Whole rest in empty measure

Hi,

I set up my document so all measures don’t show a whole rest in empty measures. But sometime, I want to add a whole rest (in case of a break), but when I add a whole rest, it doesn’t show. I suspect it’s because of the previous setting, but how can I have my whole rest to show while having this setting.

Thank you

I guess this. You can use force duration to enter a rest anyway.
So o for force duration, , for rests, 8
for whole note and y to enter. Unfortunately, the position is off.
Not sure best way to fix that. Note spacing?

Jesper

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You can also input a ghost note in the upstem voice (I mean a note that you hide) and then enter a whole rest in a second voice by typing Shift+B, then ‘rest’.

That whole rest will remain visible. You may however need to adjust its vertical position in the Properties Panel:

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Hi @Felixbt, beside the suggestion by @jesele, here an alternative method, using a customised horizontal line inside the staff:

  • create an invisible line body
  • create a line annotation using the whole rest glyph
  • apply the body annotations to a new line
  • set the position of the line Inside Staff
  • correct the vertical offset to 3/8
  • use the line setting start and end point to barline

Workflow:

Usage and result:
CleanShot 2025-02-01 at 16.46.24

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Damn, I was just going to do that, but had dinner in between.
:grinning:
Jesper

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Rests in Dorico are not graphical items you put in. They automatically fill the space between the (sounding) music you put in.
Yes, there is a setting to “not show” rests in empty bars (bars=measures), which you probably have activated.

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:rofl:

Now that you remembered me, I need to eat something too :slight_smile:

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Yes I did that, but I was hoping for an easiest and quicker way to that. I can’t believe there’s no better way to do that. I’m a Finale user, I’m trying to move to Dorico and the process is pretty frustrating. So much things are just simpler in Finale.

Felix,
just out of interest, do you prefer empty bars to show no rests in general?
Do your players play from the score or do they have their own parts?
I did not really understand your first post, why do you want to show a single rest in the middle of empty bars? “In case of a break” what exactly does it mean?
May be the Cue function of Dorico could also step in here.

This may sound weird in your ears, but Dorico is a notation program based on semantics, meaning, everything you put in must have a musical meaning. This has the advantage that it prevents the user from doing “silly things” but at the same time might feel it does restrict your creativity. If one can find a musical reason, a meaning, then one will be able to convince Dorico to notate it.
That’s why sometimes questioning the actions will lead to results.

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Layout Options>Players>Bar Rests and Multibar rests… Uncheck show bar rests in empty bars

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As I showed 10 posts ago.

Jesper

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I do mostly “Chordsheet” type of partition for different clients. I do these kind of partition because we want players to be able to write notes on the sheets. That’s why I need all measures to be empty. But sometime, I need to indicate a “break” (Everybody stops playing) for all musicians, that’s why I need to be able to insert a whole rest in a measure. When you make music sheet for popular music, it’s pretty common.

Another way is to keep the rests, select the ones you want hidden, and set the color opacity to zero.

Jesper

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@Felixbt
Ok, yet another method (for your particular need) is to edit an unused Hold, substitute its glyph with a rest, then apply it one for all, and position it in Engrave mode:

Workflow:

Usage:

You can even combine the rest glyph with a fermata glyph:

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I have the same problem: working on teaching books (with various exercises) I need to be able to work on lines without automatic pauses, alternating with pauses that I can insert. I also come from Finale: where this operation was absolutely immediate. I find it odd that, not even in the Properties Panel and not even in Engrave mode, the forced while pause can be center in the measure.
Doric is a very good program, in relation to Finale, for a lot of things. But I hope that its programmers, in accommodating Finale’s refugees, will work on details evidently used by those who worked with the former program.
God bless you!

I’m not entirely clear what you need to happen here.

I was a teacher for 30+ years and used Finale for at least that long, but I’m still a little confused what you want here. “Inserted pauses”? On the fly, live, during class?

I think @da.zambelli wants better manual control of the visibility of bar rests (pauses).

Hi @da.zambelli, and welcome to the Forum.

You can very well move the position of a forced rest (created using this method suggested above by @jesele) inside the bar, using the Voice column X offset in Engrave mode’s properties panel. And copying pasting the rest will maintain its properties.

Here a short video showing this (in the situation where in layout options the Bar Rests visibility is deactivated):

Or use the other methods suggested in this thread.
Maybe the easiest one is this.:


EDIT: and here another further method (I think it is the method Nr. 4, or 5? until now :slight_smile: , using hidden notehead:

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If you can put up with the very first measure having a whole rest in it, try this:

(In a new project) select the whole rest in the first measure and enable Ends Voice in Properties. This will cause all rests from measure 2 to disappear. When you want to display a whole rest in an isolated measure somewhere in the piece, select the rest in measure 1 and copy it to where you want it using alt/opt+click.

EDIT:
If there is only one staff or all the staves have had this applied, it will probably cause the now empty measures to squeeze closer together.

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Perfect! This is what I was looking for.
What a pleasure to find so many nice people!
Grazie mille a tutti!

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