Tools of the trade

"How do you arrange and come up with such beautiful and professionally looking printed music scores?"

I've always been asked this question time and time again. Especially whenever I play from a score that bears "Arr. by Eddy Chan" on it. When people see it, they get really curious as to how I got my name printed on the music score.

"How do you get all those notes in? Do you need to use a special tool or software?

Well, here's my answer.

The hardware = Prodikeys

The software = Sibelius 3


First, let's look at the Prodikeys (made by Creative Technologies, the same company that makes the Zen, Muvo, etc, MP3 players).

At first glance it looks just like any other computer keyboard.



Remove the wrist rest and taaa daaa, there's a hidden 37-mini key music keyboard that's built into the computer keyboard. Pure genius! It's a great tool for musicians and it's space-saving too.






All I need now is the software. For that, I'll use the best music software (IMHO) available, the Sibelius 3.



It's got tons of useful features and very easy to use. I can create any type of music and print any kind of music score I want including professional full orchestra scores that can have many parts. A real boon to conductors. Just set up Sibelius 3 to recognise the input device (in this case, the Prodikeys) and you're on your way. Notes or rests can be inserted in real-time or step-time. They appear as you play on the mini keyboard and can be easily edited if need be. Sibelius even recognises terms and symbols and will playback according to tempo, expression, dynamics and articulation changes. Very cool!

Below is part of the score of Holy, Holy, Holy. I did this simple seven-part orchestra arrangement.




Completed scores can be easily printed and they look really good. Very professional looking right?



So, do you want to know how the above music arrangement sounds?

Then, scroll down to watch the video demo of Holy, Holy, Holy created using Prodikeys and Sibelius 3.