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Topic: Layering and Slurs (Read 6612 times) previous topic - next topic

Layering and Slurs

The layering feature would be very useful for the choral music that I'm attempting to notate in Noteworthy. However, when a slur is placed on a group of notes, it blocks the other staves notes, which are on the next staff. The only way to change the slur's position is by changing the notes' stem direction, and that will confuse the heck out of the sopranos and altos (and tenors and basses, pretty much everybody). Please let me know if you've found a way around this.

Re: Layering and Slurs

Reply #1 –
Personally, I'm not satisfied with this aspect of the program, as well as other issues brought about by layering staves.

I do very much like the idea of layering, I can make practice tapes of individual parts as well as print them out separately for the singers. I would like to be able to layer them into traditional SA and TB staves (I also need SSA single staff from three staves) and have the resulting score print as if it was notated that way originally.

I am hoping that in a future release, NWC will internally combine the layered staves into a single staff, simulating it being keyed in that way, and then present it visually as such...

We'll see what the experts on this forum have to say about workarounds, I've not found any that satisfy me.

Good Luck!

Re: Layering and Slurs

Reply #2 –
Specifically for this problem I would like to be able to position slurs where I want them.
Possibilities are:

1. Over the note heads. (or under if stems are up)
2. Over the stems.
3. Between the stems (i.e. a bit shorter than normal)

I would also like to be able to slope them (or even better to have them sloped automatically, but then adjustable).

Ties are also a problem in layering and it would be nice to be able to specify whether a tie is bowed up, or bowed down.
At the moment if the stems are down the tie is up, and vice versa, which causes a nasty clash when you layer a tied alto g with a tied soprano b for instance.

I've just installed a copy of NWC for a friend and noticed that we have not had a new version for nearly six months! Does this pressage something big?

Re: Layering and Slurs

Reply #3 –
I'm tempted to say: add this to the wish list.
This being said, I konw by own experience that some wishes are realized; and that with the (late) autumn often comes a new version :-)
But only God and Eric know when the next issue is to come.
6 months is a bit short, 9 months is better for a complete pregnancy :-)

NWCly yours

Re: Layering and Slurs

Reply #4 –
This subject has popped up more than once before and I guess will keep doing so until it gets sorted.
I agree with Sue that "..workarounds, I've not found any that satisfy me." but I have tried the following and have found them better than doing nothing.

semibreves - you can set the stem direction either way, forcing any slur (or tie) to be positioned correctly without actually changing the score (or confusing the singers/players)

In some other (rather limited)cases I have added an occasional stem-down note as a chord member to a tied step-up note thereby forcing the slur above the slurred notes. As long as the added note appears in the lower line (alto or bass) and layering is turned on then the printed appearance of the whole score is acceptable although it becomes a nuisance when printing just one line.

Finally in (even more limited) cases applying a position offset to some of the notes can at least move them out of the way of what would otherwise be an overlapping slur. Don't move them too far or the confusion created may be even worse.

Also it's worth considering if layering may not be necessary for a particular piece. I believe that slurs work better in a single staff with chords combining stem-up and stem-down notes and certainly everything is fine if you print four separate staves in which case you don't need to worry about stem direction.

Hope this helps (and that NWC keeps getting better!)

Re: Layering and Slurs

Reply #5 –
I've just started using Composer for four-part barbershop arrangements and these often involve slurs (we call 'em swipes") in one or more parts against held or counter-movement in other parts. I'm using layering with stem direction identifying parts in standard barbershop notation. After a few frustrating days of overlapping slurs and ties I discovered that I can get the ties and slurs to lean the way I want them (toward the "outside" of each staff) by duplicating the other part's note in a chord with the part that owns the staff - e.g. adding the baritone note to the bass staff chord that starts the slur or tie. The only problem is when beamed notes are involved, since automatic beams doesn't work right with split-stem chords! (Wish it did.) Only one set of stems get beamed, the other one stays separate. Ugly. Here the solution is to use a quarter-note in the chord, which hides "under" the beamed eighth/sixteenth note. Of course, this won't always work either, but most of the time is solves the problem.
Cliff

Re: Layering and Slurs

Reply #6 –
I agree with Peter. I want more control over the way slurs are positioned. I also notate for barbershop music, which requires layering. The lead and tenor tracks are on an upper staff with a treble clef, the baritone and bass tracks are below, on a lower staff with a bass clef. Treble and baritone parts always have stems up; lead and bass parts always have stems down.

The main problem is, with this software (version 1.70) slur marks are for some reason located very far from the notes -- sometimes way above the ends of the stems. This often causes problems with barbershop notation. For example, sometimes the slur mark for the baritone (stems up, remember) in the lower staff actually extends above the slur mark for the lead (stems down) in the upper staff, with both slur marks obscuring the lyrics in the middle.

Nearly changing the slur direction from "upward" to "downward" for the baritone (for example) won't help, because that will usually deposit the slur mark right on top of the bass notes.

What is needed is the ability to vary the staff position, such as is possible with "expression placement" -- on an individual slur rather than a universal basis -- to move the slur marks down closer to the note heads.

Re: Layering and Slurs

Reply #7 –
Good points. I myself sometimes resort to editing the NWC output in PDF (using a drawing program that can edit PDF) in order to place the slurs where I want them. Related to this: Is there much of a need for "dashed" ties? I encounter these when lyric lines have different numbers of syllables.

Re: Layering and Slurs

Reply #8 –
I too write for 4-part singing. I use to put the notes for e.g. Tenor 1 (stems up) on one 1st staff and Tenor 2 (stems down) on the 2nd and then layer them together. Problems occurs with downward slurs which tend to interfere with the lyrics. In melismas, I put the two voices together on the 1st staff as “chords” and make all slurs here go upwards. I place the 1st (Tenor 1) note (stem up) of the melisma on the 2nd staff, and then fill out the remaining part of it with rests. I slur the whole “note-and-rests melisma” downwards (which makes the slur be put rather high up, beginning from the 1st note). I make the rests “invisible” and use the placement mechanism to move them downwards, until I get the slur where I want it (using layering).

Sometimes, I cannot use the 1st note because the length isn’t right, or so. I then use a rest in this position too. I don’t make this 1st rest invisible, as this makes the slur disappear as well, but I use the colouring mechanism to make it white and then move it upwards out of the staff, using the later invisible rests for pressing the slur downwards.

It’s a bit tricky (I hope I make this clear, English is not my 1st language), but after a while this doesn’t take too much time, and the printed result is mostly very nice. Nevertheless, I would very much appreciate an easier and more direct way of controlling the position of slurs (they are really too far away from the notes). I would also welcome a mechanism for shortening the stems of individual notes, in order to avoid low notes interfering with the lyrics.

I did put these proposals on to the wish list long ago, without success. Perhaps somebody who masters the English language better, should try again.

Best wishes,

Paul