After all that fuss, I did eventually decide to take AS Level Music! Thanks for all the advice! But now I have a new problem..my school uses Sibelius and i decided after GCSE that if I did it at AS Level I would like to buy it because I think it would make my life a bit easier with composition...but I don't know whether to buy the Student edition (which you can only use 8 staves on etc) or the full Sibelius 4 which is VERY expensive...Does anyone out there who did AS Level know if the Student edition is sufficient? My school currently uses Sibelius 2 but my teacher said he was in the process of upgrading to Sibelius 4...will the Student edition allow me to open/edit files from school?

I have Sibelius 3 at student price.

It depends on what you are thinking of composing for it. If it is a short solo piece then 8 staves is ok, if it is a big orchestral piece then maybe you need more!

What exam board are you using?

This is the exact question I was pondering. I currently have Finale Notepad which is rubbish, as it is free. The thing is we only have to do one composition...

I know that on Sibelius 3 you can choose to save your files as Sibelius 2 files so that they can be opened on computers with only Sibelius 2, but I doubt that you will be able to save as Student Edition files on Sibelius 4 as they are so different.

Can I ask here if Sibelius extracts parts from an orchestral score? Does it allow you to save parts as new files which can be edited so you can write in cues (like, add in small extra staves)?

thanks.

Yes, Sibelius 3 and 4 allow you to do that very easily

I dont have either at home but have used Sibelius 3 for GCSE at school and its REALLY GOOD. Whats the difference between that and 4 though?

what do you mean by 'student price'?
im thinking of writing on overture/opening song/character song to a musical, but im not really sure if i'll go over 8 staves because then its more to think about/compose/harmonise!
and we do edexel

I got it from some site which was cheaper if you were a student. I can't remember if it was a completely different price or just without VAT.

Thank you

I have Sibelius 3 and it is great!