Sibelius Quick Tip: Create a Bar Rest for a specific Voice

Q: How can I enter a bar rest for a specific voice in Sibelius?

For instance, when I write music in two voices, in the event that the first voice pauses, bar rests are automatically notated above the second voice, should it continue:

Conversely, this is not the case.

A: Locate the bar rest on the second Keypad layout, which can be used during note input to enter whole rests in a specific voice…

… or to turn existing notes or rests into a bar rest.

A German version of this quick tip („Ganztaktpausen erstellen in Sibelius”) is available here.


Karin Vadon is a classically trained musician, singer-songwriter and music copyist from Vienna, Austria who authors a german-language music notation blog for Sibelius and Dorico users.

Adding ties to chords of different durations in Sibelius

Q: When I input a chord (say, C-E-G) and then hit enter to tie it to the next chord, it USUALLY works fine. The big exception is when I enter the C-E-G chord, then press the dot to add dotted rhythm, and THEN hit enter to add a tie. In that case it ONLY adds a tie to the bottom note of the chord. Is this a feature or a bug, or am I doing the workflow wrong?

A: It’s a great question. In this particular situation, you are getting caught by the Escape key feature in Sibelius which normally allows you to “walk back“ out of any type of edit.

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Sibelius : Copy Music with Alternating Meters into a New Location of your Score

Q: I am working on a piece with a lot of meter changes. I don’t know how I can repeat or make copies of those changes. There is a 4 bar pattern with meter changes as 4/4, 3/4, 4/4, (4/4). e.g. the 2nd bar of the pattern is always 3/4. However, when I copy and paste the 4 bars, the meter change isn’t copied. And, when I insert 3/4 and 4/4, the rebarring creates unwanted rests and destroys the pattern! How can I solve this problem?

A: On Mac, if you hold down the Command key when you make a selection, (use the Command key to select one bar, then hold down the Shift key to extend your selection) the selection area will be Purple, not Blue:

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Plug-ins that run other plug-ins in Sibelius

Since Sibelius version 1, plug-ins have been able to run other plug-ins. For example, the Proof-read plug-in is just a container that lets you call the main Run() method of the plug-ins Check Pizzicatos, Check Clefs,… so you can do all your proofreading at once. These plug-ins were designed to be called by other plug-ins, and typically do not display a dialog when they run.

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This document will discuss plug-ins that call the top-level Run() method of other plug-ins, which is equivalent to running the plugin from the plug-in menu.

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