I use Sibelius 7, a music scoring program, heavily and have had to try to do many things. I sometimes forget how to do it after a while and have to look in my notes for how I did it last time. This list of answers is largely for my own reference and all of these are things I had to try to remember in Sibelius 7. I just thought there might be other people as puzzled as I am at times.
How do I change the note joins? As in, the bars joining eighth/sixteenth/etc. notes.
Sometimes, if it is an eighth note, eighth rest, and then eighth note, I must select the eighth rest and change its join to connect the two eighth notes on either side.
How do I flip a note’s stem direction?
To flip the stem of a note, select the note and hit ‘x’.
Multi-rests?
Hit Ctrl+Shift+M.
How do I make chords become grace notes?
To get chorded grace notes, make the chord normally, select it, and then hit ‘;’.
My dynamics / tempo are not playing back right.
As far as I can tell, because of what I hear in the playback, Sibelius forgets what A tempo was and cannot remember how to make crescendos followed by diminuendos well. For the A tempo, I can fix that by putting in an actual tempo marking, as in quarter note = XX. The dynamics may require literally adding the desired ff or p at the immediate end of the crescendo or decrescendo.
Why does my playback sound so bad?
Maybe you are not using the right soundpack. Make sure that your Play—> Configuration is set to the right pack. I usually use “Sibelius 7 Sounds” as a default. Alternatively, you are composing with one of the instruments that does not sound quite right in general in the sound packs…
How do I add small headers to every page?
You can watch the video below or follow the text instructions:
To add the title of your song to every page in the score in Sibelius 7: Double-click the greyed-out and centered “Full Score” and add “\$TITLE\”. This will add your title text, as determined by the Backstage (whatever you entered as your song title there) to that particular Header.
Then, go to the Text tab. Find “Styles” and click the little button near it for “Edit Text Styles”. Then, select “Header (after first page)” and click Edit. In the new window, go to the “Repeat” tab and check off all the checkboxes.
Sibelius sometimes has trouble displaying the Header properly after I change the setting. Save and reopen the file if things do not seem to be working right.
How do I make a double bar on a page and begin a new staff?
I… will edit after I check in Sibelius. Off the top of my head, I cannot remember. But I have done it before.