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Topic: Bar number (Read 5586 times) previous topic - next topic

Bar number

i saw some NWC file which has bar number.
How can I put Number of Bar automatically?

Re: Bar number

Reply #1 –
Click on File, page setup. Then choose the options tab. Using the drop down arrow next to "Measure numbers" choose plain, circled, boxed etc. Note these only print at the beginning of each printed line.

Re: Bar number

Reply #2 –
Thank you!  I tried but as you said teh number of bar only can be indicated at the beginning on each line. However,  I have seen a NWC file, each bar has it's number (1, 2, 3, 4, ....etc).  How to do this ?  Thanks

Re: Bar number

Reply #3 –
If the automatic bar numbering option is enabled, the bar number is shown in every bar only in the editor; when printing, just the first bar of every system is numbered. If you'll have a look at standard scores, you'll see that this is the way it's most commonly done. (Another system of numbering puts a number every five bars, regardless of where they fall; this system seems to have become quite obsolete, and for good reason IMO.)

If you want to have printout show numbers in every bar, you have to insert them manually as "text" items. Rather time-consuming, to say the least.

Re: Bar number

Reply #4 –
Having every bar numbered is annoying.  I just read through some of my son's music with him, and the numbers jus' kep' gettin' in the way, especially when the notes go above the staff.
...a number every five bars, ... seems to have become quite obsolete
Thank goodness!  This system has nothing to do with phrasing, and makes counting extended rests all the more difficult.

Re: Bar number

Reply #5 –
It is more common in jazz and concert band music to use rehearsal letters instead of measure numbers.  They usually come at the end of a phrase, and everyone can easily count "the sixth bar of letter B" etc.

Typically, the rehearsal letters will be 8 or 12 bars apart for traditional jazz.  Other good places to insert a letter is where there's a key change or the beginning of a new theme if your piece isn't structured in phrases of a particular length.

I strongly recommend using the measure numbers only while in the editor, turn them off for printing.  Set up a user font such as Boxmarks2 (available from the scriptorium,) and can then easily enter a boxed alphabet character as text.

The problem with having the bar number print at the beginning of each line on a printed out part is that other instruments may have a different number of measures in each line, so nobody has the same rehearsal marking to go to.  If someone says, "let's take it at bar 48," only a few will have a measure 48 on the score.

I suggest you stay away from 5 bar groupings.  That seldom conforms to the music on the score, so your conductor usually has to ask you to start playing at the beginning of some phrase that starts somewhere between the rehearsal markings.  If you play an instrument that has a lead part, it's not hard to find, but if you're just playing accompaniment, it isn't always obvious on the page where one phrase ends and the next one begins.

Also, do everyone a favour and don't spread your rehearsal markings out too far.  You waste a lot of rehearsal time when 45 musicians count their way back to the 34th measure before letter C.

Re: Bar number

Reply #6 –
Thanks for all!

I would like toPrintout show numbers in each 5 bar:

1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, ......etc

Is it possible do this automatically?  Or need to do manual?

Re: Bar number

Reply #7 –
You'd have to manually put a number every fifth bar. You could use the Boxmarks font available at the Scriptorium if you want numbers with boxes around them.

Re: Bar number

Reply #8 –
As was mentioned by a couple people above, don't place rehearsal marks every five bars! It's just lame, and so unmusical.

Re: Bar number

Reply #9 –
And never put a number at bar 1.
That is "lame" also.

Re: Bar number

Reply #10 –
Also, do everyone a favour and don't spread your rehearsal markings out too far.
I had that very same problem when conducting Mendelssohn’s Italian symphony.  I made up additional numbers and had the entire orchestra mark those in.  One wasted rehearsal was enough.
(I think I might have written about this before, but I couldn’t find the previous thread...)

Re: Bar number

Reply #11 –
I can no longer drive by the time I have left Bar Number four.
 

Re: Bar number

Reply #12 –
I wrote a macro that adds bar numbers every four bars, or maybe it was eight; I don't use it much anymore. If you don't have Macro Recorder I think you can download it from the Scriptorium, there's a link there on this site. Four (or eight) bars makes more sense than every five bars, but the built-in option of having them at the front of every line is better yet.

The only drawback of the default system is that not everyone will have the same bars marked ("thirty-two? wait a sec..twenty-eight, twenty-nine..."). I always turn the bar numbers on AND add rehearsal letters, using Boxmarks.