Skip to main content ↑ ↓
Topic: Grouping rests into a block (Read 5196 times) previous topic - next topic

Grouping rests into a block

I'm writing orchestral scores, and a lot of parts have many
consecutive measures of rests. When printing parts, is there
any way to have it group these into a block? For example, if
a part has 100 measures of rest, can I print it out so that they're
grouped into this notation: |-- 100 --| instead of many pages of
nothing but rests?

Thanks!

Tim

Re: Grouping rests into a block

Reply #1 –
One solution would be to use local repeats. How you would keep track of each
instrument and where they are at in the score depending on the number of rests is a
separate problem.

Re: Grouping rests into a block

Reply #2 –
The orchestral scores I have seen have all the rests written out - someone somewhere in the band is generally doing something while the rest are resting and the parts need to keep up so that they match up when others join in. So the problem only arises when extracting the individual parts.

To get individual parts printed with muli-bar rests I insert text such as

| --27-- |

into an empty bar. However, this will not play correctly. It is also tedious if you have to go through all the parts in a large score.

What we need is a facility to automatically identify mutli-bar rests and compress them when individual staffs are printed out. Oh yes, and we need have a lower limit (which we can specifcy?) before the compression kicks in. That is we maybe don't two or three bar rests to be compressed. And can we have a facility to break up automatic multi-bar rests so that we can insert rehearsal marks. And another thing. We would need to be able to handle multi-bar rests in, for example, piano parts with more then one staff where the mult-bar rests do not occur in the same place in both staves.

It all gets horribly complicated doesn't it when you try to work out how these things should be impemented.

Re: Grouping rests into a block

Reply #3 –
In a nutshell this is why I eventually dropped NWC for anything
more serious than trying a few sounds on my computer. Sadly
Eric failed (and still fails) to realise that this (not
grace notes!) is the biggest draw back to the software.
So I saved up my 700 quid and bought finale - yes it is *that*
important to me.

Re: Grouping rests into a block

Reply #4 –
Aman to that Nigel!

Re: Grouping rests into a block

Reply #5 –
I'm afraid I have to agree that collapsed rests in single
parts (with, indeed, an option to break them into chunks
before and after a specific bar) are something very
important that even the beta still lacks.

And while Eric's at it, we'd need small-font notes for cues
in rest bars as well.

Re: Grouping rests into a block

Reply #6 –
Ditto. Multi-bar rests in extracted parts is absolutely critical to me. I agree that it will take a few rules to correctly group rests for parts, but without them it looks amateurish to pass out a part with 2/3 of a page filled with single bar rests. As well as offering a trecherous opportunity to mis-count and come in early/late.

Otherwise, an excellent program (I love you dearly, but ...)

Re: Grouping rests into a block

Reply #7 –
Definetly!!!!
Thats one of the things that this program lacks. I love it, but this is a major problem. The only reason i havent changed to sibellius is that i hate it so much.... its a really stupid layout, and is not half as user-friendly.

Re: Grouping rests into a block

Reply #8 –
I would have thought that now that we can have hidden rests and bar lines, it should be relatively straightforward to achieve this so that it both plays correctly and looks OK on paper ?

Re: Grouping rests into a block

Reply #9 –
Yes, the hidden rests and bar lines makes this workable (although a 100-measure rest takes up more room on the page than one would think).  Also, using hidden rests and bar lines results in the measure numbers being counted accurately.  Gotta love those hidden rests and bar lines!