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Topic: Placement of slurs and ties (Read 9338 times) previous topic - next topic

Placement of slurs and ties

I tried to reply to https://forum.noteworthycomposer.com/?topic=768 but my browser refuses to do anything when I click on "Add you own reply". (Help Eric, what am I doing wrong. I also tried to setup defaults from the help page with the same result)

I have the same problem with slurs, ties and rests. As most of the scores I enter in NWC is for choral pieces, I had to find a solution. What I do is to first enter all the notes on separate hidden staves for each voice for correct playback. I then make copies of the staves to set it up for display. I use layering to combine the voices, and wherever slurs or ties falls on the wrong side I chord the notes to force the direction of the slurs, rests etc. Remember that when you have problems with fitting rests (a rest cannot be chorded with a note of the same duration) if you layer a half note with a quater note it will print as a quater note.
With the help of Boxmarks and NWCV15 fonts and layering I found that I could notate almost any type of score and make it look and sound correct.

Re: Placement of slurs and ties

Reply #1 –
https://forum.noteworthycomposer.com/?topic=751 also looked at this problem, but Alex's case where he presumably wants the slurs on the same side of the note as the tails (and the lyrics?) there isn't a direct solution. I've got slur control on my wish list - put it on yours. In the meantime, perhaps the export of NWC previews into a publishing suite is the most effective work around. You need to devise a slur 'picture' using a drawing package then add the slurs where required. It may even be necessary to add the lyrics at this stage to ensure correct positioning. A nuisance I know, but very effective when you've got the knack, and of course once the composition is in a publishing program you can add any extra embellishments you wish.

Re: Placement of slurs and ties

Reply #2 –
> but my browser refuses to do anything when I click on "Add you own reply".

The browser is supposed to open a new browsing window with a reply form. Which browser are you using?

Re: Placement of slurs and ties

Reply #3 –
I normally use IE4.0, but it looks like I've got some kind of problem there. This reply works from Netscape 4.04.

Peter, this is a bit difficult to explain without showing an example, but I'll try. Let say you have a b with the stem showing upwards, slurred with the next note, NWC will place the slur at the bottom. If you chord another note eg. a g with the stem showing down, the slur jumps to the top. This means that you can control which side the slur must go, and using layering one can print notes on top of each other. I hope this makes sense.

Re: Placement of slurs and ties

Reply #4 –
This reply is authored from IE4. I looked through the IE options, but could not find anything that would break our reply process. Perhaps someone else knows what might be wrong with your IE4.

Re: Placement of slurs and ties

Reply #5 –
Well, thanks to Roelie Oelofse and the rest of you, I was able to figure out how to control the placement of slurs and ties. It's a bit klugey, but it works.

Less than stellar marks, however, to NWC Tech Support, to whom I had sent the very same message I had posted to the forum.

I got the following reply:

==================================

Hi Alex:

You cannot control the direction of the ties or slurs in NoteWorthy
Composer.

Regards,
Beth
NoteWorthy ArtWare, Inc.

==============================

But you can. . .

Here's how it works:

All you need to do is to have a separate staff for each of the two voices you want to combine through layering.

You enter the notes for each staff, stem up on one, stem down on the other.

You then put in the necessary slurs/ties, which will most likely end up on the wrong side.

Then you take the first note of each slur and add a chord member with the note the *other* voice has at the same position, but with the stem in the opposite direction. The slur/tie will jump to the opposite side.

You do this for every voice, then layer the results (the overlayed notes will print correctly, and voila!-- you get four sets of slurs/ties--above and below each staff.

Neat stuff.

And thanks again.

(Although I would like to rally for a wish list item that would let you, in addition to the automated slur/tie capability, to manually enter any slur or tie you want, simply by moving your cursor to the begin point and clicking, then moving to the end point and clicking--which would cause a tie to be drawn between the two points.)

Alex

Re: Placement of slurs and ties

Reply #6 –
Just to know...
I learned how to write music many years ago, but I think that it ain't very good practice to superimpose elements. What you do if you make slurs on the same side as stems. And I'm sure that's the reason why NWC puts ties (which are on the stem side) between notes, and not "through".

So for legibility, I'd recommand to use separate staves.

just a last thing I'd like to know : I avoid to use alyering, as it's called "experimental" feature. Not perfect (yet), but really good thing though -- but will it be present in next versions ?

Re: Placement of slurs and ties

Reply #7 –
Here is an update on staff layering:
The staff layering feature will be supported in the next version of NWC. This is why we released the tool that enables the feature for all existing NWC files. The feature is not perfect at the moment, so we currently offer it with its known (experimental) limitations. However, please feel free to take advantage of it now, as support for it will be included in future NWC releases.

Re: Placement of slurs and ties

Reply #8 –
Regarding slur directions, we stand by the offical language that user specification of slur direction is not supported. The language in the help file says it best:

> The direction of slurs are now determined by the first
> note of the slur: if the stem of the first note is
> upward, then the slur will be underneath the notes.
> If the stem of the first note is downward, then the slur
> is extended above the notes. If the first note is a split
> direction chord, then these rules are reversed.

It is difficult for us to cover every possible work around with each support incident that we receive, which is why we offer the many user facilities on this web site (so others can share their experiences, work arounds, etc.).

