I'm working on an arrangement of Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a theme by Paganini. In variation 11, the time signature is 3/4, but Rachmaninoff manages to squeeze 27 "eighth note" into those three beats. Technically I don't think they're eighth notes, but Rachmaninoff didn't seem to care about that! haha
Anyway, does anyone have advice as to how I can squeeze all of these into a measure of 3/4?
I thought about putting it in 13/4, hiding the time signature and inserting the eighth notes. The problem is that the eighth notes still appear large. They need to appear smaller as they do in the image I have attached.
Any note can be set to "cue note" size. You can do the 13/4 thing. You can do something clever with hidden tuplets. The easiest solution is sometimes a string of appoggiaturas.
I thought about doing the hidden duplet thing, but I need them to be beamed in two groups of 8 and one group of 11. Sibelius won't allow me to do that if they are eighth notes...maybe if they were sixteenth or 32nd notes, but it tells me they are too long to fit this tuplet if they are eighth notes.
You can override the default beaming using keypad 3.
Appoggiaturas are available in keypad 2.
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Roy Moore
London UK (2015)
Sib 7.5,8.0.1-Win 10 pro x64 8gb ram,512gb SSD
Laptop Win 10 pro x64-32gb ram 512 ssd 750 hd
Various East West, Hollywood Strings Gold, Note Performer
The Rachmaninoff example uses tuplets. You should, too. After you have those, you can consider whether or not you need smaller notes.
You know what a triplet is, right? It's three equal notes in the time of a larger note, like three equal eighth note looking notes in the time of a quarter note. The Rachmaninoff example has 8 equal notes in the time of a quarter note on beats 1 and 2. And 11 equal notes in the time of a quarter note on beat 3. Those are tuplets, of a kind less common than triplets.
Actually, Laurence, it's eleven 8ths in the space of seven 32nds. There's a 32nd rest after the 11tuplet. That's an even greater challenge. It could be done with a 44:7 ratio, but Sib won't allow the first number to be greater than 4 times the second.
Brilliant! Embedded tuplets. Sib lets you do almost anything (if you have a degree in particle physics). I've just found a bug tho'. Logically, once you have made an 11:7 ratio, you should be able to make another 44:11 as Sib states "The first number in a ratio must be between a quarter and four times the second". 44:11 abides by this rule (just), yet when you try, another Sib pop-up states that "This is too long to fit in this tuplet".
Sibelius will actually support legitimate tuplets in larger or smaller ratios than those you are limited to upon entry. You just have to find a way to get them in there in the first place (like a plug-in or importing XML from e.g. Finale).
Anyway, hopearthur, you have had the greatest minds in Sibelius solve your tuplet problem. If you need a little more hand holding, I'm sure they will be glad to walk you through how to properly notate what turned out to be a bit more difficult than just making small notes.
Small Notes.png
tuplet crazy.sib