Re: missing bar numbers after manual line breaks within incomplete measures: bug or feature?

[Alexander Kobel]

On 10/01/2013 04:17 PM, pls wrote:
> Hey all,
>
> according to the NR "bar numbers are typeset by default at the start
> of every line except the first line".  In the following example the
> second line starts with an incomplete measure which automatically
> results in a missing bar number.   I would expect a bar number at the
> beginning of the next complete measure.  What's the common practice
> here?  Gould just generally recommends to "place bar numbers at the
> beginning of each system" but she doesn't say anything about lines
> starting with an incomplete measure.  (I know the commands to make
> bar numbers visible.)

Hi Patrick,

not an authority argument, but my two pence with the rationale behind:

Any integer bar number at the start of the system would be misleading, 
as you probably figured. In your example, the proper number to place 
after the break would be 5.5, right? What if you put "5" there and the 
conductor tells the player to start "at measure 5"? That's beginning of 
the line, or back in time from the break?
More general, there's a good point why the rule is avoid breaks inside a 
measure: keeping track of bar numbers is fairly easy, keeping track of 
accidentals can be more involved. Double-check for clarity there; I 
remember one song where my choir memorized a wrong note, probably for 
exactly this reason, and I had a really hard time correcting them when I 
conducted the piece years later.

That being said, I also sometimes use in-measure line breaks if (I 
think) it makes sense. So far that's exclusively for canons with 
upbeats, where I want the systems to approximately line up, or songs
- with several stanzas,
- where the chorus comes first,
- the stanzas start with a partial, and
- ending the chorus system with a lot of first syllables looks terrible.
In this case, I give a bar number to the first full measure in the new 
system, as you suggested; having to place it manually is okay IMHO, 
since you already enforced the break.


Best,
Alexander