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If 6 was 9 : Measured Tremolo & Tuplet Rhythms in Sibelius

Measured tremolo is a specific repetition of notes per beat measured exactly in a given tempo. It’s a type of notation shorthand which takes up less space than writing all the notes out, commonly found in published classical works.

It’s common practice to write out the full notation of the first beat or bar of a measured tremolo passage to avoid confusion:

01-sib-measured-trem

In her book “Behind Bars”, Elaine Gould also recommends adding the label “non trem.” to the first note value of the abbreviation.

You can apply these in either duple or triple meter, with the added benefit that Sibelius plays these back as if they were written out in long form, (which will help you to check your work).

One case where the “how to” is not quite as obvious, however, are tuplets that are represented by measured tremolo. For instance, in 2/4 time, how would you create:

03-sib-desired-tuplet-measured-trem

Let’s take a look…

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Sibelius Mass Edit Filtering – Change Triplets into Sextuplets

I frequently receive scores where tuplets are subdivided more than necessary for the time signature, like this passage in 2/4 time:

01-sib-source-triplets

It would be great if there was a way to convert the full bars of triplets into sextuplets. There is a plugin in Sibelius called “Split or Join Tuplets” but this plugin is designed to split or join a single tuplet, not a whole passage of them.

However, I recently learned a cool edit filtering trick from Sibelius power user Wim Hoogewerf that allows you to convert an extended passage of triplets to sextuplets. I thought I would share it with you. Check this out:

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Incorporate a time signature into a line of text in Sibelius

Q: My question is about tempo changes. I’m copying handwritten parts to Sibelius so musicians can easily read what’s written, and there is a tempo change that states, among other things, that the music is to have a 12/8 feel, where the 12 is above the 8, no slash, just like you’d see in a time signature. Is there a way to do this in Sibelius or am I stuck writing writing out “12/8” just as you see it here?

A: Yes, absolutely. First of all, Sibelius 6 (and 7) have a text style called “Time Signatures (one staff only)” which allows you to place a regular looking time signature as text anywhere you want, independent of their normal staff location(s). This text style is located here:

  • Sibelius 6 : Create > Text > Other Staff Text > Time Signatures (one staff only)
  • Sibelius 7 : Text Tab > Styles Gallery > Time Signatures (special) > Time Signatures (one staff only)

But you can also create a new text style which will allow you to display a time signature as part of a line of text, like this:


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Meter Re-mapping: Merge two measures to create a larger one in Sibelius

Q: I would like to reconfigure some meters which are already in place in Sibelius 7. Rather than having a 2/4 bar followed by a 3/8 bar, I would like to convert these pairs of measures into single bars of 7/8. Is that possible? It happens quite a bit in one Mvt.

A: Absolutely. Sibelius 7 has made this really easy. Let’s say you have a passage that alternates 2/4 and 3/8, like this:

 

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Halving or doubling rhythmic values in Sibelius & Finale

Q: A student of mine has created a .MID file and imported it into Finale 2011. However,  all the note values are twice the length she desires. How can she make the notation appear correctly?

A: The musical terms for lengthening and shortening the durations of notes in a musical passage so that the length of the phrase is increased or decreased are “augmentation” and diminution”.

dim·i·nu·tion Noun /ˌdiməˈn(y)o͞oSHən/
The shortening of the time values of notes in a melodic part.

aug·men·ta·tion Noun /ˌôgmenˈtāSHən/
The lengthening of the time values of notes in a melodic part.

With that bit of technical jargon out of the way, let’s take a look at how to do this in Finale and Sibelius:

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