User manual

Pick-up bars
Pick-up bars allow you to include music before the rst full bar. They are also known as “upbeats”
or an “anacrusis”. Often, pick-up bars only comprise a few beats whose main purpose is to lead in
to the start of the piece.
Pick-up bar of a single quarter note beat at the start of Chopin's Mazurka Op. 30 No. 2
Pieces that start with a pick-up bar have time signatures that are positioned at the start of the
system as normal. However, the rst full bar of the time signature occurs after the rst barline
and not before. Therefore, pick-up bars do not contribute to the bar number count. Bar numbers
are counted from the
rst full bar in the ow.
Because pick-up bars are linked to the number of notes/rests in the music, in Dorico SE they are
linked to time signatures and so you must input pick-up bars alongside a time signature.
However, you can hide time signatures you do not want to show in the music.
RELATED LINKS
Input methods for time signatures on page 211
Hiding/Showing time signatures on page 852
Dening partial bars as pick-up bars or irregular bars
You can change whether explicit irregular bars at the start of time signatures are dened as pick-
up bars. This affects how notes in the bars are beamed and grouped.
Notes in irregular bars dened as pick-up bars are beamed/grouped backwards from the end of
the bar, while notes in irregular bars not dened as pick-up bars are beamed/grouped forwards
from the start of the bar.
NOTE
You must input explicit irregular bars and pick-up bars as part of a time signature, such as by
entering 4/4,1.5 into the time signatures popover to input a 4/4 time signature with a pick-up bar
containing 1.5 quarter note beats, or three eighth notes.
PROCEDURE
1. Select the time signatures or the signposts of time signatures starting with an explicit
irregular bar whose pick-up denition you want to change.
2. In the Properties panel, activate Group rst bar as pick-up in the Time Signatures group.
3. Activate/Deactivate the corresponding checkbox.
RESULT
Irregular bars at the start of the selected time signatures are dened as pick-up bars when
Group rst bar as pick-up and its corresponding checkbox are both activated, and dened as
normal irregular bars when the corresponding checkbox is deactivated.
Time signatures
Pick-up bars
845
Dorico SE 3.1.10