Gradational Dynamics for Whole Notes

Sibelius beginners can discuss all things Sibelius here ("how do I...?").
Soloint
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon Jun 20, 2016 7:49 pm
Sibelius Version: 8.3
Operating System: Mac

Post by Soloint » Wed Jun 22, 2016 6:36 pm

HI. I am a Sibelius 'beginner'. I am going through tutorials and user guides so no admonishments for not doing so please. Also, if your a forum junky espousing what you know, removed from, or at the expense of, answering a beginners question (or attempted answer), -- GO AWAY. And also, no platform quarrels. These are so 'old news' and were fought and won 20 years ago. I'm also a bad spiller. :oops:

So, here is what I currently think on the above topic. . . Dynamics (mp, ff etc.) in Sibelius are invoked as 'expressions' [click text > styles > expressions]. But there's a problem. They attach themselves to two (or more) elements. They need at least a beginning element and an ending one to work in playback. Although they work under musical phrases and 'look' fine they don't playback under single element phrases like whole notes and it seems they don't even playback under 'tied' multiple element phrases such as tied half notes or say a ridiculous set of tied eighth notes. A gradational change in dynamics such as a hairpin only seems gradational when under multiple sets of elements like a musical phrase (many notes). They seem to step between elements so that when many are employed it seems gradational. On playback they're really temporally aliased -- sort of like digital xmas lights set on a slow setting. I found a published but not manualized work around! A big kludge, but it works. Setting up a general kludge in the idea utility of Sibelius should reduce the number of clicks for future use when using this. I write horn parts for funk and rock band brass sections which live and die on gradational dynamics during held chords (tied whole notes). It's nice to hear that on playback. "Bomp sh-bomp sh-bomp."

Attaching cresc. and dim. hairpins to a single whole note

This tip is a way to address a fairly common situation where a cresc./decresc. hairpin occurs on a whole note or dotted whole note. Since Sibelius automatically extends hairpins to the next note, the solution is to create a "note grid" using another voice, hiding the grid reference, and then creating your hairpins in that second voice.

First, choose House Style > Edit Noteheads.
Find the headless notehead and edit it so that it is silent (headless noteheads play back by default in Sibelius). You can create a new stemless notehead that is silent for this purpose if you are already using the default silent notehead in the piece.
Enter four quarter notes (at a different pitch to the whole note already in the bar, e.g. something below the staff), then use Shift+Alt+9 or Opt-Shift-9 to convert to headless noteheads.
Select the notes and move them into voice 2 Alt+2 or Opt-2 and then hide them.
This gives you an "alignment grid" for any hairpins entered in voice two.
You may need to switch on View > Hidden Objects while you are working to see the grid and select the stems to start your hairpins and place the dynamics.

The one small caveat is that the spacing by default for these bars with the invisible grid get a little more spread out because of the default engraving rules for spacing in Sibelius, which (correctly) allots more space for 4 quarter notes than it does for one whole note. However, this problem is easily remedied by using Shift+Alt+left arrow or Shift-Opt-left arrow to compress the spacing in these whole note bars a bit if you need to in the extracted parts (normally the spacing is fine in the score since you typically have other note values in other parts).


bobp
Posts: 1182
Joined: Thu Dec 27, 2012 12:53 am

Post by bobp » Sun Jun 26, 2016 2:35 pm

Your question has already been answered. If you shelved your ego long enough to read it.
Attached is a screen shot of a little melody I put together in 90 seconds. Dynamics on whole notes (or any note) work without voodoo. You create hairpins by clicking on the note, then "L" on the keyboard. The pop-up window has all kinds of useful things. Then you can stretch it as long as you need it. At your request, I won't point you to the page in the manual that deals with it. Although I agree that the manual is not always user friendly.
The platform thing is more friendly jousting than anything. I enjoy it. I'm sorry you are so defensive about it.
Attachments
dynamics.jpg
dynamics.jpg (226.87 KiB) Viewed 2964 times
Bob Porter
Sibelius 7.5, W10,i5,16 GB ram,desktop

Post Reply