Category: Sibelius

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Centered dynamics between staves on braced grand staff instruments

Q: I can never get the placement of dynamics to align nicely to the middle of the grand staff in piano parts. Because they are connected to the treble or bass clef stave, they tend to move towards that stave. But it would be nice to have them in the middle, centered between the 2 staves. I can’t find an option in to automate this.  What’s the best way to center these dynamics?

A: I’ve found that consistently attaching dynamics below the treble clef staff really helps with dynamics text / hairpin positioning on a braced (grand staff) instrument. Both Finale and Sibelius offer a mechanism to center dynamics between grand staves as a group, but in order to move as a group, they have to be attached consistently to the same staff.

Generally, dynamics should be placed as close as possible to the notes they refer to. However, in keyboard music, a convention is to center the dynamics between the staves, as the dynamics most typically refer to both the left and right hand. As with parts on one staff, keep dynamics on the same horizontal plane where possible.

The following techniques can also be helpful when entering music in a dense score for an instrument with ledger lines. 

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Music by the Pound : Types & Weights of Paper for Printing Music

As a generation producing music notation on computer software and laser printers, we are fortunate not to have to consider as many factors when picking out a paper for music reproduction. For instance, there are no concerns about how the ink from a fountain pen spreads on a specific paper; or whether or not fibers from the paper get caught in the pen when copying.

These days, most good quality papers designed for laser printers or photo copying produce great results for typeset scores and parts. With white paper, we want to pick a paper stock with a good brightness rating (the higher the number, the brighter the paper). And, importantly, we want a paper that is heavy enough that it won’t curl up on the music stands, but that isn’t too heavy to go through our printer.

If you have the manual for your printer handy, it’s worth checking to see what the heaviest recommended paper is possible to feed through the trays.

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Control Multirest Break Points in Sibelius

Q: I’m trying to import a graphic onto my score, but whenever I place it where I want it, the multi-measure rest breaks in a way I don’t want it to. How can I place the graphic above the staff and keep the  multi-measure rest at the full duration?

A: From version 2 of Sibelius onward, the Properties Palette has provided a good solution for  controlling placement while keeping multimeasure rest integrity. In Sibelius 7, the Properties Palette was renamed “The Inspector”, but for all intents and purposes, it is still the same tool.

Suppose you want a graphic to appear in the score and parts at a location prior to the barline, over the multirest:

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Create Custom Repeat Dots On 2 Line Staves in Sibelius 7 or Sibelius 6

Q: In Sibelius (v.6 and now v.7) with a “Percussion [2 lines]” instrument, I want to make repeat signs that appear in between the two lines. My two alternatives so far, are (1) ‘percussion-style’ repeat signs, with one dot above the top staff line and one dot below the lower staff line; and (2) conventional repeat signs on two 1-line staves, which gives two separate sets of repeats, e.g. not combined as one repeat sign between the two staff lines).

A solution to this problem would be useful to many music educators, who often present introductory music in fewer than five-line staffs, but want to acquaint students with the conventional symbols like repeat signs.

A: In Finale, moving the repeat dot locations is a simple matter of adjusting the vertical location for available “Top Repeat Dot” and “Bottom Repeat Dot” parameters in Staff Setup. However, while the method to achieve this in Sibelius is somewhat more circuitous, it is indeed quite possible, and in fact, once you’ve created the mechanism once, it is very fast to create in subsequent worksheets or even scores, via Export / Import House Style.

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Proofreading

Proofreading is an essential part of music preparation, whether it’s engraving for publication, a recording session, or for performance.

proofreading

It’s more than merely having an eye for detail. Good proofreading really boils down to having an efficient and methodical / systematic approach which allows every aspect of the music on every page to be examined  consistently and thoroughly.

I recommend the method advocated by William Holab and David Fetheroff in “The G. Schirmer/AMP Manual of Style and Usage” as a great starting point. Once you’ve learned how it works, you may modify the process somewhat, as I have, but the gist is, you want to specifically target groups of musical elements one at a time in a methodical manner to produce consistent and accurate results.

In the G. Schirmer system, the proofreader prints out a copy of the score or part and pencils the following letters at the top of the page, crossing each letter off as that task is complete:

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Articulation Alternatives for Staggered Bowing in Finale and Sibelius

Bowings are a type of symbol used in music notation to indicate the use of the bow in string parts, which indicate the manner in which a note should be played. Finale and Sibelius share a standard way to create these; they treat bowings as articulations, which are automatically positioned in proximity to the notehead.

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Create a Divisi or Chorded Instrument from Two Separate Staves

In my post “Keep it Together in Finale or Sibelius : Score & Parts in the same file“, we looked at methods of exploding chorded or divisi parts in the score into individual lines that, would be hidden in the page view of the score, while still available as single line parts.

Often, just the opposite workflow is required: the score already contains individual instrument staves that need to be combined for the score. That is, rather than allocating the contents of a divisi or chorded staff into individual instrument staves,  the requirement is to merge data from two or more independent staves into a single combined staff.

Let’s break it down.

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