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Transpose by Interval in Sibelius

Q: I play Alto Sax in a (small) big band. We’ve purchased Superstition by Stevie Wonder, arranged by Mike Tomaro. It’s a nifty piece of work and quite a challenge. I used Photoscore to enter my Alto Sax part into Sibelius 6, which appeared to go quite smoothly. But, Photoscore apparently didn’t spot the fact that it was a transposed part.

Is there a way that I can correct this in Sibelius and not lose all my sharps and flats? When I play it, I hear the correct notes but not at the right pitch. It would be nice to be able to change them, without having to alter each sharp or flat by hand. I’ve been trying to find an anwser but I have not been successful so far. Can you help me? Thanks very much.

A: Fortunately, this one is pretty easy to set right by (a) first making sure that the score in concert pitch is set to the correct key signature (in this case, your “score” can also be a single part) and (b) transposing the notes to the corresponding concert / transposed pitches. You can do both operations from within the Transpose dialog in Sibelius.

Let’s say you have a chart in three flats concert. The corresponding Alto Sax part is going to appear as C maj / A minor:

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Convert MIDI CC64 on / off messages to Pedal markings in Finale & Sibelius

Q: Is there a plug-in/tool that will convert MIDI CC64 on/off messages to Pedal on/off markings, respectively, in Finale? It almost seems like a no-brainer… I know it could potentially introduce positioning issues, but I think positioning could be quantized to hit the right beat… at the very least, once they’re in Finale, it’s much easier to move them around. Just wondering if you know of anything that will help.

A: Yes! As it happens, there are plugins available for both Finale and Sibelius that perform this task.

FINALE : JW PEDAL PLUGIN

Jari Williamssohn has written just such a plugin for Finale, called JW Pedal. The plugin adds pedal up/down markings as articulations wherever CC64 MIDI controller events are found.

One current limitation is that you must have the down and up definitions of the pedal markings (as Maestro) in the articulation list before you start – otherwise nothing will show up. But definitely a time saver.

Tip: In a new Document Without Libraries, you can create these 2 articulation characters and export / save them as a library for quick import into future documents rather than having to recreate them each time.

Download the FREE JW Pedal plugin (and other useful plugins) here: Mac | Windows

SIBELIUS : PEDAL LINES PLUGIN

Bob Zawalich has authored the useful (and free) Pedal Lines plugin for Sibelius, which converts CC64 MIDI controller events to Sibelius pedal lines.

Download the FREE Pedal Lines plugin for Mac | Windows here.

~robert

for Rolando Gori

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Installing Plug-ins in Sibelius

Q: I spent far too long today trying to install a Sibelius plug-in after I downloaded it.  I followed the Sibelius site instructions, but it still didn’t work. I’m using Sibelius 6 on Windows 7. Can you help?

A: In addition to the plugins that ship with Sibelius, there are now more than 400 additional plug-ins available for download from the Sibelius web site. A number of these plugins very likely could become indispensable to you, once you’ve tried them out.

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Clean up MIDI Import for Drums and Percussion in Sibelius

Have you ever wondered why sometimes when importing a MIDI file containing drums or percussion, the resulting notation looks like garbage in Sibelius, while other times, the drum tracks import correctly, requiring only minor cleanup? Part of the answer can be found in the original General MIDI specification, which Sibelius uses to determine which tracks contain drums and percussion in MIDI files…

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Installing and using plug-ins in Sibelius 7

My colleague Philip Rothman of NYC Music Service posted this excellent Youtube video tutorial I want to share with you. In the tutorial, Philip walks through how to install and manage Sibelius 7 plug-ins from within the program.

sib7-installing-and-using-plugins

He also covers these six very useful and free-for-download plug-ins:

  1. Edit Part Instrument Names
  2. Exchange Staff Contents
  3. Fill Selection With Slash Notes
  4. Harp Gliss
  5. Add LV Symbols to Notes (requires Sibelius 7)
  6. Open Selected Parts (requires Sibelius 7)

With the exception of Add LV Symbols to Notes and Open Selected Parts, the plugins covered in the video tutorial can also be used with Sibelius 6, by downloading from the direct links above. Sibelius 7 users can download the plugins directly from within Sibelius, as outlined by Philip in his Youtube tutorial.

Philip currently owns and authors the Sibeliusblog website, which is a great resource for Sibelius tips and tutorials.

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On Location : Number Repeated Measures in Finale & Sibelius

When the same bar of music is repeated over and over, it’s common to indicate the the repeated pattern in subsequent bars using a single bar repeat sign, notated with a single slash with two dots:

However, if there are more than a few of these in a row, it’s pretty easy for the performers to get disoriented without some sort of numerical reference. So, it’s common practice to indicate the current number of the repeated measures by placing a number over every other measure, or every four measures:

In some cases, the numbers appear over every measure.

Sometimes, it’s desirable to number ostinato patterns which remain written out. That is, the one bar repeat sign doesn’t replace the notation, but the iterations of the pattern are numbered above each measure, or every n bars:

 

Both Finale and Sibelius offer tools to help you number repeated measures for either of these situations.

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