Pick up measure

I am in 4/2 and my first entrance is on the last quarter note of the measure. When I started, I didn’t initially believe this would be a pickup measure, but now it needs to be. How can I remove the rests prior to count 4?

First, select the very first note or rest at the start of the piece, open the Shift+B popover and enter -3h to delete three half notes’ worth of music from the start.

Now, select the time signature at the start and type Shift+M to open the meter popover, and type 4/2,1 to replace the regular time signature with a 4/2 time signature with one beat pickup.

I think Daniel has his maths wrong! Shift-B -7q, then Shift-M 4/2, 0.5 will work better.

3 Likes

Thanks, Daniel! That worked perfectly!

Sorry, I had in mind that David wanted a half note pick-up, not a quarter note, so indeed, @Janus’s instructions are the ones to follow.

An alternative method suggested by my colleague Stefan is here, although this one requires Dorico 4 whereas Daniel’s suggestion can be done in earlier product versions:

(* when Stefan writes “delete notes or rests”, he really does mean a simple delete: select, press Backspace/Delete; no need to use the Shift-B beat deleting method.)

For changing the Insert mode scope, see here.