Piano Vocal score

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DianaDiazSing
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Post by DianaDiazSing » Tue Sep 18, 2018 3:13 am

Hello,

Right now I have 3 staves/instrument lines which are spaced as three equal instruments. What I want is piano-vocal with chords to eventually be able to make this into lead sheets. I guess I thought it should be an easy setting - many composers want to easily make a piano-vocal version of one of their works at some point.

The 3 equal staves are messing up the spacing I need for lyrics.

I imported a piano-vocal score unising Photoscore and its been a hot mess. Photoscore does not really communicate with Sibelius as I would have liked - which is that chords are now classified as lyrics so frustrating. I have been able to sort out some of it, but it's taken hours. Hoping it will go faster the next time around!!!


DianaDiazSing
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Post by DianaDiazSing » Tue Sep 18, 2018 3:54 am

Spam ad? Was there supposed to be a text in there?

MikeLyons
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Post by MikeLyons » Tue Sep 18, 2018 6:11 am

The ads are a 'feature' of this board, which is annoying.

As to your question: There is no way round the fact that you have to spend a fair amount of time ensuring that the scan is correct BEFORE you pass it to sibelius. If you don't, you will get all sorts of rubbish and can even make sibelius crash.

Muaic scanning is not quite at the same level as text scanning. To the point that, for poor quality scores it might even be more productive to put it in by hand.

Don't misunderstand me, Photoscore does a good job on computer generated or good quakity scores but the scan still needs thorough proffreading BEFORE you send it to sibelius.

You say you imported it - was it a pdf? If I were you, I might go back to the start. This time label the staves as, say, Voice and make the bottom 2 staves both piano. This will ensure that the lower two staves are linked (in PS.)

When you are proofreading, if there are any places where the staff order changes (eg piano on its own) you need to make sure that PS has allocated the staves correctly.

Before you send to sibelius, you also need to turn off the automatic assignment of instruments. Don't let Sibelius choose instruments either. Do that manually and you will have fewer problems.

If you don't want to start from scratch (thus avoiding a world of pain) the best you can do is to add a voice and a piano to your score and copy/paste each staff onto the new staves. Then delete the old ones.
Sib 6.2, 7.5 and 2023.6, Windows 11, 32GB RAM, 16TB 7200RPM Storage, 2TB SSD, Note Performer 3.3.2, EWQLSO, EWQLSC, Harmony Assistant and some others. mike@mike-lyons.co.uk

DianaDiazSing
Posts: 37
Joined: Tue Sep 18, 2018 1:10 am
Sibelius Version: Ultimate
Operating System: Windows

Post by DianaDiazSing » Tue Sep 18, 2018 5:18 pm

Yeah... it's interesting....

I have a weird problem in that there is a piano intro where some of it is misread as going with the vocal line, so then it's not working too well to pick the instruments because of that. Have to figure out how to add a line, which is a struggle.

There are good things about Sibelius making this mistake when I extract parts to make a lead sheet, because I then automatically have an intro.
but then I'm putting up with these other issues...

I finally got correct chord diagrams & chord spellings, after making corrections in PhotoScore. Guess I opine that someone ought to work out that bug.

Cutting and pasting might also work out...if I could figure how to make that work...

bobp
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Post by bobp » Tue Sep 18, 2018 8:38 pm

I guess there are some things that don't add up here.

What is your understanding of what a lead sheet is? My understanding is that there is one staff with the melody (and in your case lyrics) with chord names over it.

I have the free version of photoscore so there would be no lyrics. But there would certainly be a piano staff (Bass and treble) under a treble staff. As Mike said, you would need to fix anything marked in red. Even if you ended up with three separate staves in Sibelius, that could be fixed.

If you didn't know the chords, Sibelius could extract them for you and add the chord symbols above the piano part, or even the vocal part.

I guess we need a little more about what is happening and what you want.
Bob Porter
Sibelius 7.5, W10,i5,16 GB ram,desktop

DianaDiazSing
Posts: 37
Joined: Tue Sep 18, 2018 1:10 am
Sibelius Version: Ultimate
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Post by DianaDiazSing » Tue Sep 18, 2018 8:52 pm

I know what a leadsheet is, I use them all the time.

Photoscore appears to read it all correctly.

But when I send it to sibelius, that's where some of the problems are. It doesn't add up for me either. The song is "Diamonds Are Forever." There is a 4 measure piano only intro with no vocal line above it. Sibelius reads the piano right hand line as being a part of the vocal line, or the first line. I don't know know how else to describe this.

It works out fine when I extract parts and make a lead sheet because then I have the piano intro automatically in there because of how sibelius interpreted it to belong there. It's a mistake, but it works.

MikeLyons
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Post by MikeLyons » Tue Sep 18, 2018 9:37 pm

You have to make sure that PS has allocated all the staves correctly for every system. If you double-click the staff name, you are given the opportunity to name them, either manually or by chosing from a list. See pics.

