Berklee Music Education Majors take Sibelius to School

Sibelius Education Suite Required Package with Computer Purchase

With a diverse population of 3,800 students, state-of-the-art facilities and a list of alumni reading like a Who's Who of the industry, Boston 's Berklee College of Music is known worldwide as one of the premier locations for the study of contemporary music. Berklee also enjoys a reputation for placing the latest technology in its students hands—or laps.

In 2003, Berklee began a two-year initiative requiring all entering freshmen to purchase an Apple PowerBook G4 laptop computer equipped with the latest music and traditional software, with certain majors requiring specific software bundles in addition to the preloaded packages.

The increasing presence of computers in the classroom has brought resources once reserved specifically for technical majors into more traditional courses of study, including Music Education, where students now bring the Sibelius Education Suite to class.

The Sibelius Education Suite/Berklee Bundle includes the Starclass , Instruments , Compass , Notes and Auralia elements. According to Music Education Chair Dr. Cecil Adderley, the decision to adopt the platform was based on its user friendliness, its increasing prevalence in public schools systems and its compatibility with other majors.

"Teaching in the average K-12 environment can be time consuming, even without the use of technology," says Adderley, "and many educators were frustrated with the limitations of some music notation programs. When Sibelius came on the scene, we saw that the user friendliness of their programs allowed those teachers to incorporate, rather than turn their backs on, technology in the classroom.

"Part of a student's Berklee experience is exposure to products, tools and processes that are used in 'real life' applications, so we have to be aware of what is being used in the field," he adds. "We've found that a number of school music departments have adopted Sibelius as their platform, including the public school system right here in Boston where we place many of our student teachers."

Starclass provides instructors with everything needed to teach music at the elementary and primary school levels with more than 180 exciting, ready-to-use lesson plans. Topics are grouped from pitch to texture, and teachers can easily select a variety of creative classroom activities. Interesting and fun lessons cover topics such as planets, the weather and buried treasure, with hundreds of musical excerpts and sounds provided on audio CD. Starclass lesson plans are linked to MENC standards; simply select the desired standard, and the program will list all lessons that achieve the standard.

Instruments is an interactive encyclopedia of instruments, bands, orchestras and ensembles. The program provides an exciting way to learn how instruments sound, look and work, with clickable pictures, notated examples, a three-level quiz and hundreds of high-quality recordings. Other features include lesson plans, assignments and selections for recommended listening. Students will also learn how to write for each instrument, as well as how to tell the differences between the various orchestras, bands and ensembles—including their historical development and repertoire.

Compass has been developed to aid students in the art of composition. Designed for students and teachers from middle school through university levels, Compass' key topics include melody, harmony, texture and form, which are tested using 34 automatically marked quizzes. Lessons lead into composition projects such as theme and variations, sonata and blues. The Compass Tracker will record and develop musical ideas, and functions as a sequencer. Tracker includes over 1200 motifs, including chord sequences, rhythms, scales and tools to create canons, inversions and ostinati. The music developed by students in Compass can be transferred directly to Sibelius 3.0.

Notes is a complete educational aid for students of all levels, with ready-to-use lesson plans on everything from notation to arranging, and was designed to integrate seamlessly with Sibelius 3.0 notation software. The Teacher's Guide includes detailed notes and completed worksheets, instructions for creating individual exercises, flashcards, games and other resources, and a complete music primer with everything from note names to chord inversions. All resources are indexed by level, duration and subject.

Auralia is a comprehensive software package for ear training and aural testing. Students are guided through hundreds of graded exercises and given instant feedback. Topics include singing intervals, pitch correction, melodic dictation and identifying chord progressions. Auralia automatically marks students' exercises so they can use it on their own, freeing up hours of teaching time. It even records student results so the instructor can monitor progress over time. With Auralia's graded levels, students can move to more advanced exercises as they improve. Designed for classical, jazz and rock/pop students, Auralia also features special exercises on jazz/contemporary scales, chords and progressions.

Although music notation programs are included as part of the basic computer purchase package, Berklee's Music Education Department specified that Sibelius also be required to expose students to a variety of programs. "We evaluated what would work across the majors and what would support the type of instruction that would be offered to these students," says Assistant Professor Stefani Langol.

Berklee's Music Education program includes a required core curriculum set by the college (theory, ear training, arranging, harmony, basic music technology), with additional classes in psychology, education, liberal arts, writing and communications—all required for licensing in the state of Massachusetts—plus two program-specific technology courses.

"The first of these classes focuses on sequencing, notation and the use of electronic keyboards in the classroom," explains Langol. "The second concentrates on computer-assisted instruction, the use of the Internet, developing multimedia projects such as PowerPoint, building Web pages, and multimedia issues in education. It's here where the students are really made aware of how they can use Sibelius in their teaching and in creating assignments. We also try to show them how the programs work on older systems as well. Even though Berklee is known for the 'latest thing,' we might place a student in a district that hasn't updated its software or hardware in years. They should know how it looks running on an Apple 2E, even though G5s are out now."

"Faculty members who teach outside the school's technology realm are also encouraged to use the program if musical examples need to be presented," adds Adderley. "But best of all, our students can take the tools from one class and easily apply them to other courses and class presentations. After all, we are not only training musicians, but music teachers."

"We are honored that an institution such as Berklee would adopt the Sibelius Education Suite as a key component of the Music Education curriculum," said Bill Reilly, President, Sibelius USA, Inc. "It's a testament to the quality and the flexibility of the SES and its program elements."

To date, there are more than 100,000 Sibelius users worldwide, including conductor Michael Tilson-Thomas, guitarist Andy Summers, choral composer John Rutter and television composer Alf Clausen.

Notes to editors

About Sibelius

Sibelius Software Ltd. is based in London, England. Its U.S. subsidiary, Sibelius USA, Inc., is located at 1407 Oakland Blvd., Suite 103, Walnut Creek, California, 94596 and has offices in Baltimore, Cleveland, Dallas and Nashville. Sibelius products are available worldwide in more than 100 countries. For more information, contact Sibelius USA at phone (925) 280-0600; fax (925) 280-0008; on the Web at www.sibelius.com; or via e-mail at infoUSA@sibelius.com.