Finale Forum

I see how I can enter measure repeat symbols for 1 or 2 measure increments, but what I want to do is to bundle up a bunch of measure similar to when you have multi-measure repeats and then show a measure repeat symbol with a number over it to tell the player how many times to repeat the previous measure. I'm pretty sure I've seen this in parts before, but maybe it's not really a thing. I'm doing an arrangement of the Peter Gunn Theme, and a few parts have to play the same 1-measure riff over and over. It seems like this should exist for such cases. Is there a way to do it?

If there's nothing in the measures, a modified multimeasure rest is one workaround. Personally, a 1 bar repeat with numbers counting the repeated measures is easier for me to follow.

Zuill

The handwritten fonts have symbols for 1, 2, and 4-bar repeats. The engraved have only 1 and 2, as far as I know. Personally, I would just write out the parts. Remember, those shortcut symbols are from the time when the repeated bars would have been handwritten. With copy and paste, it's no longer a big deal.

It seems like you are just talking about 1 measure repeated multiple times. The attached picture, similar to how drummers have seen it for years, is the easiest to follow, in my opinion.

Zuill

Zuill,
Numbers as expressions?

miker wrote:Zuill,
Numbers as expressions?

Yes. This was done with Jari's JWPattern plugin. I haven't created a category for v25 yet, so I took the default output and manually dragged them to where I want them. I'll need to create a Library with a category for these in v25. I know Jari doesn't have a beta yet for his plugins for Mac, so users would have to open in 2014.5 to apply it.

Zuill

Putting the numbers over the symbols will definitely help it to not look like such a sea of identical symbols. I'll do that.
Thanks.

zuill wrote:It seems like you are just talking about 1 measure repeated multiple times. The attached picture, similar to how drummers have seen it for years, is the easiest to follow, in my opinion.

Zuill

I'm more used to seeing things like this with the 2nd measure (ie the first "repeat previous measure" symbol) numbered as '2' not '1'. I guess it's a bit of semantics ( - it's the first time you repeat it, but the second time you play it ... ); I wondered if there was a "best practice" consensus?

That is good. Start the first repeated bar as 2. Makes sense.

Zuill

Then would you put a 1 over the first measure, so nobody thinks the 2 is a mistake?

That can work as well. It's been done various ways, in my experience.

Zuill

I also use 1 for the initial measure, so a drummer can see and count regions of 8 measures rather than 7.
JW Pattern does a great job for that, and a dedicated category of expressions is the way to go (centered, above staff), combined with a special profile in the plug-in (parts only, selection of the dedicated expression category).
After that is setup, things go very fast.
The new category can be loaded into templates, etc...

I'm trying to do a multi-measure repeat with the symbol in one measure
and a number over the top to indicate how many measure to play the pattern.
Kind of like combine a multi-measure rest and a measure repeat symbol.
Any suggestions on how to do that?

Maryk4music wrote:I'm trying to do a multi-measure repeat with the symbol in one measure
and a number over the top to indicate how many measure to play the pattern.

In your example, the number is a text expression with the positioning set to center between the barlines.

You probably are aware that these kind of repeat bars are usually written out in full, anotherwords your example would show 5 complete repeat bars. If this is for your own use or for people who know you, such informality is OK. On the other hand, strangers or those who might have paid for your music might consider it lazy and cheap.

N.

Interesting.
I found the example online and it looked cleaner to me than including all the individual repeats.
I would also save staves and allow for more spacing. If there's no way to automate the process,
I'll follow your recommendations. (Deleting the measures would create measure number issues
throughout the piece.) Thanks for your insights.

You can do this with a real multimeasure rest by changing the rest symbol to a new shape for that rest. Here's an example:

This looks exactly like what I want.
How did you hide the rest symbol and replace it with the repeat symbol?

If this is not a part derived from a score, or all parts repeat at the same place, you can apply the blank notation staff style to a measure, then add the % and the number as expressions (Maestro font, 24 point; the % character is in slot 212).

The file above attached a year ago instead takes an 11-bar multimeasure rest and changes the shape from the horizontal bar to %, which I've added to the shape library. So you'd have 11 empty measures after the first bar where the repeats would be if written out (obviously playback won't work) made into a multimeasure rest. You can edit the rest and change the shape.

If you want more help, say which of these seems better.

I'll give it a try.
Thanks for your help.