Pickup measure oddity

[motet]

Someone on Facebook asked for help with pickup measures and I noticed that Finale does an odd thing: it puts rests in the pickup measure that behave like default whole rests in that they're centered in the bar. If you visit the rest with the entry tool, it's not a real rest. The problem with this is that the rest is not vertically aligned as it should be. Perhaps this has been mentioned before, but I don't recall it. The solution, of course, is to enter real rests.

I know there are good reasons for avoiding the pickup measure feature in favor of using a shortened time signature "use another time signature for display," which is what I do, but that's kind of a lot to ask of a new user, and the pickup measure feature often suffices.

[zuill]

Odd. I always enter the real rest there. I think the placeholder doesn't have any user setting that we can adjust. When you uncheck, in measure attributes, to show rests in empty measures, it disappears. The placeholder is a more recent feature, which does serve a purpose: it reminds you of the value of a real rest you should enter there. The placeholder doesn't even allow the Utility called Fill With Rests to actually fill that measure with a real quarter rest. I guess that Utility only works with measures that already have some real note values, so nevermind.

Zuill

[miker]

I enter the real rest manually, so it’s in the right spot.

The problem with the pickup measure shortcut doesn’t really happen until playback with a repeat, at which point we get the “why does my playback have the empty space in it?” question. I think that feature was to serve the users of the daughter programs, since they couldn’t hide a changed time signature.

[zuill]

I use it when I'm in a hurry and the file is simple. There are other glitchy things with the pickup measure design, so avoiding it is often the best decision. However, in some situations, creating a pickup manually can create its own problems. Sometimes, the spacing in a real measure has un unwanted look. So, I do whatever needs to be done.

Zuill

[motet]

A lot of people don't care about playback, so it's generally fine for them. Like I said, using the Time Signature tool to create an odd time signature like 1/4, restricting it to that one measure (which is not the default), using a different one for display (on a sub-menu you have to know about), then going to the Measure tool and unchecking "include in measure numbering" (which then enables a bug MM seems unable to fix if you have multiple measure number regions), is pretty daunting for all but the most experienced users.

[zuill]

If you enter the note for a quarter pickup in 4/4 time, then use Jari's JW Meter and Rhythm plugin/Transform to Contents/Use Displayed Time, it will transform the 4/4 bar with quarter note to a 1/4 bar displayed as 4/4. It doesn't change the Measure Attributes to not include in Measure Numbering, and it still displays the empty measures in staves without a note as a default whole rest. This is probably faster, especially in measures where the pickup might be more complicated, such as a dotted quarter note.

Zuill