Hello everyone. It can often happen that I need to display a time signature different from real time (for example, I’m in 4/4 but want to display 12/8).
Is this possible?
Thanks for the feedback.
Hi,
Yes it’s possible. You’ll find the explanations e.g. in these threads:
Feel free to share a screenshot of what you’re trying to achieve if you’d like more specific advice.
Buona sera, Giovanni
I’m supplementing Charles’s information by sharing this article with you; although it dates from 2017, it’s still relevant today (see the Bach map on the page). It’s a bit rough around the edges when it comes to displaying the different times signature, but it works.
Hi Charles, and thank you for the feedback. The post you referenced refers to polyrhythm, meaning that some instruments have one tempo and others have another. I’m also referring to a single instrument that has a set tempo (for example, 4/4), and in each measure I can write all four quarter notes, but it displays a different time signature (for example, 3/4). There are cases where this feature is very useful.
Forgive me, but I think you misunderstand the purpose of time signatures in music notation.
Yes, exactly, that’s what I’m asking. How do I go about achieving this result?
It may be what you want, but @charles_piano’s answer is musically meaningless (and would totally confuse to any player).
I don’t know how others truly feel about this but on the rare occasion that we found such atrocities in organ literature when I was an undergrad, we treated them as errant time signatures and ignored them (i.e., the 3/4) because they didn’t make sense. Even our musicologists were stumped as to why one would do that…
@Giovanni_Lucibello Please feel free to share an example of what you’re trying to achieve! There may be some confusion, and I don’t want to lead you in the wrong direction. It’s maybe a matter of tuplets without numbers/brackets, which happens and can be clear.
Dorico’s rhythmic notation possibilities are unlimited, but I wouldn’t want to suggest you a notation that isn’t truly what you’re looking for — and that musicians wouldn’t understand!
I confirm that what I was asking for was exactly what charles_piano understood, and I asked him how to achieve it. Finale included the ability to set a tempo but display a different tempo indication, precisely because it’s a very useful feature, and it’s helped me in countless cases.
The one I’m attaching is a very simple example, but there are others that are much more complex; as soon as I have time, I’ll show you more.
Schermata 2026-05-07 alle 22.04.10.pdf (908,1 KB)
Please do.
OK, so the basic principle for fake (pickup) time signatures in Dorico is to add a comma after the time signature, followed by a number that corresponds to the number of occurrences of the denominator’s note value in the bar (which means a number that actually overrides/replaces the top value). A bit hard to explain, easier with examples:
You want:
4/4 displaying 1 quarter: type 4/4,1 in the popover
3/4 displaying one 8th: 3/4,0.5
2/4 displaying three eighths: 2/4,1.5
12/8 displaying 4 quarters: 12/8,8
3/4 displaying 4 quarters: 3/4,4
and so on. As you can see, bars can be longer or shorter than displayed.
Note that from the next bar, the TS will be the regular one, corresponding to what you have entered without the override. So you might have to enter another hidden time signature afterwards, depending on what you need to achieve.
Hope it’s clear!
But this example of a pick-up bar is very different from your original request!
The example I gave is not at the beginning of the song and it says 4/4 and in the bar there is only 2/4 (but there
could also have been 3/8 or 7/16), therefore a different value: how can you say that is not what I asked for?
In fact, I told you that you understood my question well and that you provided the solution, and for that I thank you. I only posted the example because people insisted on seeing it, but I got the answer to my question. Thanks, Charles.
Your original post asked…
For many users, replacing 4/4 with 12/8 is a question about polymeter, not a pickup. These are two very different things.
You have still not shown us an example where 12/8 replaces 4/4, so you have wasted our time.