Matching bar length
How Tonograph keeps each bar's notes the same length as the time signature, and how to fix bars that don't match.
The bar length meter#
The right end of the Edit palette shows how much the bar with the cursor holds next to the length of the time signature.
It turns amber when the bar is short and vermilion when it overflows. The unit is the note of the time signature’s lower number, so in 4/4 it counts quarter notes.
Push overflow to the next bar#
When a longer note value no longer fits in a bar, the notes that don’t fit move to the start of the next bar.
A note that crosses the barline is split in two and joined with a tie. Tuplets and percussion beats move whole instead of being split. If the next bar overflows in turn, the overflow keeps moving on toward the end of the song. If the last bar overflows too, a bar is added. Edits that don’t change a bar’s length, such as adding a technique, leave bars alone.
You can turn this off with Push Overflow to Next Bar on the General tab of . It’s on at first. When it’s off, a bar that overflows stays as it is.
Short bars#
When deleting beats or shortening a note value leaves a bar short, it isn’t filled with rests by default.
A short bar turns the meter amber and gets a mark on the score. The same happens when you type a fret into an empty bar: its full-length rest becomes a note of the value selected in the Edit palette, and the remainder of the bar stays empty. A bar added at the end of the song by pushing overflow also holds only the notes that moved into it.
Turn on Fill Short Bars With Rests on the General tab of to always add rests at the end of a bar that becomes short. The beats you wrote stay where they are.
Fill the rest with rests#
In a bar that’s too short, click the meter to fill the remainder with rests.
Choosing does the same. This works on the bar even while Fill Short Bars With Rests is off. The meter only fixes bars that are too short, so for a bar that overflows, delete notes or change their lengths to make it fit.
Find bars that don’t match#
Press ⌘⌥→Alt+Shift+Right to jump to the next bar of the wrong length.
Go back with ⌘⌥←Alt+Shift+Left. Bars of the wrong length are also marked on the score and listed on the Warnings tab of the bottom panel. To hide the marks on the score, turn off Mark bars whose length does not add up on the Display tab of . The meter and the list still appear.