Sibelius lyrics compared (was RE: [Finale] Finale 2011 preordering?)

2010-05-26 Thread James Gilbert
  From what I can see, the new lyric features are more like playing
 catchup with Sibelius, although I can't make a side-by-side
 comparison.  Infinite verses might better than Sibelius' limit of 5,
 for people doing hymn books.  And the automatic melisma slurs MIGHT
 come in handy, if they can be turned off.  But Sibelius can already
 switch fonts and sizes almost as easily.  And ignoring punctuation
 and quotation marks might be a really tiny improvement, but handling
 verse numbers would be an even better one.

Sibelius doesn't actually have a limit of 5 verses. Sibelius treats lyrics
(and many elements) as text styles. What Sibelius does have is a default of
5 defined lyric text styles. You can define, quite easily, extra lyric
styles. In addition to the 5 lyrics styles, there are also lyric chorus and
a lyrics above the staff style available, either of which can be adjusted to
be a sixth or seventh verse. I do a lot with hymns and find Sibelius to be a
tad better than Finale, but I'm not thrilled with the alignment of verse
numbers and lyrics at the beginning of a system in either program. Given the
way the current melisma plug-in works in Finale and Sibelius, I sometimes
find that doing it manually is more reliable.

James Gilbert
www.JamesGilbertMusic.com

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Re: Sibelius lyrics compared (was RE: [Finale] Finale 2011 preordering?)

2010-05-26 Thread John Howell

At 1:31 PM -0400 5/26/10, James Gilbert wrote:

 
Sibelius doesn't actually have a limit of 5 verses. Sibelius treats lyrics
(and many elements) as text styles. What Sibelius does have is a default of
5 defined lyric text styles. You can define, quite easily, extra lyric
styles.


Thanks, James.  There are MANY things in Sibelius that can be taken 
beyond the defaults, as I'm sure there are in any complex program. 
The problem is that you have to know (a) that you CAN do them, and 
then (b) HOW to do them.  In the case of lyrics, it isn't a matter of 
style, but one of placement on the page, which is easy and automatic 
for the first 5 verses, but I never figured out how to add a 6th.


John


--
John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music
Virginia Tech Department of Music
College of Liberal Arts  Human Sciences
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411  Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:john.how...@vt.edu)
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html

We never play anything the same way once.  Shelly Manne's definition
of jazz musicians.
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