128: Noteheads - mixing different sizes

Sibelius 1.4 and later versions include the option to mix cue- and normal-size noteheads in the same chord (and in the same voice). Simply select the notes you wish to make cue-sized and choose notehead style 19. Note that your score must be created in v1.4 or later, or have imported a set of styles from a score created in v1.4 or later for this to work.

You can also view, using Scorch, a Sibelius file here that demonstrates how to mix up to four different sizes of noteheads in the same file.

But what if you want to create a new notehead style that uses other cue-size objects, or oversize objects, and so on?

By putting symbols of different sizes directly into the Symbols dialog, these are then available for use as noteheads (i.e. by clicking Change symbol in the Noteheads dialog box).

Let's suppose you want to create a new notehead based on the asterisk symbol that terminates certain pedal marks. The object currently in the Symbols dialog is too large to serve as a good notehead. Here's how to make a small-pedal-asterisk notehead:

• Hit Z (for the Symbols dialog) and click Music fonts.
• In the Music fonts dialog, select Common symbols and click the New button.
• Answer Yes to confirm that you want to create a new text style.
• In the Text style dialog, name the new style Common symbols (smaller) and in the Font portion of the dialog, change the size to 12 (pts) - or to any desired size. Then click OK.
• Once you've done the above once, you don't need to repeat them if you want make additional symbols using the same resized font.
• Close the Music fonts window, at which point you're back in the Symbols dialog. Select a blank position in the symbol table and click the Modify button (or click the New button if you prefer to have your symbol appear in a new row of the table).
• Make your specially-sized symbol by selecting it from the Common symbols (smaller) font that you've just created. Name it, say, asterisk notehead, click OK, and Close the Symbols dialog altogether.
• From this point on, it's straightforward: create a new notehead style in the usual way (see Noteheads in your User Guide), replacing the default notehead symbol(s) with the new asterisk notehead symbol. Then you can give notes in your score the desired appearance by changing them to your new notehead style.

Answer supplied by Paul Nauert.