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Topic: excess space after first note under slur (Read 8146 times) previous topic - next topic

excess space after first note under slur

Now there is a new problem: some (only some) groups of notes under a slur have a large space between the first and second notes of the group. This is not related to the 'Increase note spacing for larger note values' thing under Page Setup>Options; I turn this off, and the extra space appears regardless of the length of the first note. Also it is not affected by the presence or absence of an underscore before the syllable in the lyrics. I cannot find any difference between the syllables that get this extra space and those that don't. But it occurs frequently enough to bugger up the page count, e.g. things that would fit easily on one page otherwise take up two because there are so many of these unwanted extra spaces after notes. Does anyone out there have an explanation and treatment for this phenomenon?

Stephen

Re: excess space after first note under slur

Reply #1 –
I've never observed slurring to cause extra note spacing, perhaps if you posted an example on the newsgroup someone might be able to figure out what's causing it.

I'd have a look at items on other staves, since NWC lines up the note times it could be that some item on another staff is taking up space, forcing the additional space on all staves. Text items with "Preserve Width" checked on comes to mind, but even the "Best Fit" and "Before Other Staff Signatures" alignments can cause added space to be used in some situations.

Fred

Re: excess space after first note under slur

Reply #2 –
Adding a slur to a note will not cause a note to take more space. You can confirm this by simply selecting the note and clicking the slur tool button. If the actual width of the note changes when you perform this action, then please send your example file to us, as this shouldn't happen.

Re: excess space after first note under slur

Reply #3 –
Hello Fred! It's not 'preserve width' either, and there is only one staff. NWC Online: It is not the slur itself that does it; but it is under some slurs that it shows up. Removing the slur only causes the notes to distribute themselves over the following syllables of the lyrics and tells us nothing. But removing the lyrics does tell us something; it causes the spacing to return to normal. So it is something connected with the lyrics; but what? If I am to send you a sample file, how do I go about it?

Stephen

Re: excess space after first note under slur

Reply #4 –
some points:
1. Peter: the grace note hint seems a bug to me; NWSupport, will it keep this behavio(u)r? Knowing that specifying "Lyrics Syllable" as "Always" to the grace note removes this hint. (You can also set "never" to the grace note, and "always" to the non-grace" note; experiment for 8 combinations (grace,non-grace,slur=> 8 possibilities))
2. Stephen: use '_' instead of spaces to make more than one word/syllable being attached to one note. This is available since NWC 1.20 I think :)
3. Stephen: you can also add notes and specify them *not* to have lyrics (useful for some short notes before the next long one, in psalmody)
4. Peter: you can have a rest "chorded" with a note, provided you enter the rest first, and the note be longer than the rest. But the "visibility" is for the chord in its entirety.

HTH!

Re: excess space after first note under slur

Reply #5 –
1. Sorry - I should have said that you have to set Lyric/Always

2. That's what I said too :-(

4. Yes I know you can. I think I'm a couple of steps ahead of you here ;-)

Peter

Re: excess space after first note under slur

Reply #6 –
A bit of experimentation shows that the lyric syllable (under standard rules) will not extend beyond the centre of the last notehead of a slurred (or tied) sequence of notes.

Intiguingly the space after the first note is much larger than the spaces after subsequent note in the sequence.

This is a distinct improvement on the old lyric alignment where the syllable stopped well short of the second note.

So a long syllable will extend the spacing after the note, but it is the syllable that is doing it, not the slur or tie.

HTH
Peter

Re: excess space after first note under slur

Reply #7 –
A bit more thought (driving in to work) and more experimantation!

Adding a slur does in fact increase the note spacing to the next note (for a sufficiently large syllable) because it moves the start of the syllable to the start of the first note, but the total space occupied stays the same (approximately) because there is now less space taken before the note.

Re: excess space after first note under slur

Reply #8 –
Hah, I did not think of the possible effects of a lyric syllable. Yes, under default behaviour, a slur can change note spacing as lyric syllables get reformatted.

Re: excess space after first note under slur

Reply #9 –
did some tests myself, and the only case where it does some changes, is when lyrics are too long, such as in psalmody: "bless_the_lord_my_soul" under one single note (breve or whole), and lyrics are set to "standard rules".
In any other case, it's the same.

Re: excess space after first note under slur

Reply #10 –
Aha! I wasn't hallucinating! Now can someone tell me how to move the notes together again? Marsu: can one now bunch syllables under a single note? How? For a long stretch of recitative this would be useful, but my understanding has always been that NWC didn't permit it.

Stephen

Re: excess space after first note under slur

Reply #11 –
You can put syllable together as on pseudo-syllable by linking them with underscores. These print out as blank spaces. Default behaviour is that the note is centered on the syllable. If you want it at the start of the syllable just tie an invisible grace note to the recit note.

Being more adventurous, you can layer another staff and insert invisible rests in the rhythm of the chant - very effective when playing back. (Note to NoteWorthy - please can we have the ability to chord an invisible rest with a visible note then one wouldn't have to use a separate stave :-)

Re: excess space after first note under slur

Reply #12 –
Thanks, everyone. Is it possible, when this phenomenon of more space after the first note of a slurred group appears, to shorten that space to make it the same as the spaces between the other notes?

Stephen

Re: excess space after first note under slur

Reply #13 –
Yes. Just add blank text that keeps its width, or add extra note spacing to the later notes in the slur sequence.

Re: excess space after first note under slur

Reply #14 –
NWC has always been pretty good about adding extra spacing between notes. Unfortunately, what I want to do is to reduce the excess space after the first note, not to increase the spaces after the following notes. Maybe this should go on the wish list: NWC has learned addition, it's time to move on to subtraction.

Stephen

Re: excess space after first note under slur

Reply #15 –
But in this case, by adding space between other notes, you will actually reduce the space added on the other note (since the space is added to make the long lyric syllable fit under its assigned notes).

Re: excess space after first note under slur

Reply #16 –
Touché. But Stephen is right in principle. NWC is very good at expanding, but we never seem to be able to squeeze things up a bit (or shorten note stems) when spacing is tight.

NWC does have reasonable parameters for note/lyric spacing and so avoids clashes and awkward layout, but it would be nice to be able to tighten them on occasion (or indeed semi-permanently in user template defaults) so that we can avoid that extra bar on the extra page.

In hope
Peter

Re: excess space after first note under slur

Reply #17 –
Thank you, Peter. You have stated the problem precisely. And the reason for the extra space I complained about in the beginning--this would be convincing, if only it were not so often the case that the total width of the notes under the slur is substantially greater than the total width of the lyric syllble they accompany, even without the extra spacing.

Stephen

Re: excess space after first note under slur

Reply #18 –
Could you give us the URL of a file which has this kind of problem? I don't "see" it. Maybe some of us could find a solution?

Re: excess space after first note under slur

Reply #19 –
Alas, when I generate a file on NWC, it rather seldom comes with a URL.

Stephen

Re: excess space after first note under slur

Reply #20 –
well, the "U" in URL being Uniform, not Unique, it may be file://C|/My documents/NWC files/author/booklet/score023.nwc
for the "score023" file, but it wouldn't be usable for anyone but the user of your PC.
Don't you have a (free) web site where you could put files, such as tripod, apple, geocities, multimania or others? It may help in that case.