[sib-access] Fw: Sibelius Blog

Sibelius BlogThis is a good issue. Gives a lot of resources for help on using 
Sibelius. Many of these can help us, as well.
Dave

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Sibelius Blog 
To: dgcarlson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
Sent: Thursday, August 05, 2010 15:12
Subject: Sibelius Blog


      Sibelius Blog 
         

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      How to get a helping hand with Sibelius 

      Posted: 05 Aug 2010 02:20 PM PDT


       
      The Sibelius hotline, yesterday (courtesy Phillie Casablanca on Flickr)

      Avid has recently rolled out a new unified support policy for all of its 
products, which has changed the standard support entitlement for many of its 
products, including Sibelius. Read on for a run-down of the changes and how 
they could affect you and, most importantly, the many other ways you can obtain 
support for your copy of Sibelius.


      The new policy involves the use of Avid Support Codes (ASCs) to enable 
you to contact Avidâ??s support team. When you purchase a new copy of Sibelius 
or an upgrade, you will receive a complimentary ASC allowing you to contact 
support to resolve a single incident (even if that takes multiple emails or 
phone calls). After that, if you want to contact support again, you can 
purchase additional ASCs from Avidâ??s online store.

      However, one of the real benefits of using Sibelius is its amazing user 
community, and there are plenty of ways to get great support without contacting 
Avidâ??s support team. Here are a few suggestions.

      Product documentation
      Sibelius comes with comprehensive documentation, and it should be the 
first place you look for an answer when youâ??re stuck. Look in the Help > 
Documentation submenu in Sibelius 6 to find more than 1000 pages of 
documentation designed to help you answer your questions.

      Here are some tips to using the documentation effectively:

        a.. Try the Visual index section just before the text index at the back 
of the Sibelius Reference book. This is particularly useful when youâ??re not 
sure what a particular notation element is called. 
        b.. Try the table of contents as well as the index. If youâ??re looking 
for an answer about, say, chord symbols, find the Chord symbols topic via the 
table of contents and flip through the topic, rather than going straight to the 
index. 
        c.. Think about the terminology youâ??re using. While Iâ??ve done my 
best to index and cross-reference all of the common terms, unfortunately there 
are many different words for the same thing, and I may have missed one out. (If 
you find a term thatâ??s familiar to you but isnâ??t indexed, do let me know 
about it.) 
      All of the documentation for Sibelius is also available for download from 
the Sibelius web site in PDF format. If you have an iPad, why not try loading 
the PDF into iBooks by adding it to your iTunes library? (Iâ??m sure other 
digital readers allow a similar kind of thing.)

      If you would like to purchase a hard copy of the Sibelius 6 Reference 
book, itâ??s available from Amazon in the US and the UK, and otherwise from 
Avidâ??s online store.

      There are a couple of third party books about Sibelius available, but 
neither has yet been updated for Sibelius 6 (though publishers Hal Leonard and 
Cengage have their authors working on it):

        a.. Mastering Sibelius 5 by Marc Schonbrun 
        b.. Sibelius: A Comprehensive Guide by Tom Rudolph and Vince Leonard 
      Online knowledge base
      The online Help Center at the Sibelius web site has more than 600 
articles, and more are being added all the time. You can also find the same 
content at the Avid site, with a slightly different search mechanism. Try out 
both of them and see which works best for you.

      User-to-user forum
      The forum on the Sibelius web site is the Sibelius userâ??s secret 
weapon. If youâ??re not going here when you need help, youâ??re missing out. 
This is where the amazing Sibelius user community really comes into its own. 
Because only registered Sibelius users can post to the forum (though anybody 
can read it via guest access), thereâ??s a very high signal-to-noise ratio, and 
flame wars and trolls are few and far between.

      You can very often post on the forum and receive an answer from an 
experienced Sibelius user (or often from me) within minutes of posting your 
question. Often you will get a faster response via the forum than you would get 
if you contacted Avidâ??s dedicated tech support staff!

      The forum is probably the most important support resource available to a 
Sibelius user, and itâ??s no understatement to say that is one of the most 
remarkable things about the product and its community.

      (By the way, donâ??t be fooled by SibeliusForum.com: although there are a 
couple of experienced users hanging out there and providing answers to people 
who post questions, this site is not affiliated with Avid or Sibelius and I 
canâ??t personally recommend it.)

      Mailing list
      If you donâ??t like the vibe of a web forum, you might prefer the 
Sibelius mailing list. While unofficial, I have been a member of this list for 
almost as long as I have been working on Sibelius, so itâ??s a good place to 
ask questions.

      Like the forum on the web site, thereâ??s a community of expert Sibelius 
users on this list, and although the signal-to-noise ratio is much lower than 
the forum (as you might expect from a largely unmoderated mailing list), itâ??s 
still a friendly place to hang out, and youâ??ll learn lots of things, both 
about Sibelius and music in general.

      Tutorial videos
      There are plenty of free tutorial videos available for Sibelius. The most 
viewed post on this blog (by some margin!) is for my friend James 
Humberstoneâ??s excellent series that will help you to learn Sibelius in one 
hour. Other videos you should check out:

        a.. Unpitched percussion tutorial 
        b.. Layout and formatting 
        c.. Creating music flashcards with Sibelius 
      You can also buy tutorial videos from various third parties, including 
for your iPhone.

      â?¦and this blog
      I do my best to post useful and helpful tips and tutorials on this blog 
as often as I can. Weâ??ve even had the odd guest post, so if youâ??re itching 
to share your secret Sibelius expertise with the world, get in touch! To be 
sure you donâ??t miss out, make sure you subscribe to the blog (you can choose 
to receive each post by email when itâ??s added, or to receive a monthly 
digest).

      Related posts:
        a.. Note to self: post about Comments
        b.. Useful plug-ins for handling rests in voices
        c.. Tidy Appended Scores plug-in
        d.. LCO New showcases student composers this week in London
        e.. Boxing clever: how important is packaging?
        f.. You never forget the first time
        g.. Get Sibelius training, double sharp!
        h.. Moving objects more quickly
        i.. Mix and match music fonts
        j.. Save time with six speedy Sibelius selection shortcuts



     
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