# MusicXML => Sibelius: how to convert to grace notes efficiently?



## JohnG (Aug 29, 2020)

Hi all,

Is there a plugin or other trick available to convert regular notes to grace notes in Sibelius? I have to (quickly) orchestrate quite a lot of music and I have, for this score, a lot of grace notes. When importing MusicXML from DAW to Sibelius, these show up as (usually) 16th or shorter values (semiquavers or "other").

Is there a fast way to convert these notes to grace notes and make the succeeding note "whole?" For example, a sixteenth D-natural followed by a dotted eighth C-natural -- I want a grace note D with a slash (and slur) followed by a quarter note C. [semiquaver D followed by dotted quaver C; convert to grace note D followed by crotchet C]

Doing this manually is amazingly tedious and I have a lot of music to get through. There must be a way...

I have been using Finale all these years but am fed up with it, so am still learning some basics in Sibelius.


----------



## JonS (Aug 29, 2020)

JohnG said:


> Hi all,
> 
> Is there a plugin or other trick available to convert regular notes to grace notes in Sibelius? I have to (quickly) orchestrate quite a lot of music and I have, for this score, a lot of grace notes. When importing MusicXML from DAW to Sibelius, these show up as (usually) 16th or shorter values (semiquavers or "other").
> 
> ...





Sibelius - the leading music composition and notation software





Sibelius - the leading music composition and notation software


----------



## tonaliszt (Aug 29, 2020)

Those plugins look good!

I always put a note in saying to play the grace notes before or on the beat - otherwise I find that even good players will flub the first take splitting the difference.


----------



## MauroPantin (Aug 29, 2020)

I consider myself a power user of Sibelius and "grace notes" is just one of those things that it does not do very well, that plugin is the only relief I've found. Finale always gave me tremendous grief over grace notes so I see that as an improvement. But I'm sorry to tell you the handling for those items still sucks, particularly when there's a lot of them.


----------



## JohnG (Aug 29, 2020)

MauroPantin said:


> I consider myself a power user of Sibelius and "grace notes" is just one of those things that it does not do very well, that plugin is the only relief I've found. Finale always gave me tremendous grief over grace notes so I see that as an improvement. But I'm sorry to tell you the handling for those items still sucks, particularly when there's a lot of them.



Sadly, you're right. Even that plugin is pretty useless and grace notes are just a pain -- that's the first thing I would say is noticeably easier in Finale. I'm just retyping in all the notes. Luckily, I was able to change some of the defaults so they're like those in Finale (note entry in particular), so 25 years' practice with that isn't totally down the drain.

That said, Sibelius' 'magnetic' layout makes the appearance so much easier to achieve, at least for "regular" scores, than Finale, so I'm enduring the transition optimistically.


----------



## JonS (Aug 29, 2020)

It's amazing given how long DP and Sibelius have been around that grace notes are still a pain to deal with. You would think in today's age that one would not have to repeat programming or writing. I will say this, Sibelius has gotten much better over the years even though there are still issues here and there. Maybe the export process gets better one day. Till then I'll send you patience.


----------



## JohnG (Aug 29, 2020)

plus the menu labels are so vague and non-musical. Why not, "dynamics" "articulations" ?????

I hoped Dorico would solve it but honestly, it looks like they did some of the same goofy stuff. Plus they're trying to make it a quasi-DAW at the same time, which seems like a lot of brainpower sort of squandered.


----------



## JonS (Aug 29, 2020)

JohnG said:


> plus the menu labels are so vague and non-musical. Why not, "dynamics" "articulations" ?????
> 
> I hoped Dorico would solve it but honestly, it looks like they did some of the same goofy stuff. Plus they're trying to make it a quasi-DAW at the same time, which seems like a lot of brainpower sort of squandered.


The program needs to be completely rewritten from the beginning and there's whispers here and there that will happen, but I thought when Avid bought them it might happen and now I doubt it. It has gotten much better since Sibelius version 2 though. I still really miss Motu's Mosaic.


----------



## JohnG (Aug 29, 2020)

I had high hopes that Dorico would be the "rewrite from scratch" that would solve everything.

Somewhat oddly, none of the copyists seem to have taken up Dorico. Not sure why.


----------



## MauroPantin (Aug 30, 2020)

I am not looking forward to a complete rewrite of Sibelius. Much of the "non-musicalities" John talks about have expanded. It's small details but they're incredibly annoying when they keep popping up all the time.

A very small example of this: Version numbers. Sibelius used to be Sibelius 5, Sibelius 6, Sibelius 7, 7.5, 8, 8.1, 8.5 etc. Pretty easy to work out, you always knew what you were running.

Now? I have a perpetual license with Sibelius Ultimate and I'm using version 2018.7 build 2009. I had to look that up just now. I have clients on other builds, other version months or years and it *always *comes up the first time, we have to send and re-send files. And then they might be on the subscription so they get updated and don't notice or forget about it and the cycle starts over, now they are exporting files in an older format for you... Wasting time on something like this feels very aggravating.

And I know it sounds like a mild inconvenience, but it is just an example of an issue I run into once every week, at least, and it is a problem I did not have when I was on Sibelius 6. Other big issues for me are the handling of grace notes, particularly when you need to manually move them from their default location, or guitar tablature, which is totally abandoned. And selection! You have to zoom at 200% sometimes to get the thing that you are clicking to get selected. Implement a cycle when clicking on the same place or something? Christ.

Anyway...

I have Dorico, too. Like you, @JohnG I expected a lot issues to be gone and the entire industry shifting there. But there are some quirks about it. Steinberg is working to solve 'em and my personal opinion is that it will be the future of engraving. But the future is just that, the future. Everybody runs Sibelius or Finale right now and unless the entire chain from composer to the stands can be as efficient with Dorico as it is with the current paradigm, I don't expect a revolution any time soon.


----------

