12/8 in a 4/4 meter

[dan_kreider]

@Rob Tuley

You can fake that (and Ligeti didn’t invent it, J S Bach and his contemporaries were already writing that way.)

To enter a time signature on one staff only, use the popover and press Alt-Enter not Enter.

The trick is to create a time signature of 12/8 with a pickup bar that matches the length of the 4/4 bar (enter 12/8,8 in the popover) and then change back to a hidden 4/4 time signature one bar later. You still need to use hidden tuplets, of course.

Since pickup bars in Dorico can be longer than a normal bar as well as shorter, you could do it the other way round and have the score in 12/8, and one staff starting with 4/4 pickup bar with 6 beats.

Thanks for the help Rob! I just got this to work with Bach’s “Jesus bleibet”: https://www.dropbox.com/s/splyz25jg5274n0/Jesus%20bleibet%20meine%20Freude.dorico?dl=0

I had to make the first bar “9/8,6.”