Sibelius Unlocks the Keys to Music Mastery at High-Powered School District

The seventh graders entered their music lab classroom quietly and sat down in the middle of the room. When the teacher gave them the green light to go to their workstations, they exploded with excitement, donned their headphones, and tinkered with their compositions. Though the students seemed to be having a good time, giggling and interacting as they huddled around their computer monitors, they were learning the fundamentals of music with the help of Sibelius 4.

Under the tutelage of teachers Todd Beaney and Helen Cannistraci, Sibelius has given students at Rye, N.Y. Middle and High Schools an opportunity to master basic concepts of music theory. The program, which has grown exponentially since the school adopted Sibelius three years ago, is geared for students who neither play an instrument nor participate in band or chorus.

This year, 170 students enrolled in elective digital music classes, a remarkable number in a district known for high achievement and prizes for performance in Advanced Placement classes as all-important determinants of a student's future. 

Music Teacher Todd Beaney and Rye HS Sophomore Stanley Cheng

"God bless the people who developed Sibelius," said Cannistraci. "They know and understand musicians. They're obviously not just technicians, and that makes a huge difference."

For one thing, other programs require too many steps, she said. "Even something so simple as inputting text is difficult in other programs. We were at a workshop and the instructor couldn't even do it. With Sibelius, adding bars, deleting measures, and changing key signatures is so easy."

Beaney, who had used a number of different software programs over the years, also unlocked the magic of Sibelius to boost his efficiency, no small benefit with six classes to teach and three shows to prepare. For the High School Revue, students choose the material and Beaney arranges it for the instruments on hand in the pit band and creates lead sheets to fit the range and abilities of particular performers.

Despite being familiar with a range of music software products, he used to write out all of his arrangements. "I had never found a computer program that let me do things faster than I could do them by hand," he said. "But Sibelius 4 and dynamic parts has enabled me to do a lot more in less time because instead of creating separate files, it's all right there. It's so intuitive. I've been more productive this year than ever."

Beaney became a convert after he attended a workshop hosted by his software supplier. "I used to tear my hair out with other programs, but at one particular workshop, the instructor asked us to perform a transposing assignment within 20 minutes. After half an hour, no one had it done, but the instructor walked us through it in 12 minutes with Sibelius. Since then, I've never looked back."

In his classes, Beaney has students perform a number of hands-on assignments, including composing news themes for the school's daily five-minute announcement and writing a soundtrack for a video game. In the past, the students based their work on sequencing, but resisted learning how to read.

 "They learned chords and scales and dabbled in notation, but there was some resistance to writing," he said. "They'd say ‘do we have to do this, we hate this,' but that changed when we started using Sibelius."

Now, the focus is on passing along the basic building blocks of music with the help of 12 computers hooked up to MIDI-enabled keyboards. 

"Sibelius unlocked the key for the students because of its interactivity," said Beaney. "You can drag notes around and get to see it and hear it, so the feedback is instant. It's so accessible that they just gravitate to it."

Sophomore Stanley Cheng always liked music and once took up the trumpet, but "I didn't like to practice, so I stopped," he said.  The melody of Cheng's video game arrangement reflects his parents' Chinese heritage, and he's obviously proud of his work. "I like Sibelius," he said. "It's so easy to use and there are lots of different ways to perform functions, so you have a lot of options."

Freshman Mike Shkreli agrees that what he's learned is valuable, even if it is theoretical at the moment. "I've learned the basics from Sibelius and that will help if I ever decide to pick up an instrument," he said.

Beaney's goal is to give his students an appreciation of music and the rest will take care of itself. "These are the music audiences of the future and you never know who is in here and where they might go," he said. "Just because they don't play an instrument now, no one can predict the future."

Beaney and Cannistraci are still learning how to tap the full potential of Sibelius. Eventually, they plan to use the Scorch function to let students post compositions on their personal websites.

For now, they burn CDs for every student and post their work on the school's web site, "so that even their grandfather in California can hear what they're doing," said Beaney.

Cannistraci sees Sibelius as a way to help students develop their innate love of sound. "All kids have music inside of them," she said. "The technology offers a way to tap their talent. We give them the basic tools of music language and they can put them together in their own ways. The kids agree: there's something so compelling about the software, you can't wait to get on it. It makes everything fun."

 

To listen to compositions created by Rye Middle and High school students, please visit
http://ryecityschools.lhric.org/middle/music/framesetMSIndex.htm and
http://ryecityschools.lhric.org/high/music/framesethsIndex.htm