Shortcuts: Time is a Barometer for Success, Part Two of Four

Do students frequently visit your school’s music Web site on their way around the net? Here are some tools fellow directors are using to make their Web sites more interactive and enticing.

Music Scores on the Web
Emerging from the plethora of newsletter-type Web pages is a new generation of sites which are instructionally interactive. These sites can contain posted music scores that invite and excite techno-savvy students to new ways of practicing at home. Students can do warm up exercises or practice the school fight song, which can have parts posted for each of the wind, brass, string and percussion instruments. Posting different parts is easily accomplished with Sibelius’ Scorch (www.sibelius.com/products/scorch/index.html). Scorch is a slick, free software that allows users to view, play, customize and print Sibelius scores on the Internet. Not only is it easy to use, but it can also turn pages, change the device used for playback, and adjust the playback controls or tempo. Click the play button to start from the beginning or click anywhere in the score to start or stop from that point. It can change instruments plus save, adjust the page setup, and print. Scorch makes scores easy for students to practice interactively.

MakeMusic, Inc., the manufacturer of Finale, approaches Web-posted music scores from a different angle. Instead of using a free Web-based proprietary application to post their scores, students and parents download NotePad (www.finalemusic.com/notepad), a free music notation application for either Mac or PC. When students click on the Web site, the chart can be uploaded onto their computer and read, played, edited and printed. For an example of how easy and convenient this program is, go to: www.kuzmich.com/Compositions.html for an overview and then to: www.kuzmich.com/Finale2003/Compositions3.html to view both Finale and Sibelius scores on-line. Simply select the first composition link for “Affair With Affinity” and the composition opens up in any Finale notation application on your computer. The actual URL for viewing, playing, editing, and printing this score is: www.kuzmich.com/Finale2003/affair.htm.