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What is Sibelius for Mac; and is it accessible?

By dharmaputra, 14 February, 2017

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

for Mac OS users i want to ask, what Sibelius for mac it can be used by blind users?

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Comments

GarageBand is only option at the mo

By Mara

6 years 1 month ago

No, in short it can't. Garageband is the only cheap option at the moment and it's note editor is not accessible. There is also MuseScore which is partially accessible.

Garage band?

By dharmaputra

6 years 1 month ago

In reply to GarageBand is only option at the mo by Mara

how to make the score using GarageBand? How could it be?

Another option

By Joseph Westhouse

6 years 1 month ago

Actually, strictly speaking Lilypond would be the most accessible option for music notation on the mac, since the entire interface is just entering text in a text editor. It's definitely more tedious than something with a more sophisticated UI, and requires a good understanding of music and ability to really visualize the score, but in terms of an accessible way to produce high-quality, attractive musical scores, it's the best option I've encountered.

I assume Sibelius is inaccessible, because as I understand the interface is largely graphical in nature, based on dragging note heads onto the staff, and there wouldn't be any way to do this with VO. I would love it if there was a more streamlined, accessible music notation solution available but if there is, I'm not aware of it.

Hi,

By Justin

6 years 1 month ago

Hi,
Logic pro X is usable with VO from what I've heard. I tried using Sibelius when I was in college, but no dice. It is indeed as you said, very graphical, and not VO friendly. Your best bet is Logic pro and/or garage band, or that other app lilypond or whatever it was called.

Logic/GB

By Joseph Westhouse

6 years 1 month ago

To echo the earlier question - how would one use Logic Pro or Garage Band to create a musical score? As I understand, these programs work fine for creating actual music, but they aren't designed for preparing sheet music that can be handed to a musician. I assume that's what the original poster is looking for, as this is the primary function of Sibelius.

I believe logic can be used

By KE7ZUM

6 years 1 month ago

I believe logic can be used to make scores for handing out and so can gb but i dont' know how.

Lilypond

By Mara

6 years 1 month ago

I had forgotten about LilyPond. Thanks for the reminder.
The note-editor in GB is not accessible and as has already been said, it's not designed to be used for the creation of music.

Sheet music. I should've been

By Mara

6 years 1 month ago

Sheet music. I should've been more specific.

lilypond what? and how the

By dharmaputra

6 years 1 month ago

In reply to Another option by Joseph Westhouse

lilypond what? and how the application works?

@ justin,

By dharmaputra

6 years 1 month ago

In reply to Hi, by Justin

@ justin,
whether pro logic could be used to make the score? and whether the pro logic can be used by blind users?

Hi,

By Justin

6 years 1 month ago

Hi,
As far as I know, logic pro can make scores, and yes it is usable with VO.

Re: Lilypond

By Joseph Westhouse

6 years 1 month ago

Lilypond is a text-based music editor, so everything that will appear in the score is defined by typing it into a text file using a specialized syntax. Then Lilypond can compile that text file into a musical score. From what I've heard, the results are very consistent and look good, so long as you haven't made any mistakes in your input - though the program does provide an error report if there's something amiss in your input such as failing to indicate where a slur should end, or so on. The program can also compile a .midi file from your score, which is helpful for listening to what you've written and making sure that it's coming out the way you expect. I can't count the number of times I've accidentally had things in the wrong octave, and caught it from listening to the midi.

Regarding Logic, some quick Googling does seem to indicate that it can generate a score, though this certainly doesn't seem to be the primary function, so I'm not sure ho trustworthy the results would be, or how streamlined the process would be. Anybody have experience composing orchestral, choral, or piano/vocal music with Logic and can speak to that?

logic

By Joseph

6 years 1 month ago

Logic can, as has been said before, be used by VO users. But it's not cheep.

I stopped using lily pond as

By KE7ZUM

6 years 1 month ago

I stopped using lily pond as it was getting way too complex. I wish I could just create my stuff and put include where I want the part to begin and it insert the amount of rests needed just like alda can do.

Complexity

By Joseph Westhouse

6 years 1 month ago

Agreed that Lilypond can be pretty complex and tedious, especially if working with more complex scores. (Scoring piano parts in Lilypond makes me want to cry). But to date I haven't found a better alternative. I'm intrigued by the possibility of printing scores in Logic, though I'm curious about how to actually edit note values, etc.? In my experience, you don't want to generate a score just from something recorded with a hardware keyboard, because often if your rhythm is a tiny bit off, that will be represented in the score. So there'd still need to be a way to interact with the score and make sure everything is doing what you want. Can this be done in Logic?

I heard the note editor is

By KE7ZUM

6 years 1 month ago

I heard the note editor is accessible now. So yeah it can be done. I don't have logic on my computer but if I could enter notes in with the keyboard and change their rhythms, put words in my score I can finally get this thing published I've ben trying to work on for years now. It is a tribute to a teacher I had a while ago and I ant to give it to her at some point.

I want to create music scores

By dharmaputra

6 years 1 month ago

I want to create music scores. and I want to give her the results of my friends who are not visually impaired. what applications can I use?

Hello all frend?

By dharmaputra

5 years 11 months ago

hello all, i want to buy Sibelius for my macbook, what this application can be used with voice over?

Hi,

By Justin

5 years 11 months ago

Hi,
I don't know if it works with VO as of now. A few years ago when I was in college, some of the music majors, me included had to use sibelius, and I couldn't get it to work, so I had one of my sighted friends help me with the application.
As far as I am aware, sibelius is not usable with VO.

Ok.

By dharmaputra

5 years 11 months ago

thanks for the answer ...

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