Then all you have to do is make sure voice and piano are allocated to the right staves throughout the music.
Sib 6.2, 7.5 and 2023.6, Windows 11, 32GB RAM, 16TB 7200RPM Storage, 2TB SSD, Note Performer 3.3.2, EWQLSO, EWQLSC, Harmony Assistant and some others. mike@mike-lyons.co.uk

DianaDiazSing
Posts: 37
Joined: Tue Sep 18, 2018 1:10 am
Sibelius Version: Ultimate
Operating System: Windows

Post by DianaDiazSing » Tue Sep 18, 2018 10:58 pm

So, I had already tried that. Unfortunately, it didn't work for me. Staff 1 should be a vocal line, but it isn't. For 4 bars it is the right hand of the piano. After that 4 bar (1 system) intro, then I have 3 staves. Line 1 becomes vocal, and line 2 & 3 are piano. I was able to format into piano vocal, but was not able to get the staves straightened out.

Perhaps, I should be asking - how can I add a 3rd stave above the piano intro? So that can be empty and become the vocal line? Other songs have an empty vocal part, but this one does not. So it becomes painful to try to fix that. Once I can figure this out (with help) I will be able to fix it for all my future adventures.

MikeLyons
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Post by MikeLyons » Wed Sep 19, 2018 6:25 am

OK, let me try to make it clearer.

If your sheet music has three staves, they will initially be named Staff 1, Staff 2 and Staff 3.
If the first system only has two staves they will be named Staff 1 and staff 2 by PS.
You have to change the assignment to staff 2 and staff 3. This is made easier if you first rename the staves to Voice, Piano, Piano. If you do that, then staff 2 and 3 will be 'joined' when they are ported to sibelius.

You need to change the way you think of the staves. Staff 1 exists in every system, but it is invisible in some of them. Sibelius does not allow you to have a staff start part way through the music. As far as it is concerned all staves exist from the beginning of the piece but are hidden when not needed. That is why you need to make sure that the staves are correctly identified in PS.

BTW, you also seem to think this is an official Sib forum. In actual fact, this forum came about from the activities of users of cracked copies of early sibelius and is not not often visited by mainstream users. You may find quicker and more thorough answers at these pages:

http://www.sibelius.com/cgi-bin/helpcen ... &groupid=3
https://www.facebook.com/groups/sibeliussoftwareforum
and https://www.facebook.com/groups/323691061147132

Also, you are better directing your suggestions to the sibelius.com forum and to sibelius ideascale http://sibelius.ideascale.com/ although not for much longer as Avid (who own Sibelius) are moving this in-house. In all of these places, the respondants are just users like us. Very few are Avid employees but they are a great community who provide support for each other because Avid provides very little.
Sib 6.2, 7.5 and 2023.6, Windows 11, 32GB RAM, 16TB 7200RPM Storage, 2TB SSD, Note Performer 3.3.2, EWQLSO, EWQLSC, Harmony Assistant and some others. mike@mike-lyons.co.uk

DianaDiazSing
Posts: 37
Joined: Tue Sep 18, 2018 1:10 am
Sibelius Version: Ultimate
Operating System: Windows

Post by DianaDiazSing » Wed Sep 19, 2018 4:51 pm

I will try renaming the staves again. I think I did, but I'm a little blind on this. The beginner videos are a bit general, and my issues deal with a specific process. Will keep trying.

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

Post by bobp » Wed Sep 19, 2018 7:33 pm

Or in photoscore put a whole note in each of the first four measures of the vocal line, then delete them in Sibelius.
Bob Porter
Sibelius 7.5, W10,i5,16 GB ram,desktop

DianaDiazSing
Posts: 37
Joined: Tue Sep 18, 2018 1:10 am
Sibelius Version: Ultimate
Operating System: Windows

Post by DianaDiazSing » Thu Sep 20, 2018 3:50 am

Ok, I tried messing around with "rescore" before exporting to Sibelius... and there were some problems with lyrics formatting that were frustrating, so I am back that this of using the original export without the rescore. Oh darn...

Imagine if you will...

A piano intro... It should be voice 2 & 3. But it is voice 1 & 2.

And then voice 1, the solo line comes in after 4 measures... but the piano part is misnamed so voice 1 is 4 measure that should be right hand of piano...

And I can't figure out how to rename in what I already have, or add a voice above it...
I don't know how to post an image anymore... :oops:

MikeLyons
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Post by MikeLyons » Thu Sep 20, 2018 10:39 am

Try this:

When you click on the staff names, the current name will be bold. You should be able to click on staff 2 or whatever you have called it and this will change the first system to be voice 2 & 3 automatically.
Sib 6.2, 7.5 and 2023.6, Windows 11, 32GB RAM, 16TB 7200RPM Storage, 2TB SSD, Note Performer 3.3.2, EWQLSO, EWQLSC, Harmony Assistant and some others. mike@mike-lyons.co.uk

DianaDiazSing
Posts: 37
Joined: Tue Sep 18, 2018 1:10 am
Sibelius Version: Ultimate
Operating System: Windows

Post by DianaDiazSing » Tue Sep 25, 2018 7:36 am

Ok, will work on it at some point. I have a few leadsheets mostly done and will be singing off them tomorrow night. As I said before, accompanist was impressed that I learned how to do anything on Sibelius at all. :mrgreen:

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