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Sibelius Basics Online Course Part 4

Katie Wardrobe
Midnight Music

w w w . m i d n i g h t m u s i c . c o m . a u

2012

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Custom worksheet: score set-up .................................................................................................3
Setting up a worksheet.................................................................................................................................................................. 3
Add some more empty bars ........................................................................................................................................................ 3
Creating an empty stave..............................................................................................................3
Empty stave for students to write in....................................................................................................................................... 4
Hide the rest and time signature .............................................................................................................................................. 4
Viewing hidden objects ...............................................................................................................4
Writing questions above the stave ..............................................................................................4
Creating text above a stave.......................................................................................................................................................... 4
Split bars and centralised notes...................................................................................................5
Layout of the bars............................................................................................................................................................................ 5
Adding notes...................................................................................................................................................................................... 5
Optional: centralize the notes .................................................................................................................................................... 5
Answer lines ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 6
Invisible barlines and hidden time signatures ..............................................................................6
Layout of bars.................................................................................................................................................................................... 6
Adding the time signature ........................................................................................................................................................... 6
Add in the rhythm ........................................................................................................................................................................... 7
Hide the time signature................................................................................................................................................................. 7
Invisible barlines ............................................................................................................................................................................. 7
Short examples and stick notation ..............................................................................................7
Layout of short examples ............................................................................................................................................................. 7
Indenting staves from the left .................................................................................................................................................... 7
Indenting staves from the right................................................................................................................................................. 8
Creating the invisible stave ......................................................................................................................................................... 8
Stick notation: no noteheads ...................................................................................................................................................... 9
Adding graphics...........................................................................................................................9
Inserting a graphic into your score.......................................................................................................................................... 9
Finding the provided graphics................................................................................................................................................ 10
Copy music into Word (or Powerpoint) .....................................................................................10
Reasons for copying to Word .................................................................................................................................................. 10
Step-by-step .................................................................................................................................................................................... 10
Tips for making musical examples look good .................................................................................................................. 10
The Worksheet Creator .............................................................................................................11
01 Elements of Music .................................................................................................................................................................. 11
03 Selected Repertoire............................................................................................................................................................... 11
04 Reference ................................................................................................................................................................................... 11
05 Posters, Flashcards and Games........................................................................................................................................ 11

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Sibelius Basics Part 4

Worksheets and Musical Examples

General notes

Where there is a reference to Version 5 & 6 of Sibelius, most things can be done in earlier versions too

Version 5 & 6 instructions generally require you to click on one of the menus, then an item within that menu

Version 7 instructions generally require you to click on one of the tabs in the Ribbon, then a category (group),
then a button. For instance Home > Select > Bars asks you to click on the Home tab, then look for the
category Select, then the Bars button (see below):

Custom worksheet: score set-up
Creating worksheets involves a number of advanced (non-musical!) formatting techniques, which can be difficult to
locate in the manual, even if you do have time to read it. The example attached shows a few of the more popular
worksheet questions and following are the instructions for creating them.
Setting up a worksheet
The Quick start menu will appear when you open Sibelius.

Choose Start a new score (Sibelius ^) or New Score (Sibelius 7)

From the list of predefined manuscript papers, choose Treble staff (or Bass Staff)

Leave the House style unchanged

Time signature: choose the time signature of your first question

Tempo: leave the tempo blank

Key signature: choose the key signature of your first question

Give your worksheet a title and click Finish

Add some more empty bars

You can add extra bars to the end of your score by pressing Ctrl+B (B). Well remove any empty, unused bars at the
end.

Creating an empty stave

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Empty stave for students to write in

Select the barline at the end of bar 1

Press Enter. The bar will be stretched across the width

of the page

Hide the rest and time signature

Select the rest by clicking on it

Sibelius 5 & 6: go to Edit > Hide or Show > Hide

Sibelius 7: Go to Home > Edit > Hide or Show

Select the time signature and hide it the same way

Both the time signature and rest should have disappeared from the score.

Viewing hidden objects

When you hide an object in Sibelius, it still exists in your score its simply hidden from view and will not print.
You can view hidden objects in your score:

Sibelius 5 & 6: go to View > Hidden objects (make sure it has a tick next to it)

Sibelius 7: go to View > Invisibles > check the Hidden objects box

Writing questions above the stave

Creating text above a stave

Select the bar above which you want the text to appear

Press Ctrl+T (Command+T). T stands for Technique text

A cursor will appear above the stave and you can type your question

Press Escape when finished

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Split bars and centralised notes

The split bars in question 2 are ideal for name this note or identify the interval-type questions
Layout of the bars
First, well make sure there are just 4 bars in the line:

Select the barline at the end of bar 4

Press Enter

Next, well create the split between each bar on the line

Select the barline between the 1st and 2nd bars

Sibelius 5 & 6: go to Layout > Break > Split System

Sibelius 7: go to Layout > Breaks > Split System

Repeat for the remaining bars in that line

Adding notes

Add a semibreve into each bar using any note entry method

Optional: centralize the notes

Select all the bars in the system 2 (select the first bar and shift-click on the last bar)

Sibelius 5 & 6: go to Window > Properties. Click on the General tab and then increase the x value with the
up arrow until the notes are in a central position

Sibelius 7: go to Home > Inspector. Under General, increase the x value with the up arrow until the notes
are in a central position

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Answer lines
Add a line underneath each bar to allow students to write their answers:

Press L to open the Lines menu

Sibelius 5 & 6: select the plain horizontal line from the Staff lines box on the left

Sibelius 7: select the plain horizontal line in the Lines section (scroll down to find it)

Click in the score underneath the first bar in Question 2 and repeat with the remaining bars

