120: Lyrics - above and below the staff

When working in a short choral score (i.e. two staves each with two voices), you may need to have lyrics both above and below the staff. Sibelius 2 (and higher) includes a Lyrics above text style for precisely this purpose. If you haven't yet upgraded to the latest version of Sibelius, do it now.

In Sibelius 1, you can use this procedure:

• In the Create > Text > Edit Text Styles dialog, click Lyrics and then click New.
• Call your new text style based on lyrics e.g. Lyrics above.
• Click Vertical posn, and make it so that the lyrics appear above the staff, not below it. Then click OK.

The secret to getting lyrics above and beow the staff at the same time is as follows: let's say you want soprano and alto in voices 1 and 2, on the same staff, both with independent lyrics. You'll have to create a separate staff for the altos (which you can delete later). Add the notes you want for the soprano and alto, all in voice 1, on the 2 staves you've created.

Now, add lyrics for the soprano, by choosing your new type of lyrics (which you'll find labeled Lyrics above, under Create > Text > Other staff text).

Then add the lyrics for the alto, using the standard lyrics, which should appear below the staff.

Now comes the clever bit: select all the notes in the alto staff. They should all go blue, including the lyrics below them. Choose Notes > Swap voices > Voices 1 and 2. This will swap your alto notes and lyrics into voice 2.

Now you're ready to paste the alto notes and lyrics into the original soprano staff, by selecting them all, if they're not already selected, and using Alt+click. The desired end result should be there for you. Then delete the alto staff.