79: Stemless notes - how to create

Sibelius 2 (and higher) includes a ready-made stemless notehead. See Noteheads in your User Guide for further details. If you don't yet have the latest version of Sibelius, get an upgrade.

In earlier versions of Sibelius (1.x), if you need to create just a few stemless notes (e.g. for a plainsong intonation preceding a longer choral work), enter the passage, zoom in close to the notes, then click on the end of the stem -- you will see a click-box which you can drag down to meet the note-head.

For extended passages of stemless notes, you can modify a staff type to switch off rhythms, which will make all notes appear without stems. To do this:

• Choose Staff Type Change from the Create menu
• Click 5 lines, then click New
• Switch off the Rhythms option
• Give the new staff type a meaningful name, like Stemless, then click OK
• Click Create and click in your score at the beginning of the staff that should have stemless notes.