… music notation tips & tutorials by experts in this field.
In Sibelius 5 and earlier, the way you would indicate an arpeggio or rolled chord was to Type “L” to open the Lines Dialog and select the appropriate wavy line. Once on the page, you dragged the arpeggio line into place. With no collision avoidance or precise placement built in, the results frequently looked like this:
If you’re still creating arpeggios this way in Sibelius 6 or 7, read on.
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:
more >> “Meter Re-mapping: Merge two measures to create a larger one in Sibelius”
Let’s talk about rests. Multimeasure Rests, that is. You may not have given them much thought, but Multimeasure Rests play a key role in how your parts look. In this tutorial, we’ll learn how to control multirest settings and also, how add a unique touch to your charts in Finale and Sibelius with custom multirests.
In modern charts, the standard type of multimeasure rest is called an “H-bar”. The defaults for Finale and Sibelius are nearly identical. Here are the Engraved Style defaults:
Q: What method(s) do you use to avoid collisions in “busy” scores in Finale, i.e: a tutti section with dynamics, hairpins, accents, chord symbols, etc… I have messed with the Avoid Collisions plugin but that doesn’t seem to do the trick for me.
A: For me, regardless of the notation program you are working in, there are a couple of basic “small things” that make a piece of music look “clean”. The first is a consistent amount of white space between any two objects that are close together on the page. The amount of minimum white space between any two objects is usually a matter of personal taste; a “house style” decision.
The second is that wherever possible, the vertical alignment of similar grouped objects such as dynamics, chord symbols or lyrics should remain consistent. Horizontal alignment should also be consistent. For instance, if you decide that techniques like “arco” and “pizz.” should be right aligned with noteheads horizontally or centered over notes, then you should locate these markings consistently in that position as much as is possible.
more >> “Collision Avoidance in Finale, Part 1 : The Little Things”
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:
more >> “Halving or doubling rhythmic values in Sibelius & Finale”
I see a lot of music that has dynamics entered in Times New Roman Italic or Times New Roman Italic Bold:
There is something not quite right about this “engraved” looking bar of music, right? The Opus Text Std Music text font would look more “correct” for the dynamics. However, even though this font is assigned as the Music Text Font in many of the Sibelius Manuscript Papers, you may find your dynamics look like the above, rather than:
Let’s walk through a couple of different ways to enter these dynamic text symbols, and importantly, let’s take a look at how to fix them after the fact, using the Change Dynamics plugin in Sibelius:
more >> “Enter and Edit Dynamics as Music text characters in Sibelius”
A few years ago, I created two special “Scratchpad” files, one for Finale (.mus) and one for Sibelius (.sib). It was a handy way to quickly copy and paste common notation building blocks which can take time to create, like drum set patterns, from one score into another.
The Ideas Library of Sibelius 7 offers a much better way to collect and organize these building blocks – and it’s integrated right into Sibelius. To start with, you have access to a large number of built-in musical motifs you can use to create new music (Preferences>Ideas>Show Built-in-ideas), and you can add and edit your own.
In this YouTube video from back in 2008, Daniel Spreadbury gives an excellent demonstration of the original “Ideas Hub”, as it was called when it was first introduced in Sibelius 5:
However, to this day, I’m surprised at how many Sibelius users think of the Ideas feature as nothing more than a “Musical Clip Art” feature – fun to play with, but not a tool for serious professional use. You might be surprised to learn that the Sibelius Ideas feature is a powerful scratchpad that has the power to transform the way you work. Let’s take a closer look: