Maybe it’s just me, maybe I’m missing something really basic and I apologize for that but I don’t know how to figure it out.
It’s simple, I have a bar in 4/4 and then I want a bar in 5/4 and then 4/4 again. If I insert a 5/4 the bar doesn’t change, you can only have 4/4. I mean, you see 5/4 written but you cannot have 5/4 inside of it, just 4/4. If I try to use [1+1+1+1+1]/4 it’s the same you always got 4/4. Only if I write at the end of the piece a new meter then it works, but if I copy and paste in a new blank measure inside of the piece (blank measure created ad hoc) you continue to have 4/4.
Any suggestions?
thank you very much
When you insert a time signature, time signatures later in the music are not moved, so if you already had a 4/4 time signature at the beginning of (say) bar 3, the 5/4 time signature inserted at the beginning of bar 2 will not be 5 quarters long, because the 4/4 time signature is only 4 quarters away. Try creating a 1/4 time signature at the start of the second bar, then use Shift+B to add another bar by typing +1 into the popover, which should insert time globally. Then you can replace your 1/4 time signature with a 5/4 time signature, and your 5/4 bar should actually have 5 quarters in it.
I am trying this now; I can see the logic but it seems a little complicated. If you want your new bar to be shorter (i.e. 3/4 instead of 4/4), then Dorico creates an extra bar (without a time signature) that only has one beat. You can delete this bar by selecting it, typing shift-B, then -1 into the popover.
If you want your new bar to be longer than the bar it’s inserted in front of, then you can follow Daniel’s instructions above and create two new bars.
I would much rather have my new time signature move the following notes and time signatures. Would it be possible to make this an option in Preferences? (But I think I understand another issue - if you don’t re-enter the old time signature in the following original bar, it could screw up your whole piece. Writing notation software is hard!)
I’m certain that we will be changing the way this works in future, to make it easier to lengthen or shorten an existing bar without jumping through so many hoops.