In a score for flute and soprano, I want to mark a flute phrase as repeating freely while the soprano sings. The music is largely unmetered, with an occasional barline for sections.
Is there a way to do this? I could put the phrase in a box with a continuation line/arrow, or put repeat signs on that staff only. I haven’t figured out how to do either, or if it’s possible.
What layout options are available for more free or semi-improvised scores?
Thanks!
You can certainly put repeat marks on a single staff: select a note or rest on the flute staff, use the Shift+B popover and type e.g. |: (pipe colon) for a start repeat or 
(colon pipe) for an end repeat, then confirm the popover by holding Alt and pressing Return, and that barline will be created on just that staff instead of spanning all staves.
We have to type a sad smily face for the end repeat? 
On a related note, alt+Return is a new one for me. Makes sense, since alt gets a lot of mileage on the popovers.
I keep experiencing two conflicting responses as I learn all these cool tricks. The first is, “Wow!” And the second is, “There has got to be a more systematic way to learn these.”
I spent a ton of time on the videos. And I’m a mildly-obsessed forum lurker. But short of reading the manual cover-to-cover, it seems there’s a large number of these sorts of things that remain a mystery to me. I feel like I’m slowly accumulating a toolbox through the forum, but that’s slow going.
Perhaps add these sorts of twists to a cheat sheet? The bazillion-page manual, although appropriately comprehensive, is a non-starter for me. So for the skeptic or the new user, it’s well-nigh impossible.
I do Google constantly, and the unique program name produces good results. But my common problem is that I simply don’t know a particular feature exists.
Hi Daniel and everyone,
Thanks for your response. Sorry to be slow to get back to the project!
I’ve tried your instructions, holding the option/alt key on a Mac, but I get the repeat mark on both staves, not just the flute staff. I tried it on my non-keypad external keyboard and the laptop’s keyboard. I tried a few other modifier keys too, and I tried clicking it in from the barline tool panel while holding the modifier key.
Have I found a platform-specific bug?
Thanks!
No, you’ve just found a Daniel-specific bug, i.e. I’m talking nonsense. You can, though, do this by adding a local time signature via Shift+M and confirming that popover with Alt+Return, then hide the time signature itself via the ‘Hide time signature’ property.
So no barlines on individual staves for now?
Dear PamM,
What I understand from the posts up there is that you can have barlines in individual staves, as long as those staves have individual (local) time signatures.
Marc’s correct: once you have a time signature, you will have a barline, and you can then override the type of that barline via the panel or the Shift+B popover.
I hadn’t used any time signatures in this piece. I added the X time signature, using the Alt method to make it local. So I have my single-staff repeat sign now. Thanks!
There aren’t any horizontal arrows yet, right? I would use one, if available, to show the extent of the repeat.