"Leave the rests in." That's good to know.

For those not used to MIDI and NWC, I will explain that the program has a useful tool called "automatic bar lines", which puts the bar lines into a piece one is transcribing. (Of course, you have to tell the program what the time signature is ahead of time.) Automatic Bar Lines is good at letting you know if you missed a note or put in an extra one.

If a song begins with pick-up note(s), you have to put rests in front of them to fill up the first measure, otherwise Automatic Bar Lines just puts the pick-up notes in the first measure, thus screwing everything up royally. Chords fall in funny places and there are lots of ties, and notes go over bar lines when they shouldn't.

When this happens, click the undo button immediately. Later when the song is all done and ready for public view, take the initial rests out. I failed to do that with Around the Garden, which is why my link has a moment of silence at first.