Youll probably need to adjust the length an position of each line

Invisible barlines and hidden time signatures

Layout of bars
Make sure there are 4 bars in the line:

Select the barline at the end of bar 9

Press Enter

Adding the time signature

Sibelius 5 & 6: press T to access the Time signature window

Sibelius 7: press T then click on More Options at the bottom of the time signature drop-down menu

Select 4/4 and be sure to uncheck the Allow cautionary box (see below)

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Click OK (your mouse pointer will turn blue)

Click at the beginning of the line to add the time signature into the score

Add in the rhythm

Create a rhythm all in the F space

Hide the time signature

Selecting the time signature by clicking on it

Right-click on it and choose Hide or Show > Hide or Show (or Hide in Sibelius 6)

Invisible barlines

Select a barline

Sibelius 5 & 6: go to Create > Barline > Invisible

Sibelius 7: go to Notations > Common > Barline > Invisible

Repeat for the remaining barlines

Short examples and stick notation

Layout of short examples
When you have a musical example that consists of only two or three bars, Sibelius will stretch the bars out
horizontally so they reach from one side of the page to the other. This is not desirable when creating short musical
examples because they can be difficult to read and look strange!
The solution is to indent the stave on one side, or on both sides.
Indenting staves from the left

Click at the very left hand end of the staff, on the middle stave line. A small
purple handle should appear just next to the treble clef

Click and drag the handle to the right

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Indenting staves from the right

Theres a similar handle at the right end of the staff, but its a little more difficult to find.

Click just to the right of the staff, level with the middle line, a few millimeters
after the staff ends. If youre having difficulty finding the handle, go to View >
Handles so that it shows in your score

Click and drag the handle to the left

Creating the invisible stave
To remove the stave lines, well make them invisible.

Sibelius 5 & 6: go to Create > Other > Instrument Change. In the Choose from box, select All Instruments; in
Family select Others and in the Instrument list, scroll down to No instrument (barlines shown). Uncheck the
Announce at last note of previous instrument box and click OK

Sibelius 7: go to Home > Instruments > Change. From the Choose from drop-down menu, select All
Instruments; in the list of instruments, choose Others and then click on No instrument (barlines shown).
Uncheck the Announce at last note of previous instrument box and click OK

Click in the score just to the left of the staff to make the change

There will be a few residual stave lines at the beginning of the system and youll
see a blue vertical box which indicates the position of the instrument change.
You can drag that box to the left of the treble clef to make the stave lines
disappear completely

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Stick notation: no noteheads

You can remove the noteheads as well:

Select the bar (or multiple bars) containing the notes you want to change

Sibelius 5 & 6: go to Window > Properties, click on the Notes tab and select Notehead 25 from the drop-
down menu

Sibelius 7: go to Notations > Noteheads > Type, scroll down and choose Stick notation

Adding graphics

Inserting a graphic into your score

Sibelius 5 & 6: go to Create > Graphic

Sibelius 7: go to Notations > Graphics > Graphic

Locate the graphic you want to insert and click OK

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Finding the provided graphics

Sibelius comes with a number of useful graphics. They can be found by navigating to your Scores folder, then to the
Examples Scores sub-folder. If you cant find the Example Scores folder, it may not be installed on your computer.
Find your original Sibelius installer disk and download the Example Scores folder from there.

Copy music into Word (or Powerpoint)

Reasons for copying to Word
Copying musical examples into Word, Powerpoint or your interactive whiteboard software is simple and very useful.
Use this technique if you want to

Create a worksheet that contains a lot of words and only a little music

Add a musical example to an essay

Add a musical example to your presentation in Powerpoint, Keynote or IWB software

Create your own flashcards or music posters

Step-by-step

Create your score or musical examples in Sibelius

Type Alt+G (Opt+G on Mac). The mouse pointer will turn into a crosshair

Click and drag a box around the bar/s, phrase or single note youd like to copy to Word

Type Ctrl+C (C) to copy it

Open Word (or other program) and then type Ctrl+V (V) to paste the example into your document. The
music will appear where the cursor was

Resize the music example by dragging the corners (it will distort if you drag anywhere else)

Tips for making musical examples look good
If youre capturing an example from a score with a single instrument, the example will look great straight away.
However if youre taking an example from a larger score, you might end up with barlines that extend past the staves
and go nowhere like this example:

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To fix this:

Select a bar in the stave/s you want to use as your example (click on one stave and then Ctrl-click or
Command-click on any additional staves)

Sibelius 7 Go to Layout > Hiding Staves > Focus on Staves

Sibelius 5 and 6 go to View > Focus on Staves

Sibelius will show you only the stave/s you need. Now when you capture your example, the barlines will finish
cleanly.

The Worksheet Creator

Sibeliuss Worksheet Creator is a little-known gold mine of over
1700 ready-made worksheets, quizzes, songs, rounds, posters and
lots more.
Opening The Worksheet Creator

Sibelius 5 & 6: go to File > Worksheet Creator

Sibelius 7: go to the File tab > Teaching > Worksheet

Creator

Here are some of my favourite things:

01 Elements of Music

01 Notes & Rests > 01 Note Duration > 01 Match Notes with Names

03 Timbre/Tone Colour > 01 Match Pictures with Instruments Names > 01 Match Common Instruments

07 Intervals, Chords, Progressions and Cadences

08 Score Analysis

09 Conducting > 04 Conduct the beat in 4

03 Selected Repertoire

04 Songs for Teaching

05 Rounds and Canons

06 Poetry for Lyrics

04 Reference

01 Encyclopaedia of Scales and Modes > 01 Useful Scale Libraries

02 Chord Library

05 Posters, Flashcards and Games

01 Posters

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