Pickup bar problems

• Jul 17, 2021 - 16:26

Recently I've noticed several scores with an obvious pickup bar as the first bar. Typically these might be in 4/4 with a couple of quavers starting on the fourth beat, though this is not the only possibility.

The notation could be tidied up by removing the rests in front of the first notes, which believe is standard practice, and does look neater.

I thought it would be easy to tidy these up by simply changing the length of the first bar - in this example to just 1 beat. No - it doesn't work. What happens is that the notes which are already there then disappear.

To get the desired effect it seems to be necessary to do something roughly equivalent to the following.
1. Delete (or maybe copy ...) the first bar.
2. Insert a new empty first bar.
3. Change the number of beats in that first bar - so in the suggested example it would be 1 (out of 4).
That's done by selecting the Bar properties {CTRL-Click) and adjust in the number of beats appropriately.
4. Then put in the notes which have been taken out.

This isn't too time consuming, but trying to do what seems the obvious way doesn't work, and it's possible to spend quite a while playing around and getting nowhere.

It would be better if this didn't happen ... but it does!

I'm not sure if copying the deleted notes in to the first bar actually works - so far all I've done is re-enter them, which for one or two staves is not such a problem.

This issue is not restricted to 4/4 time signatures - it seems general enough.

Is there a better way?


Comments

Of course the better way is to adjust the number of beats to create the pickup bar then enter the notes.

If you have notes already entered (with leading rests that you wish to eliminate), you can (shift) select the leading rest(s), and press Ctrl+Del.

If you reduce the duration in measure properties, MuseScore has no idea which beats to remove, so it defaults to truncating the end of the measure. That's exactly what one wants "most" of the time one uses this dialog - just not in the very special case of using it to correct an error in the pickup measure.

So instead, simply Ctrl+Delete the specific beats you want to remove. No need to delete or add entire bars. But you probably do want to go back to the properties dialog and exclude from measure count.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

"so it defaults to truncating the end of the measure" - That does make some sense - though why is that more sensible than truncating the beginning of the measure?

You suggest that that is some that is wanted "most" of the time - I can't see that it's any more likely than the other option. I suppose you might want to do that at the end of a section with a repeat, where the section itself had a pickup - so it's a complementary thing in many cases.

Perhaps an option to select whether truncation is done from the beginning or end of the bars would solve this issue.

However, for the time being simply being aware of the issues is very helpful

In reply to by dave2020X

Most of the time if you are changing the duration of a measure (for. say, non-metered music, or an educational exercises, or for a cadenza, or when splitting a measure between systems, or when following the custom of shortening the last measure of a piece to balance the pickup) you'd have already entered your notes starting form the beginning as one normally does, so the extra beats are at the end. Only in the very special cases where you are creating a pickup measure but forgot to specify this in the wizard when creating the score and then for some reason compounded the mistake by adding the rests manually rather than simply fixing it, would you be likely to ever come into that case where you want them removed from the beginning. Better to just not make those two mistakes. Making the first is understandable and we all do that occasionally, but there's really no reason to ever compound it with the second once you learn how pickups work.

In other words, deleting at the beginning is common only in cases of fixing a series of mistakes you made earlier; deleting at the end is common almost all other situations where it isn't just correcting a series of mistakes.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

"Only in the very special cases where you are creating a pickup measure but forgot"
"In other words, deleting at the beginning is common only in cases of fixing a series of mistakes you made earlier"

Are you some kind of god that always perfectly knows what music he will write before starting the score?
Don't call that "mistakes". It is perfectly normal to not know exactly the size of the pick up measure when you create a new score.

In reply to by frfancha

Not at all, as I said, I make that first mistake - forgetting to, or not bothering to, create the pickup - all the time. Like, more often than not. But I don't compound it with the second mistake of entering a bunch of leading rests for something that is clearly a pickup. Even if I don't know until that exact moment how long I want the pickup to be, it's still just as easy to create the pickup correct in that moment as to enter the leading rests. It's also just as easy to enter the rests then Ctrl+Delete them. The point being, MuseScore gives you quite a few ways to get the right answer; you have to go out of your way to get the wrong answer. So yes, doing so is a mistake. Pointing out mistakes isn't the exclusive role of the gods - it's the natural function of a teacher.

