How do I use full bar rests in LilyPond with long bar lengths?

Question

I am working with a file that has some bars of very long duration (the first bar of the piece is in 20/8), and simply putting R1 will not give me a full bar rest. In the following bar of 8/8, it works perfectly well, but nothing I do will make it work for these more awkwardy long bars. In the log, I get:

> /var/folders/zw/_lwqqr5n7_b5th2s8vr1ck140000gn/T/frescobaldi-kbs0qgv0/tmpk6r0vi2i/Quintet.ly:24:3: warning: barcheck failed at: 1
  
>  R1

>Preprocessing graphical objects...

>programming error: Multi_measure_rest::get_rods (): I am not spanned!

>continuing, cross fingers

>programming error: Object is not a markup.

>continuing, cross fingers

>programming error: Multi_measure_rest::get_rods (): I am not spanned!

When I input several full measure rests whose duration is equal to the full bar, it does export a full bar, but it still throws an error:

>/var/folders/zw/_lwqqr5n7_b5th2s8vr1ck140000gn/T/frescobaldi-kbs0qgv0/tmpk6r0vi2i/Quintet.ly:24:3: warning: barcheck failed at: 1
  
>  R1 R2 R1

>/var/folders/zw/_lwqqr5n7_b5th2s8vr1ck140000gn/T/frescobaldi-kbs0qgv0/tmpk6r0vi2i/Quintet.ly:24:6: warning: barcheck failed at: 3/2

>  R1 

>  R2 R1

I'd prefer not to go through this entire thing with lots of errors being thrown if possible. Are there any easy fixes? I can't just break up the bar, what I'm doing is essentially a transcription, and I'm trying to be as accurate to the manuscript as possible.

Answer 1

For a full bar rest, you should use a capital R (as you have).

If the time signature is 4/4 or similar, you then put the number value of a full bar: R1

If you're in a time signature that is filled by another single or dotted value, say 3/4 or 6/8, put this value instead: R2.

But, when the time signature is not filled by a single or dotted value, as in your example in 20/8, you can "multiply" by the time signature: R1*20/8

For several full bar rests in a row, you can again multiply by the number of bars that you want (say three): R1*20/8*3