Fixing a pickup

[Lynn_Newton]

I’ve got a pop song in 12/8, the usual four beats of three eighths each. It starts with an eighth pickup. Currently my first bar has the dotted half, dotted quarter, and quarter rests. I want to delete that. How can I fix that with a popover, i.e. delete the leading rests?

[charles_piano]

Have a look at this:

Change duration of a pickup bar

Activate Insert Mode - Global Adjustment of Current Bar[1] (the 4th sub mode). Select the note or the rest that you want to remove from the pickup bar. Press Delete. Switch off Insert Mode Edit : Since it looks like you’ve removed the rests at the end of the bar, first select the E in the top staff and the F in the bottom staff and switch off Ends Voice in the Properties Panel: your eighth rests should then reappear. [Capture d'écran 2026-02-19 082748] ︎

Select the rests to be deleted, engage Insert Mode-Global Adjustment of Current Bar (the 4th sub-mode) and press Delete.

Then don’t forget to switch off Insert Mode!

[Lynn_Newton]

It took me a couple of days to get back to you on this, but this is exactly what I was looking for. I’ve yet to work with Input Mode, certainly not the sub-modes, which are new to me. But these instructions did precisely what I wanted. So thanks!