See also: https://forum.noteworthycomposer.com/?topic=142, https://forum.noteworthycomposer.com/?topic=751

Re: Placement of slurs and ties

Reply #9 –
First of all, I would like to apologize for my comments regarding the terse reply I first received from NWC Tech Support.

It would have been nice, however, if they had suggested to place my question on the forum to see if users could come up with some sort of workaround (which they did).

Their last response is, however, much more informative--and it does indicate that the user has some control over the placement of slurs by the control he has over the direction of the stem on the first note of the slur.

Although full user control over the placement of slurs would be a very useful enhancement, another way of handling this would be to allow users to *hide* a note--meaning, that you could select a note (or a rest), and toggle it to be hidden--i.e. not print (perhaps it could appear "grayed out" on the screen).

These hidden notes could be used to solve the slur placement problem, and, I think, could be useful in other situations, for examle, to resolve some rhythmic notation problems.

Alex

Re: Placement of slurs and ties

Reply #10 –
Good last proposal.
Otherwise, as you state it yourself, search for help in the manual/online help in which was the information you needed :-)
But this would not have allowed to have so many anwsers ;-)

To support: many thx for the "Layer" feature info. I'll use it much more from now (will allow me to better place lyrics, with 1 pixel adjustement in height).

Re: Placement of slurs and ties

Reply #11 –
I also want to add my voice (again) in praise of NoteWorthy Artware's support network, and to the many fellow users who make it possible.

I recently purchased an upgrade of Cubasis, mainly to get rid of the stupid dongle. (Don't ask me why I use it... suffice it to say it's the first sequencer I used, and the one I'm most familiar with). The damn thing crashed my computer every time I tried to run it. It took a full week to get an answer from their tech support, and that only to try to book a time when I could call them by voice phone so they could try to figure it out.

I had to battle the problem by myself. No forum, no newsgroup, no answer from tech support. Turns out that an obscure .ini was set for MMX on by default, with no way of changing it except for manual editing.

A long story, but one to remind us all of just how good we've got it here.

Re: Placement of slurs and ties

Reply #12 –
At last! This reply was sent from IE4.01. I eventually reinstalled IE to fix the problem. I hate Microsoft!

Re: Placement of slurs and ties

Reply #13 –
Alex,

I am glad that I could be of assistance, but I think I have to defend NWC Support. Their response to you was the correct one - you cannot control the placement of a slur directly, it would be wrong for them to state that the s/w can do something if it means you have to fiddle to get it going. No software package could be expected to work 100% for every user, it is sometimes up to us as the users to "invent" ways to circumvent shortcomings. That is why this forum and the newsgroup exists, and as we all know it give Eric a good idea which feature to put in the next release.

I do not know of any other package with such a healthy support base as this - both from the developer and users.

My own experience with Microsoft today just made me appreciate what we have here that much more.

Re: Placement of slurs and ties

Reply #14 –
Back to slurs. Maybe I haven't thought this through properly, BUT:

Roelie said : <If you chord another note eg. a g with the stem showing down, the slur jumps to the top.>

Alex said : <Then you take the first note of each slur and add a chord member with the note the *other* voice has at the same position, but with the stem in the opposite direction. The slur/tie will jump to the opposite side.>

So what do you do if there isn't a note in the second voice at that particular point? You can't construct a chord, so the slur will be on the opposite side to the tail.

Peter.

Re: Placement of slurs and ties

Reply #15 –
I think I'd better check out the layering function. I have stayed away from it because it is *experimental* and may not work in future releases.

However, I too would like (and have put on the official wish list) user placement of slurs. I work mostly with Choral music, and being able to place a slur where I want it (instead of by stem direction) would be a big plus. Same with ties.

And, some church music from around the turn of the century uses what appears as a slur as a performance mark (e.g. make the singer think 'legato'), even though the word syllable is not spread across two or more notes as in a 'true' slur. I think I might be able to simulate this as well using the experimental layering... I can try, anyhow.
 

Re: Placement of slurs and ties

Reply #16 –
I have to take exception to marsu's comments about legibility and superimposition of ties and stems. It's been common practice for at least a century or two to combine paired orchestral instruments onto the same staff, with both stems and slurs/ties facing in opposite directions. A glance at any moderately complicated orchestral score will show examples of this. There's never any problem with superimposing stems and slurs because of the simple rule, always followed, that says that slurs must be extended far enough away from the staff that they don't intersect any stems. (In fact, slurs, as opposed to ties, generally run from stem-end to stem-end rather than from note to note in such circumstances.)

As to legibility, there are inevitably compromises, but I assure you that the common solution is usually a whole lot better than (a) twice as many staves in the score or (b) slurs and ties that cross each other in the middle of the staff.

There is a further issue here, which is the placement of articulation marks such as staccato dots and accent wedges. Convention says that on a shared staff, these should be on the outside of the staff, on the stem side of the notes to which they apply. In practice, this means that they, like slurs, are often placed at the ends of the stems rather than near the note heads. This is definitely an area where NWC needs to become more savvy if the layering feature is to be fully useful. Right now such marks can disappear if they happen to coincide with a note head in the other part - and may be hard to read even if they're visible, since they end up in a non-standard location.