Creating and extending slurs and phrase marks

One of the most commonly used staff lines in Sibelius is the slur line, which is also the same line that we use to create large phrase markings. Because we use slurs and phrase markings so often in our music, Sibelius has assigned some extra built-in features to the slur that make it easier to create and position. So it's important to learn the right way to input and extend the slur. There are two correct ways to enter a slur. The first one involves selecting a note first where the slur or phrase marking is going to begin and then using a simple quick key to add the slur into the score and then extend the slur from there.

And here is how we are going to do this. So first we are going to select a note. Let's go ahead and put this across all of these bars. Let's do a large phrase marking. So we can zoom in here first. We don't need the keypad. So if the keypad is in your way, you can close it for yourself. All right that will look good. Select the first note where the slur is going to begin and then we are going to use the letter S, the letter S for slur, and Sibelius will put that slur in there for you. Once again the quick key makes a whole lot of sense.

So once you add the slur with it still selected and with its handle here still selected or highlighted, and that will happen automatically when you create the slur, use the Spacebar to extend the slur to the next note. So Spacebar moves it to the next note and you can keep using Spacebar to extend all the way across. So this would be like large phrase marking. Now if you extend the slur too far-- let's say I use Space and it starts going across to the next system here-- you can use Shift and your Spacebar to backspace the slur.

When you are done extending the slur, go ahead and select Esccape and there you have it. Now another way to do it this is to make a range selection of notes first and then use the letter S to add a slur or phrase marking over those selected notes. So if we wanted to do that, let's go here where this restates itself. I am going to make a selection of those notes or those bars and all we have to do is select the letter S and Sibelius puts that slur or phrase marketing in for us. So those are the two most appropriate ways to enter a slur.

Entering and extending a slur the correct way will ensure that your slurs are always positioned properly no matter what type of formatting takes place on your score page. Never enter a slur or extend a slur by using the mouse, like this. If you do, you can run into positional problems with the slur later. This is an essential lesson to be learned as you start working in Sibelius and one rule that I hope you will always follow.