing it down by a third or a sixth, putting in a bass line, and maybe a line just above it to fill in any gaps in the harmony (listen to the opening passage of Leo Delibes' ballet "Sylvie" and see if you can replicate it on Sibelius using that process- I bet you don't even need the 'middle harmony' part ) and then assign those elements en masse to the appropriate set of instruments being used in that passage. Voila! You've got an easy way to construct a simple, clear, and likely full-sounding passage. Don't wear it out, but feel free to take advantage of this process on both large-scale mass instrumentations, or intimate ones.

Speaking of clarity, here's why this system is a nice trainer for a young orchestrator: it forces you to  keep a small maximum number of elements in each passage, ensuring clarity.  It's very easy for the young orchestrator to look at an orchestral score, with all its variety of instruments, and feel the need to write a unique part for every single one; or to keep layering on textural elements until the overlap one another and sound muddy.  Writing in a 4-part system which gives each part a specific function in the overall mix, forces the composer not to write more than four elements, and gives them a great 'at-a-glance' view of whether any elements are too closely spaced to one another.  It's also flexible - the 'C' part meant for simple harmony doesn't have to retain the march book's "one voice only" function when being used to write for an orchestra; it can be given chords which need to be voiced to a whole set of instruments together - and again, the composer can see right away whether these chords overlap other elements like the melody.  Combine that with how easy it is to construct a simple passage in this way, and then copy and paste each element into its assigned instrument, and you've got a powerful tool for basic composition and orchestration.

Good Times in New York

I know, I know - everyone out there's been wondering where I am.  I know this because, being so like-minded to me, you've all kept your thoughts to yourselves and not mentioned it to me - but I'm psychic, so BOOM. Your ruse is busted.

Well, as the title says, I've been in New York - Manhattan, specifically - for the last four days with my friend Candace, and returned home last night.  It was a great trip; we went to see 'The Book of Mormon' on Broadway, 'Don Giovanni' at the Metropolitan Opera on saturday, two museums, the Empire State Building, Times Square, and plenty of amazing shops, bakeries and restaurants.  It was a lovely little mini-vacation.

Our Sunday flight home got cancelled and moved to Tuesday (which doesn't work for us, having to work monday morning) - and there weren't any other flights to Toronto that day on other airlines, so we rented a car and drove 10 hours home.  I count that as a second trip in and of itself, so technically I've been on two trips this weekend! :)

All in all, it was a great time - New York is massive, and hopefully I can come back sometime and keep exploring.  We only really scratched the surface of what's available to see just on Manhattan Island; so maybe New York may become a recurring travel spot for me.

But for now, it's back to work!  Stay tuned. :)