Introduction

House styles are indispensable in our daily editorial work, because they contain all the relevant data on formatting, text styles, key signatures etc., with other words, everything that is characteristic of the layout of the CMO editions. The editor should prepare for each edition or manuscript a set of house styles and store them on the Sibelius Avid folder and on the common CMO net drive, as I will explain further below. The house styles do not have to be created from zero, but they can be created based on already existing ones, which can be easily adopted and modified. The most relevant feature that have to be modified in the house styles are the key signatures. Before doing so, however, the editor should have a clear idea of the makâms that will be needed for the edition of the manuscript. Therefore, a thorough study of the makâms and accidentals is an inevitable step before starting the edition of a manuscript. It is very helpful to prepare a table with all the necessary information, before starting creating the new key signatures. In this way the editor can make sure that he did not miss anything. The following gives an example how such a table could look like:

The name of the house styles follows a specific model and should be adapted. It consists of CMO + Inst (for instrumental) or Voc (for vocal) + Ks (Key signature) + digit (the number of used Key signatures) followed but the abbreviation of the manuscript (the table can be found under Z:\CMO - Critical Editions\Formatting). A clear naming of the house styles is strongly recommended since it helps to distinguish the different house styles and makes is easier to reproduce an edition at some later point, when the editor is probably not working anymore for the CMO.
Before starting with the instructions, let me share some technical information on the CMO key signatures. Whereas in Sibelius all pre-determined Major and Minor key signatures are digitially defined, the CMO key signatures which are in the above case derived from the Ezgi-Arel system, are a mere visual reproduction. With other words, there is no digital metadata behind the signs. Since the CMO is working with scholars from digital humanities, who aim to program a digital output for our scores, it is necessary to somehow indicate the information, in order to make it accessible for them. Currently, the CMO uses a code to indicate this information in form of metadata. Each accidental in the key signature is indicated by one digit and one letter. If there were for example three accidentals in the key signature, then you would have a combination of three digits, each of them followed by a letter as in “4k 8b 3m”. The digits refer to the notation system. The first line of the notation system is from below “0”, the second is “2”, the third “4”, the fourth “6” and the fifth is “8”. The used letters are defined as in the following:

This key signature has the code 4k 8B 5B

Creation of Key signatures

To create a new key signature go to “Symbols” under the “Notation” tab. When you open the “Symbols” a new window will appear with all the available symbols in this section. Under the category “keys”, you will find all sorts of G key, F key, C Key and many others. In the first row, there are several keys following the “TAB”.

In order to produce a new key signature, double click one of the clefs that has no accidentals. In the above case, there would be two more. Once you double clicked, a new window will open, and on the right side the treble clef will appear.

Here you can click on the “add” button to add more accidentals. Once they are added, they have to be moved to the correct position. There are fixed measures to do so. Each added accidental should be moved +1,25 units horizontally. Hence, the measures would be 3,50 for the first accidental; 4,75 for the second; 6 for the third accidental etc. Vertically they can be moved in 0,5 units by +0,5 or -0,5. Do not forget to name the key signature with the correct CMO code under “Name”. When the desired accidentals have been entered press “OK”, and the treble clef in the symbol’s window will appear in the new modified form. The Key will appear now under “keys” in the “Notation” tab. You can also press “q” and see if the newly created key signature is now available.

Creation of Instruments

In the edition, the key signatures are defined as instruments. Therefore, it is necessary to create or rename the instruments for the manuscript that is going to be edited. The “Instruments” can be found under the “Start” tab. Select under “Ensembles” a CMO instrument and rename it with the necessary information for your edition. Rename also the information under “Family of Instruments”. Under Instruments you can or chose one of the existing ones, or you can create a new one based on the old one, which is may be the easier way. Whenever you rename or create new instruments, make sure to use the correct CMO Instrument code for the correct key signature.
Once the key signature has been created and appears in the under “keys” of the “notation” tab (or press q-key), it is now time to create the instrument that contains the newly created key signature. Open the instruments and create a new instrument. Enter the CMO instrument code in the name section.

In the lower part of the window, press “select” and chose the newly created key signature that will be assigned to the instrument name.
It is recommendable at this point to delete all unnecessary CMO instruments that for some reason appear due to a technical bug in the instrument/ensemble family. There should be ideally only the one CMO instrument available that corresponds with the number of accidentals in the musical piece. All others should be removed.

Exporting and Storing Housestyles

Once the superfluous instruments/ensembles have been removed, it is timed to export the house styles. In order to do so click the “Erscheinungsbild” Tab and go to “export”.

Make sure to indicate the correct CMO house style code. The house styles will be exported to the folder

C:\Users\USER-ID\AppData\Roaming\Avid\Sibelius\House Styles

In order to find the “AppData” file, you have make first visible the hidden files in your system settings. Once you have verified that the house styles work correctly, store them on the CMO directory. Create a new file for your manuscript as in the following example

Z:\CMO - Critical Editions\House Styles\House styles 20XX\NE204