I found a way to write polyrhythms that have the same bar length and display the proper time signature. I’m sure this will be done natively in the fullness of time, but for now, this a pretty good workaround. Here’s what it looks like in Bach’s “Jesus bleibet meine Freude”:
Normally, this is easy to do using triplets and hiding the numbers and brackets (which is faster to do now that there is a filter), but the time signature would remain 3/4. To get the 9/8 follow this procedure:
- Select the bar you want to modify on the chosen instrument (in this case: the first bar of Vln I)
- Enter shift/M and type: 9/8,6 (it’s a pickup – it has to have the same number of values as the meter of the other instruments, in this case: six 8th notes)
- Type alt-enter to activate it on the bar alone. The first barlines should align but the others will not.
- Fix the alignment by selecting the 2nd bar (on the same instrument), typing shift-M, entering 3/4 and then alt-enter.
- This screws up the bar numbering on that part. Go to the appropriate part layout, select the 2nd bar, change the bar number to 2, then go back to the full score to hide both the 3/4 time signature and the bar number change using the properties panel.
- Write a tuplet of 6:9 ration in the first bar of the selected instruments. Enter music and re-beam. Enter the rest of the music as triplets and get rid of the brackets and numbers.
Note that you can do that anywhere in a score, not just the beginning. And even though it looks like a lot of instructions, it’s actually quite quick.