In the legendary video “Sharp as a Tack“, the 1997 production from Henle describing the all-but-lost art of actual music engraving onto lead plates, the narrator intones: “Before the engraver can hammer and gouge the musical symbols into a thin sheet of lead, the musical text, prepared by the scholar-editor, first has to be marked up. This is where the ideal page and line breaks are introduced from the standpoint of both of the music and the performer. Now, work can begin on the plate itself.”
These days, we either let our favorite notation software make these decisions for us, or, if manual discretion is exercised during the process of casting off, through a series of clicks or keyboard taps to force system breaks where we desire them to be placed.
There are times, though, where some forethought must be given. Perhaps you’re replicating another edition and the arrangement of the bars and systems are cast in stone (or lead) already. Or you’re working on a chart with a predictable layout and need the systems to correspond to major musical markers. Or, you just fancy yourself an old-time master engraver and prefer to begin your process by laying out the bars and systems on the page (never mind the part about sketching the entire piece in reverse).
Whatever the reason, there are times where specifying the number of bars per system is helpful. Speaking of legendary, our good friend Bob Zawalich has created a Sibelius plug-in that does just that. Bars Per System In Selection is a straightforward tool that will, to quote from the description, “break a passage selection of bars into systems, specifying the number of bars in each system.”
You can download Bars Per System in Selection in the usual manner from within Sibelius, by going to File > Plug-ins > Install Plug-ins, select All plug-ins from the Show menu, and then searching for it by typing the first few letters of the plug-in name (you’ll find it in the Layout category. Click Install.
With the plug-in installed, and Henle top of mind, let’s take the first scenario we described, where we’d like to replicate this edition of Haydn’s Arianna a Naxos.
With our blank Sibelius file ready, select the bars onto which you’d like the plug-in to set the layout (you only need to select one staff from the system), and run the plug-in by finding it from Command Search (the box in the upper-right corner of the Sibelius window), or by finding it in your Plug-ins menu.
The instructions are straightforward. You can either specify the same number of bars per system, or enter a custom sequence. In this instance, we’ll enter 4,4,3,3,4,3,5,4 to correspond to the Henle source.
Before you can blink, you’re ready to continue your engraving adventure, with two pages of digital leaden plates awaiting engraving.
Of course, you can run Bars Per System in Selection at any time — not just prior to entering any notes. It will work on a selection that contains music in it already.
Even F.J. would be pleased!
One more tip: At NYC Music Services, we keep a list of all of the publicly available Sibelius plug-ins, where you can search and sort for more gems like Bars Per System in Selection.
Jesse
To clarify, on a Mac, the Plug-ins option is under the File menu WITHIN the Sibelius window itself, NOT the universal File menu at the very top of the screen outside of any app windows.