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:
Select the first pair of bars. Now, in the Bars Group of the Home tab, locate and press the “Join” button:
The Merge Bars dialog will open. There are options for offsetting bar numbering, as well as barline display (if you want to show the original subdivision with a dashed barline, for instance). For now, just leave the defaults and OK the dialog.
The operation will complete, leaving what is now a single, combined measure, highlighted.
Now, just specify the new time signature. With the region still selected, type “T” to open the Time Signature Gallery immediately, and select your new meter.
(In some cases, you wouldn’t necessarily need to display a different time signature at this stage, e.g. when joining several bars for a Cadenza).
Note the small numbers under each of the different Time Signatures in the Gallery. These indicate the current default beam groupings. If you want, say, 4, 3 rather than 3, 2, 2, select “More Options” at the bottom of the Time Signature Gallery, then click the “Beam and Rest Groups” button. The dialog that comes up will give you options for grouping the 8th notes (quavers) how you’d like (as well as smaller subdivisions).
which gives us:
Once you’ve created a meter with a custom beam group, it will show up in the list of Used meters, so you only have to define this once for the piece. If you create more than one beam grouping for the same meter, all of your different beam grouping variations will be saved for you, for instant selection next time:
Cool, right?
That’s it! That’s all there is to it. Meter re-mapping your way in Sibelius 7.
Robert
for my friend and colleague Tony DiLorenzo.
Thanks a million Robert!!!
I just wanted to mention that you can do this in Sibelius 6 as well, by using the Merge Bars plugin, which is available at Plugins > Other > Merge Bars. All the other steps can also be done with the Sibelius 6 equivalent functions.
Thanks for all the tutorials, Robert! They are really useful.
Hi Robert
I have a cadenza passage which spans many beats, approx. 76 quarter note beats. I would like the music to look clean and uncluttered so it will mean the cadenza has to span more than one line on a page. The problem is I am not able to split measures across a line in Sibelius (using Sib. 7). Following the advice of another writer I counted the number of beats in the cadenza and made one measure of 76/4 but after reading your comments I think there must be a better way.
Hi Carmen – while there is no perfect way to create cadenza measures in Sibelius you are on the right track with the large container measure. Depending on the density of the notation and the width of your page, you may end up splitting the “measure” containers at each system, but the idea is to create a larger metric container. One thing you want to do is to delete, rather than hide any meter changes, which will allow the white space to appear appropriately at the start points where you have created any dummy meter changes for containment. I usually use tiny text to indicate the “faked” meters above the staff and hide them, so if I have to go back later to a bar with 76 beats in it, I don’t have to count everything again.
As you reach the horizontal limits of each system, you will need to start a new “container meter” for that full system – enter the notes and then delete the dummy meter and respace. You’ll also want to make the bar lines invisible between the different containers if you need more than one.
Hope that helps!
~robert