Category: Sibelius

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Instrument Change Text & Other Specialty Purpose Text Styles in Sibelius

Q: I would like to convert all Instrument Change text to Boxed Text in a finished score in Sibelius 7. This would be useful in percussion parts where the player changes instruments quite often, from a Tam to a Suspended Cymbal to Castanets and so on.

Usually, changing a text style to another is done by first filter – selecting all occurrences of a specific text style, then selecting a new text style to change all of the selected text globally. However I can’t get it to work as I wish. What am I missing?

sib7-text-group

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Using Music Fonts to Create Woodwind / Brass Fingering Charts in a Score

Q: I need to notate some complex fingerings within a score. How do I create fingering Charts? Is there an easy and quick way or any way at all?!

A: It’s a good question. Sometimes, particularly with woodwinds, it is desirable to be able to indicate specific fingerings for multiphonics or extended techniques (sample PDF).

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Steinberg snatches up former Sibelius Development Team

November 9, 2012 — Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH (a wholly owned subsidiary of Yamaha Corp.☆) announced today that it is establishing a new R&D center in London, United Kingdom, for the purpose of developing a new professional level music notation and composition application, which will sit alongside Steinberg’s other products.

Ben Timms will be the head of Steinberg’s new London-based scoring division, which includes Daniel Spreadbury and most of the former Sibelius UK team.

This is not only great news for these former Avid employees who were dumped by Avid recently in a “profits first” restructuring, but potentially huge news for the future of music notation software. End users benefit from increased competition in music notation software development, and you can bet these boys are going to bring it.

The London-based office will begin operation in the middle of November this year.

  1. Steinberg Press Release (1)
  2. Steinberg Press Release (2)
  3. Pro Sound News Europe
  4. Keeping Score: Spreadbury Speaks on Sibelius Team Transition

☆ Yamaha Corporation reached an agreement to acquire 100% of the common stock of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH, including Steinberg’s U.S. sales operations, through closed competitive bidding on December 20, 2004.)

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Expressive Rubato to Massive Grooves : Ensemble Playback That Sings & Swings

Subtle differences in the timing, volume and duration of phrases are what gives music its “feel” – to inject more tension or weight; to make it more emotional and exciting. Veteran live performers and session musicians sometimes refer to playing “in the pocket”, which means playing every note in the exact sweet spot for each beat in every bar.

When a conductor coaxes a particularly emotional rubato from an orchestra, or a rhythm section lays down a massive groove, causing the listener’s body to move involuntarily, two things are certain. The performers have coalesced in a tangible way that is undefinable; and, whatever *it* is, everyone is doing it together.

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Realization Reversed : from Performance to the Page

Western music notation is a fixed set of rules devised for expressing something that, by nature, is not fixed. Our current notation system has been culled and pruned over the last several centuries from numerous musical symbols and instructions down to the current set.

Professional musicians not only understand the meaning of these, but are able to interpret them with appropriate variation and nuance based on context.

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Create White Space Where Text & Barlines Intersect In Finale & Sibelius

Question: I’m trying to create dynamic markings or other text over bar lines between staves. In the example above, the organ registration text appears “in front” of the bar line.  The text has a bit of white space around it so there is no collision.  Do you know of a way to do this?

The solution for this in both Finale and Sibelius is to define an enclosure or border area around the text (without a visible border line), then electronically “white-out” the background of the text within this enclosure. Here’s how:

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