Hello!

One of the groups I'm writing for uses Swiss notation.  If you aren't familiar, this style of writing uses the ";a"; space for left hand and ";c"; space for right.  I was curious if there is anyway I can program Sibelius/VDL to play the same snare drum sound despite what space it is one.  The same goes for the bass drum parts.

I'm using Sibelius 6.2 and VDL 2.5.5

Thanks!

Yes, this is possible. This would be done in the Sibelius staff's ";Edit Instrument"; area where percussion mapping is defined.

Are you using a template from The Write Score? Assuming so, I'd save a ";Swiss Copy"; version of the template .sib file before doing any editing in there so you don't do anything to mess up your working template file.

You can read more about customizing percussion notation in the Sibelius Reference Guide. There are some peculiarities on how it works, so give yourself some time to experiment. Namely, it's important that there are no identical noteheads sharing the same staff position.

Hugh, who created the templates from The Write Score, might have a few other words of wisdom for you. His website is http://www.thewritescore.com. If you're not using his VDL Template for Sibelius, you definitely should! :)