Multi-Measure Rest

since 5.3

A multiple measure rest indicates a rest of more than one measure.

Table of contents

  1. Example
  2. Editing
  3. Model

Example

It is drawn as a thick horizontal line centered on staff middle line with serifs at both ends, completed by a time-like number drawn above the staff.

In the example above, we have instances of multiple measure rests, on 5-line and 1-line staves.

Editing

If not detected, we can still assign or drag a multiple rest item from the shape palette in its Rests set:

A double-click on a multiple rest enters its fairly limited editing status:

  • Vertically, the item remains stuck to the staff mid-line,
  • Horizontally, the mid handle can translate the whole item, while a side handle can resize it.

And, as for bar repeats editing, the measure count item can be assigned or dragged from the shape palette in its Times set.

Model

updated in 5.8

Since release 5.3, with no need for a specific processing switch, the multiple rests should be detected (during the BEAMS step), together with the related measure count number (during the SYMBOLS step).

NOTA: If the engine cannot recognize the measure count number, the multiple rest is set in the “abnormal” status. It is consequently displayed in red, as in the picture below, where the symbol “8” was not recognized:

And during the reduction performed by the following step (LINKS), all abnormal inters are deleted, including the multiple rest shown above!

To remedy this, starting with version 5.8, if no measure count is recognized or provided manually:

  1. The multiple rest is not deleted
  2. It is still exported in MusicXML format, but with a default count of 1, and a warning is issued to the user, like:

    Measure{#25} Multirest with no measure count, using default value 1

We can always manually fix that by selecting the “8” glyph and assigning it the shape 8 (TIME_HEIGHT), either via the popup Glyphs menu, or via the Times shapes palette:

Note the multiple rest is no longer displayed in red, and it will be exported in MusicXML with the correct count of 8 measures.