Adding bars after an open meter

Dorico
#1

Greetings again,
I am trying to add a measure after an open meter measure, but I don’t seem to be able to. I have tried shift-B and typing in a number, but no measure appears. I have tried looking it up on the manual, and looked on the forum, but haven’t found anything. Probably looking up wrong terms again, after 25 years on another program. Any ideas? i know now I probably should have added another measure before setting the open meter measure, but I really don’t want to have to re-input all the work I did on this bar. Thanks.

Tim

#2

You can freely add a barline at any point, and add beats using Shift-B as desired. Shift-B, 3q adds 3 quarter notes, for example.

#3

I get that I’m supposed to. I’ve read about adding bars in the manual and have followed the instructions. The problem is, I go to the end of the open bar and select the bar line, hit shift-B, type in any number, but no new bars appear. I suppose I could start a new flow there, but it kind of disrupts the, well, flow of the music. I hope I was a little more clear here. I’m sure I’m overlooking a key command or setting. I need to be able to have open measures in the middle of the piece. I suppose I may be able to do it with flows, but I can also see that causing layout headaches. Anyway, here’s a gif to show what I can’t seem to do.

Tim

add measures.gif
add measures.gif908×330 500 KB

#4

No, don’t add bars… add beats, then add barlines as needed.

Don’t type in 10, but 10q.

An open-meter measure doesn’t mean anything in terms of “length.” Dorico doesn’t know how long those measures should be. So you have to specify beats.

#5

Thanks, Dan. I get it now. It’s just like writing on paper. Thank you for your patience. Very much appreciated.

Tim

#6

No problem!