Would it be possible to use the same syntax for pickups that the Bar popover uses for inserting or deleting beats? E.g. 4/4,1q for a quarter note pickup in 4/4? I don’t have any serious trouble with pickups in Dorico anymore, but it did take several trips to the manual at the beginning, and I still have to think hard to come up with the appropriate fraction. Syntax that reflects actual note values would lubricate the process for me, and might help beginners catch on quicker.
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I have the same problem. Can’t get a pickup bar for the life of me. And when I see that pickup thing you were just talking about, there’s nothing to make it change. I click it and nothing. What am I doing wrong? And it seems to me there’s a way to open up a new project where you add a pickup bar, but I don’t see it.
Which exact pickup bar do you want? Meaning which time signature and how many beats?
Hi @Suzanne_Demontigny here you find a detailed case-by-case explanation on how to manage the pick-up bar:
Okay, I’m at the beginning of the piece. When I set up the orchestration, it didn’t give an option to have an upbeat. It’s in 3/4 time with a quarter note upbeat. But right now, I have two beats of nothing.
That was absolute Greek to me. How do you activate insert mode?
@Suzanne_Demontigny please use the Manual as a reference (even if in the videos, I showed where it is…) . If you search for “insert mode”, in the search of the manual you will find that the first result is exactly that.
You can change the scope of insert mode by long clicking on the icon and choose the desired scope:
Do you mean that arrow thing?
BTW, that’s the first place I go. I go to you guys as a last resort.
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It should be as easy as pressing Shift-M, writing 3/4,1 and then pressing enter.
If this doesn’t give the result you want, please share a screenshot of what you have in front of you either before or after you tried to insert a pickup bar for detailed instructions on how to achieve it in your case.
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I would like to add to this request: At the moment I’m preparing material for a beginners course. I always feel, that Dorico is not consistent in this popover. There are other popovers, where we can add information in a musical rather than a mathematical way. Therefore I want to support this FR to add the possibility to enter something like
3/4,1e
4/4,3e
2/2,2q
6/8,3x
…
to add pickup bars. Just like the entries in e.g. the bars and barline popover. Using the same beat units in all popovers would make Dorico even more consistent.
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Richford is right on the money. I can’t use any of the documentation to convert a measure to a pickup measure. What was a simple couple of clicks in Finale is a morning of frustration in Dorico. For example, following these instructions to the letter succeeds only in shifting all remaining notes in the piece to unwanted gobbledygook.
- Select the first beat of the pickup measure.
- Shift-M to bring up the meter popover.
- Type:
“4/4, 1” for a four-four meter with a quarter pickup
“3/4, 1.5” for a three-four meter with a one and half beat pickup, etc.
Provided I select the right amount of beats that should become the pick-up bar, this works for me. Otherwise the music gets shifted. Such a shift will stop at the next time signature. You can use this behaviour if you’re afraid to mess things up:
Create an explicit, but pick-upless time signature (say 4/4) right after the proposed pick-up, then create the pick-up bar before it (using syntax like 4/4,1), then, if all seems OK, delete the temporary TS in the next bar.
I personally rarely ever use the syntax popover method, much preferring the insert mode + delete method. I believe it might be described above as I skimmed posts, but in short as an example:
Let’s say I want an 8th note pickup in 4/4; with my desired pickup bar I will simply use the rhythmic grid to input a note at the 8th position of the bar, and then with the insert mode ‘global adjustment of current bar’ activated, I select the remaining rests and hit my delete key. This is a simple example but it can work with more complex music and time signatures too.
Reminder that @Christian_R has provided many more scenarios broken down for ease with the fantastic clarity he is known for! Problem inserting pick-up bar - #17 by Christian_R
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Hi, I have followed these exact steps, as I want to add a 1/8 note as a pickup to my 4/4 piece.
I cannot for the life o me understand why now “repeat 1” bar (bar 4) has become a 7/8 bar
Thanks for your help
May I again propose a very simple way to create pickups of all sorts?
(click the link to get there)
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Turn on insert mode (I) before you add the pickup bar. Without insert mode you simply redistribute the beats you already wrote.
Don’t forget to turn insert mode off after applying.
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When you repeat the phrase, the repeated pickup is the complement that makes it 4/4 again. It’s the standard way to handle a repeat that doesn’t start on a barline. If you don’t want that, put the start-repeat right on top of the first barline (after the pickup), and restate the pickup quaver/8th under the first ending.
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Thanks a lot everyone it’s so silly of me not having seen that. Of course the start repeat is in the wrong spot as a result of the pickup bar and I didn’t notice that until now. Many thanks for your help. Best
I’d rather use the popover.
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