Skip to main content
Topic: Rehearsal marks (Read 10192 times) previous topic - next topic

Rehearsal marks

Experienced users, ignore this.  You have your own methods.

New users, when you're writing a chart you may want to use rehearsal numbers or letters.  Generally I create these as text entries, in UserFont1, set to Boxmarks2, Bold, Size 16 (use the Page Setup/Fonts submenu for this). 

I place them at the beginning of their respective bars, right-justified to appear above the preceding bar line.  When the staff wraps  when printing, the rehearsal mark will be at the beginning of the new staff instead of orphaned at the end of the previous staff  I also set them to Visibility=Top Staff Only so they don't clutter up a multiple part score, but I usually enter them on all the parts so they're there when I go to print separate instrument parts. 

You can get away with entering each rehearal mark once only if you put them in a staff full of rests at the top of your score, but there are pros and cons to that.

Alphabetic rehearsal letters are simply a matter of adding a capital letter.  With Boxmark2, it will show inside a rectangular box.  Numeric rehearsal marks are a little more complicated. You need to use the Character Map and select one element at a time.  Start with the [ bracket. Then select the numeral(s) you want using the Character Map.  Choose the numbers that have horizontal lines above and below it. Finally end with the ] bracket. Your number will be entered as a boxed number, and can be 1, 2, 3 or even more characters long.

It's tedious to enter a lot of numeric rehearsal marks because you need the Character Map, so I usually create a supersized one at the very beginning of the staff, with this text string:
123456789012345678901234567890 .  When I need to add a rehearsal number, I just copy that to the appropriate bar and edit the copy to remove the numbers I don't want.  It saves a lot of time and work if your piece is 300 or more bars long.



Re: Rehearsal marks

Reply #2
I created BarLabel.ms because I wanted to be able to share scores with other people who didn't have the BoxMarks2 font on their system. It's true that you have to have the BarLabel object installed, but I believe it is bundled in with the 2.75a NWC installer.

Re: Rehearsal marks

Reply #3
Many years have passed since I abandoned Boxmarks2 for the compatible but much better MusikDings* by Lawrie...

 

Re: Rehearsal marks

Reply #4
Once more I must thank Mike.  Using NWC only once in a while, I haven't kept up with the new objects, and Mike's BarLabel.ms is a big improvement over the method I have been using.

I use Lawrie's fonts for some types of music, but I liked Boxmarks2 for many of the charts just because of the styles.  It's moot now, though, with BarLabel.ms

Thanks, everyone.