Altering the length of a bar in irregular (meter-less) music

Dorico
#1

So, the situation is as follows:

I’m writing in meter-less mode, inserting barlines via the Shift-B popover when required. Once I’ve finished the piece, I note that I’ve managed to write a load of crotchets instead of quavers in one of the bars - so, I utilise Insert mode and change the crotchets to quavers. No problem - BUT all the barlines stay put instead of shifting.

Is there an option to have the bar length change with the use of insert mode in such a scenario? Or am I using the free-meter tools wrong in the first place to have this happen. What I ended up doing in the above project was manually deleting the barlines and reinserting them, but I’d obviously prefer to have the problem bar automatically change its length instead of the barlines getting out of place for the remainder of the piece.

Any ideas? Many thanks :slight_smile:

#2

Unfortunately there’s not yet an option to lengthen the bar when lengthening the notes, but this is definitely planned, hopefully for the relatively near future.

#3

Is there now a way to do this in the current version? SImilarly, I’m also wondering about any way to insert a measure in meterless music, even if the inserted measure has to have a meter. I’d be content even with a workaround to insert some amount of rest within meterless music that is the same for all staves and pushes all the following music in each stave the same amount so they stay aligned. Thanks!

#4

Shift-B, 1q to add a quarter note value (and other iterations as desired). Add a barline anywhere by selecting the note after the desired spot and Shift-B, pipe character.

You can use the system track to add a beat value. Press Alt to display the rhythmic grid units on the system track. You can then select a partial beat amount.

#5

On the flip side, to get rid of time in meterless music and have all the barlines remain in their proper place, it’s basically the same operation as Dan describes, but with negative values. Just use Shift-B and then -1q or whatever amount of music you need to get rid of. Insert mode won’t move the barlines, but the bars popover will, so that’s the way to go.

#6

This is perfect! I didn’t know either about the system track or using the bars popver for partial bars. Exactly what I needed! Thanks so much Dan and snakeeyes021! Dorico keeps unfolding more and more brilliance before my eyes.