Sibelius Question & Answer Thread

[karlhenning]

Below is a sample of the old Finale version of Irving's Hudson. (I don't have with me the new Sibelius version.)

Getting the double-slash repeat marks, and managing their positioning, was gawdhelp me a teejus long time.  I did it, though, because when you have a good player willing to read your stuff, there is no substitute for your music looking its best.

In comparison, the work to get 'slash notation' in the Sibelius file was easy; however . . .

What I have got at present is a single slash, with a dot (for the dotted-quarter, I suppose).  Is there an easy way to change that to a double-slash?  If not, I can live with the dotted-single-slash;  but it looks a little funny, and I'd prefer the double-, if it can be managed.

[mikkeljs]

I have been using Sibelius 5 and have had a big layout problem for months! In the piano part I use the whole registre and therefore I made 4 staves, first the traditional g-clef and f-clef, above I added a 2 octaves higher g-clef staff and below a 2 octaves lower f-clef. By spacing the staves so there are only room for one biline (not sure that is the right word in english) between the middle and room for 2 between the others, I could make cross-staff-notes. The strange problem is, that the bilines are slightly thicker than the normal lines, and you can really see it, when you make the cross-staff-notes manually. Is there any way to change the thickness of the bilines? And why the f*** are they supposed to be thicker than the normal ones?  

[karlhenning]

Luke, I have a question (so what else is new . . . .)

[Luke]

Fire away - though I suspect you are as Sibelius-conversant as I am by now! (you've certainly had cause to use it more than I have recently  for you;  for me)

[karlhenning]

Well, I can't say that I figured it out . . . I did find it in The Manual 

When I added the ossia lines to The Angel Who Bears a Flaming Sword (the trumpet original), an unintended consquence was, system dividers between every pair of lines throughout the piece.  I had to go into document options (IIRC . . . wasn't all that lon gago, but . . .) and deselect the critturs.

[karlhenning]

And, you've had beastly distractions, mon cher.

[karlhenning]

Oh, sieur Luc . . . if you can entertain a query (nothing urgent).

[Luke]

Looks yummy! How can I (try to) help?

[karlhenning]

Good of you to rally 'round, dear fellow!  I'm still getting the hang of large ensemble work in Sibelius, and I am a little nervous about [ what I ought to have done in setting up the document ] making it difficult to make adjustments afterwards.  (And yet, as you see, I don't much let it stop me from rolling my sleeves up . . . .)

The flutes in m. 3;  I don't  want to change a note of it, but they do crowd one another on the one staff.  What should I do here in Sibelius to 'split them up'?  (I almost ought to do that for the trumpets at the opening, only that first page looks crowded as it is.)

[Luke]

I'm sure there is a better and neater way than this, and my Sibelius-handling is seriously out of practice (it's been months since I last set a note down), but when I've had this sort of issue I found the easiest thing to do was to create another flute stave running through the whole piece, but to make it invisible except for in this bar (or wherever else you need it). Sometimes this creates issues with layout - easiest might almost be to create a couple of staves for any instruments that might need them, write out the piece in this messy format, and then simply 'hide empty staves' when you're done. With a few tweaks where necessary this ought to work...

[Guido]

FWIW that's how I would do it too.

[karlhenning]

Very good;  thanks, lads!

[karlhenning]

Does this score need more Esotericism? 

[Luke]

It seems fairly laden with it already, but yes, why on earth not!

[karlhenning]

Well, I don't want to hoard more than my share 

[karlhenning]

Luke? Let me know when the Sibelius doctor is in : )

[greg]

My question to Sibelius fans:  Why is Sibelius' Symphony No. 7 constantly rising up the ChamberNut charts with every additional listen?  Is it just a natural phenomena?

0:)

I wonder what they'll play on startup when Sibelius 8 comes out in the future? 


hmmm I've been wondering how you can make cut-out scores with Sibelius. I remember someone (Mark, was it?) showing me how to do this with Finale a long time ago, but I don't use Finale any more.

[karlhenning]

It's not quite that way; the startup for Sibelius 5 is from the Third Symphony.

[Luke]

Is it? And I have Sibelius 3, with startup from the 5th! Though I turn it off, as I don't want such sublime music to start annoying me.

BTW, I'm in, Karl, as you can see! Though I'm sure you are every bit as Sibelius fluent as I am now, probably more so.

Greg - cut-out scores: when I did something of this ilk for Elegy and Ascent, it was a matter of hiding staves, which you can do by changing the staff type. But it's a bit labour intensive and fiddly, something I'd leave tlll last so that you don't make subsequent changes that will mean resetting the whole thing.

[karlhenning]

Well, but I wonder if you know off the cuff of a fix which I've set myself up for needing.

As you can see at the bottom of p.6 of the current draught of Suspension Bridge, I set up the score with a single-line percussion staff to keep track of a rhythmic pattern while I compose through.

So my question is:

As a result, the document places tempo markings on the viola staff and the percussion staff . . . could you point me to where I redesignate that, and have the tempo markings on the piano staff? Thanks!