reference.book Page 139 Monday, August 31, 2009 2:47 PM
2.18 Instruments
2.18 Instruments 2.29 Staves, 3.8 Instrument names, 8.14 Edit Instruments.
In the slightly technical meaning of “instrument” used in Sibelius, an instrument is one or more staves with a single name appearing at the left. So a piano with two staves counts as one instrument because its name only appears once, between the staves. This also means that Violin 1 counts as one instrument, even though there will typically be many violinists. Even if the Violin 1’s divide onto two staves, the name Violin 1 still only appears once between them, so it’s still only one instrument as far as Sibelius is concerned. Singers are also instruments. If there is a single percussion staff, it counts as just one instrument, even though it may be used for snare drum, cymbals, tom-toms, etc. simultaneously.
Creating instruments At any time you can create an instrument that isn’t already in your score – just choose Create Instruments (shortcut I).
This is the same as the dialog you get if you click Change Instruments in the File New dialog when creating a new score. The dialog is split into two halves: the left half is for choosing new instruments to add to the score, and the right half shows you the staves already in the score and allows you to delete them, reorder them, and add extra staves to existing instruments. To add a new instrument: Set the Choose from list to the option that most closely matches the kind of ensemble you’re
writing for, because different ensembles contain different instruments and often in a slightly different order: All instruments lists all 600-odd instruments Sibelius knows about Common instruments omits esoterica like flageolets and bass viols 139
Notations
Instruments or staves?