Different meters on different staves

[Tim Mariott]

Sherry

I have come across something peculiar in a choral score that I am entering. For just a few bars, one vocal part and the piano accompaniment are singing/playing in 6/8 meter, whilst three other vocal parts are singing in 2/4 meter. I wondered why we had so much trouble when we tried to sing this piece last year and we are trying again this year!

As far as I can see, Notation (quite sensibly in my view) sets the meter across all staves and I cannot see any way of setting the meter for an individual stave.

Can you just confirm my understanding and I will find a workaround that is sufficient for practice purposes.

Many thanks
Tim

[Sherry C]

Hi Tim,

That does sound like a challenging piece :)

You are correct that Notation Composer does not currently have the capability to have different meters for different staves (though it is on the "wish list").

Perhaps you could post here whatever workaround you come up with. We've only had a couple of requests for such a feature, but there may be others who simply haven't asked, and who would benefit from your insight and wisdom :)

Thanks!
Sherry

[Tim Mariott]

Sherry

Thanks for your rapid reply. No great rocket science in my workaround. I quickly worked out that it was easier to represent the notes written in 2/4 meter in a measure with a meter of 6/8 than vice versa.

So I just changed the note values of the 2/4 meter notes so they had the same relative duration in a 6/8 measure. The Notation score does now look slightly different to the printed score but the note durations are correct - and most of our choir members will probably never notice the difference!!!

Tim