I’m using Greensleeves to explain my issue, a simple song with 4 lines of music per verse. The song starts with a lead in note, then continues in sets of 4 bars through to the end. So, the first line is 5 bars long, and every other row is 4 bars long.
I want a score for the melody where each line starts on a new row. The trouble is, row 1 needs an extra bar.
How can I achieve this layout: 5 bars then 4 to the end?
My current solution is to set the Number of Bars per System to 5, then add 3 system breaks.
Alternatively, I could probably ignore the Number of Bars per System parameter and just put manual breaks everywhere.
This worked, but if this was a long piece I would need to add lots and lots of system breaks. Can I just say “make it 4 bars from here on?” Putting in a Manual Break for each row doesn’t scale well for longer pieces when there are, at times, rows or sections of rows that need different numbers of bars. (It does the job, so I’m not actually stuck. I’m just looking for a better solution that will deal with groups of rows at a time.)
My other approach was to set the Number of Bars per System to 4, then add a System Break after bar 5.
This is clearly NOT a solution as the first 5 bars are spread over 2 rows and I can’t glue them back together.
Do you have any tips on how to do this more efficiently than putting in a System Break at the end of every place that needs it?
