The 1 Minute Drum Part: Sibelius tutorial

Creating a drum part in a program like Sibelius can be one of the more difficult notation tasks.  You may have a vague idea of the marching style pattern you need for your band arrangement, or know that you want a swing feel for your stage band piece, but unless you are a percussionist, or you have some experience writing for drum parts it can be difficult knowing how that pattern inside your head should look on the page.

And then you’re faced with working out how to actually create it in Sibelius using multiple independent voices and a variety of noteheads.

Programs like GarageBand and Acid make it easy with ready-made loops that you can drop into your compositions or arrangements. Wouldn’t it be great if Sibelius had a collection of notation loops?  Well you may be surprised to learn that it does!

Take a look at this video to discover the secret of the 1 Minute Drum Part:

[Vimeo http://vimeo.com/6943595%5D

The Ideas window which is featured in this video first appeared in Sibelius 5 and it’s a fantastic resource for students, teachers, composers and arrangers. There’s a lot more to it than just using the drum patterns – take a look at the Sibelius’s Reference manual for more information.

Because the Ideas window was introduced into Sibelius 5, Sibelius 3  and 4 users won’t be able to take advantage of this drum part creation tool.  But don’t worry, there is a 1 Minute Drum Part solution for you too.  Look out for the next tutorial.