Alter placement of slurs?

Topic: Alter placement of slurs? (Read 4374 times) previous topic - next topic

Alter placement of slurs?

2014-09-24 04:44 pm

This has probably been discussed, but I haven't been able to locate a solution:

I'm producing music for church bulletins, where space is tight. Often the slurs on alto or tenor lines overprint lyrics. Increasing staff boundaries takes too much space on the page, and reducing stem lengths still leaves the slurs colliding with words. Can slurs be set to print from notehead to notehead, rather than from end-of-stem to end-of-stem?

Re: Alter placement of slurs?

Reply #1 – 2014-09-24 05:51 pm

If you select the first note of a slur group and go to its properties <Alt+Enter> you can select the slur direction (Up, Down or Default). Perhaps this will help some?

Re: Alter placement of slurs?

Reply #2 – 2014-09-24 06:16 pm

Thanks for the reply - but I'm looking for a solution when the slur must be downward for an alto line or upward for a tenor line - in other words, extending into the lyric space.

Re: Alter placement of slurs?

Reply #3 – 2014-09-24 08:28 pm

Quote from: jnelson522 – 2014-09-24 06:16 pm

Thanks for the reply - but I'm looking for a solution when the slur must be downward for an alto line or upward for a tenor line - in other words, extending into the lyric space.

Hi,

This is in fact a common situation with vocal scores. The normal solution for this is to create an additional staff that is layered with the staff where you want to change the slur location. You would create measures with invisible full rests for all the measures in that staff except for the ones where you want to change the slurs. In those specific measures, copy the notes to the layered staff, and change the stem heights to 0 or 1. Then, remove the slur from the notes in the original staff. The effect will be that in the new layered staff, the slur will be closer to the note heads.

If that explanation sounds a bit complicated, I could post an example for you, if you can post a sample clip showing the notes whose slurs you are trying to fix.

Mike

Re: Alter placement of slurs?

Reply #4 – 2014-09-24 09:31 pm

Thanks, Mike. This is the solution I came up with, also - although it's not quite ideal, as the slur ends up crossing the stem line. I wish that NWC allowed for slurs to print in the same way as ties!

Re: Alter placement of slurs?

Reply #5 – 2014-09-25 12:49 am

Quote from: jnelson522 – 2014-09-24 06:16 pm

I'm looking for a solution when the slur must be downward for an alto line or upward for a tenor line - in other words, extending into the lyric space.

The attached is about the best that can be done without using a slur font.

Re: Alter placement of slurs?

Reply #6 – 2014-09-26 01:46 pm

Isn't this sort of thing being addressed in the new release? Or was that just a "test"?

Re: Alter placement of slurs?

Reply #7 – 2014-09-26 07:02 pm

Quote from: Susanna – 2014-09-26 01:46 pm

Isn't this sort of thing being addressed in the new release? Or was that just a "test"?

The latest beta preview does include a "test.slur" user object, where the endpoints and curve shape can be directly manipulated. There is also an experimental "marker" object that can be used to "nudge" a normal slur's endpoints up or down. Besides being purely experimental at the moment, each of these methods has limitations: the lines drawn by the test.slur object are of a uniform thickness, and thus don't look like regular slurs. (On the other hand, it does implement dotted or dashed lines as an option, but that is a different issue.) The marker object will give normal looking slurs, but only the vertical positions of the endpoints can be changed, so they will often touch the note stems unless other measures are taken. Right now, Rick's approach (in an earlier post on this thread) gives the best-looking slurs using the official release version of NWC. However, there will likely be additional changes in the beta previews, so keep posted.

Mike