Whole rests in non 4/4 measures SOLVED

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miker
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Post by miker » Sat Apr 18, 2020 6:21 pm

I’m helping with a barbershop piece with 3/4, 4/4, 5/4, and 6/4 measures. Tenor and lead are layers 1 and 2 in the treble staff, and bari and bass in the bass staff. Even if I have notes and lyrics in one layer only, I still want rests in the tacet layer, for clarity with stem direction, etc.

I know how to put in a whole rest as a tuplet, with hidden brackets and numbers. But is this correct? Should I rather fill with rests of the correct duration(s) to keep the counting clear? If both layers are empty, is the default whole rest adequate?

What is the collective wisdom, here?
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motet
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Post by motet » Sat Apr 18, 2020 6:55 pm

No, a whole rest is special and means a whole bar. That's why the default rests look like whole rests. I think a dotted half rest in 3/4 or a whole rest plus a quarter test in 5/4 would look funny.

You can do the tuplet kludge, which has the advantage of not overfilling or underfilling the bar, but I think the "change default rests to whole rests" should work. I haven't experimented with layers, though. Perhaps you need to invoke "show active layer only." With the tuplet, you could do it once and then copy it elsewhere.

It's much easier with Speedy entry to overfill the bar.
Last edited by motet on Sat Apr 18, 2020 7:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by motet » Sat Apr 18, 2020 7:07 pm

Below is what the cue notes plug-in does, which is similar to what you're doing, I think. The "change to real whole rests" plug-in doesn't seem to work if there's anything in any layer.

In 3/4 with Simple entry, you can click in a whole rest with the mouse provided "Check for extra notes" is turned off. QWERTY input seems to turn it into a dotted half tied over the barline to a quarter.

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miker
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Post by miker » Sat Apr 18, 2020 9:13 pm

Well, I think I found the easiest way. And it's one that I think I stumbled across (or was told about) long ago, but forgot: Simple Entry Rest palette. Normally I don't even have that open, since I always insert my rests with the 0 key on the numberpad. But if the palette is open, you can select the whole rest with the mouse, and click it in. Bingo. It doesn't matter what the time signature is; it enters a real whole rest.
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Jay Emmes
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Post by Jay Emmes » Sat Apr 18, 2020 10:35 pm

That's odd.
I often wondered about a 'simple' solution for this myself. Mainly for attaching fermatas to a whole rest in time signatures other than 4/4 or 2/2.
I tried the solution miker described, but Simple Entry will not allow me to enter a whole rest in, say, 4/8, 3/8 or whatever is smaller than actual 4 quarters.
Is there some setting I'm overlooking?
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motet
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Post by motet » Sat Apr 18, 2020 10:48 pm

For time signatures shorter than four quarters you need to turn off "check for extra notes" in Simple entry. For time signatures with more than four quarters you shouldn't have any problem, so maybe you're misremembering.

If you don't have anything at all in the measure(s), then selecting them and picking the "change to real whole rests" plug-in will work.

Speedy entry will let you enter a whole rests regardless of "check for extra notes".

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Jay Emmes
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Post by Jay Emmes » Mon Apr 20, 2020 9:02 am

I never use Simple Entry, so I didn't know there was a "Check for Extra Notes" as well — didn't see it at first glance under the 'Simple' menu.

Thanks. The plugin method is going to be a real time saver.
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motet
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Post by motet » Mon Apr 20, 2020 6:49 pm

You may find the attached JW Lua script useful. It will put whole rests with fermatas in any empty measures selected. If you have an orchestra piece where some staves have music with fermatas and other staves are silent in those measures, you can select the measure stack and run this. I have it mapped to a hotkey.

music3149
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Post by music3149 » Thu Aug 04, 2022 11:41 pm

I know this is an old thread, but could you send the Lua script again?

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