In reply to by Marc Sabatella

You are correct if most people know what they want to do in advance. Many people don't know what they're doing, or what they have done, until later

You are used to writing pieces with pickup bars, so have an expectation, but others may not have, or may discover the issues later on. I suspect that some may discover an issue if they try to do a repeat, leading back to the start. Then they may have to remove rests or notes at the end of the section, and do various other adjustments in order to make things work. Of course if all music fitted neatly into whole measures then nobody would discover that.

The jazz world is also a bit different from other musical worlds - not everyone thinks in terms of pickups - and turnarounds which are clearly necessary in order to prevent total chaos from breaking out with a group of musicians all trying - roughly - to play from the same overall structure. In classical music people often expect to play from a printed (nowadays on screen display) sheet - so things like harmonies, key changes, lengths of sections can vary all over the place. "All" the players have to do then is to play the notes, and try to do that expressively and fit in with others in the group.

Also dance bands (have some similarity to jazz ...) - where I believe it's relatively easy for some to change key dynamically. I doubt if many orchestral musicians would respond well to a conductor who suddently announced half way through a Mozart (or Mahler ...) symphony - "Do the repeat in B flat"! There might be a few who could do that, but most classically trained musicians are not used to on the fly transposition.

In reply to by dave2020X

Indeed, often you don't know what pickup you want until later. Which is why, as I mentioned, MuseScore provides a number of ways that give you complete control over which beats to remove. Simply use Ctrl+Delete and then there is no need to make MuseScore guess. Or shorten the measure before entering the notes pickup, or enter the pickup at the beginning of the measure, or use the copy/paste method., lots of ways that do work, only one that doesn't,. And the reason it doesn't is as I explained earlier - it's the right behavior in all other cases.

I am not sure what you are saying regarding jazz versus classical versus dance, there are no differences in how pickups are used in any of those genres.

I'm not understanding how all that is an issue at all. Using ctrl-del you are in full control of what exactly you want to keep as pick up measure.
I'm myself quite demanding of additional features in MuseScore but here we have everything needed.
Only issue is the bug that when you CTRL del the beginning of the first measure the key signature is corrupted and you have to re-add it. But this is a bug that must be corrected (and has an easy workaround)

In reply to by frfancha

It sounds as though this isn't really an issue - BUT it does require knowledge. If CTRL-DEL works in the way suggested, then it would indeed solve almost all problems. However, I've been using MuseScore for over two years now, and it seems I've only just discovered about this. This isn't the only example of some arcane feature which is great if you know about it, but otherwise useless.

I do wonder if there is still a problem with bar numbering. I believe the convention is to not count the pickup bar in the numbering - and that has been something I've had a problem with. Further investigation - on my part at least - is needed.

In reply to by dave2020X

Indeed, the "Exclude from measure count" is needed on top. But that's also needed when changing the measure's actual duration. What Ctrl+Del saves you is the copy/paste from end to start of measure.
It indeed requires knowing this, but that isn't anything new, the measure properties and the copy&paste needs that too.

In reply to by Jojo-Schmitz

"It indeed requires knowing this ..."

Yes - but there are heck of a lot of odd things in MS which take some finding. This doesn't always make it easy to use.

There are also some odd quirks. For example, when starting a completely new piece, on the page in the panel where it asks about time signatures there is a prompt for anacrusis - which many people may not notice when they start using MS. If that is overlooked then it's quite hard to figure out how to remedy the issues which arise if that's important - later on.

It takes time - and help from others - quite often to figure out how to get things done.

In reply to by dave2020X

You wrote:
t takes time - and help from others - quite often to figure out how to get things done.

"t takes time quite often to figure out how to get things done."
Yes, and as you wrote earlier:
To get the desired effect it seems to be necessary to do something roughly equivalent to the following.
1. Delete (or maybe copy ...) the first bar.
2. Insert a new empty first bar.
3. Change the number of beats in that first bar - so in the suggested example it would be 1 (out of 4).
That's done by selecting the Bar properties {CTRL-Click) and adjust in the number of beats appropriately.
4. Then put in the notes which have been taken out.

"It takes help from others quite often to figure out how to get things done."
Yes, especially to get things done more easily/efficiently. That's why this forum is a big help (most of the time... ;-).
While the comprehensive (and voluminous) handbook is an excellent resource, simply "forum browsing" for topics of interest can be enlightening and helpful in discovering new methods -- and sometimes 'tricks' -- for using the software.

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