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Topic: Moving or placing all dynamics in one position (Read 3196 times) previous topic - next topic

Moving or placing all dynamics in one position

Hello again

I am editing previous scores. Turns out my clarinet guy told me to put all the dynamics on the top of the staff when the correct and common practice is to have them all at the bottom of the staff. (Perhaps I misunderstood him, and I will need to follow-up with him on it. ) Is there a shortcut that will move them all at the same time?

I'd also like to know if it's best to have them all in a fixed position on the staff? I'm always having to fiddle with them because I try them out too low and then they have collisions with high notes or hairpins or directions further down the line. It is a frustrating aspect that I would like to solve.

I did a search and there were some discussions from 4 -5 years ago, so maybe things have changed and are simpler now? Plus I don't speak code.

In a related question (and maybe this should go into a separate thread, but is anyone familiar with this resource:
Guidelines for Manuscript Preparation (Revised 2002) By Gayle Giese, Pick Edmondson. I do not have the $ for Gould's manual and wondered if this would do the job?

Thank you for your help! I am in the process of putting subtitles in all my scores and am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

Re: Moving or placing all dynamics in one position

Reply #1 –
(1) For moving all the dynamics at once (and similar tasks), you need the user tool globalmod.og (make sure it's got the .og suffix: that's the one that doesn't require "speaking code"). It may be included with the install these days - I'm not sure. Otherwise, you can download it from this forum. Find it at https://forum.noteworthycomposer.com/?topic=9383.0. It's dialog-based: it will lead you through the process with questions in dialog boxes. No need to figure out a code syntax.

(2) The best cheap alternative to Gould's book that I know of is actually free: it's a pamphlet called "Standard Music Notation Practice" put out by the Music Publishers' Association. Find it at http://www.mpa.org/sites/mpa.org/files/standard-practice-engraving.pdf. It won't answer all of your questions, though.

3) Re positioning dynamics: you don't need to make them all the same height. The primary need is to keep them from colliding with other score elements. It's best to have dynamics associated with a hairpin at the same height as the hairpin, though. And a score looks better if all the dynamics in the same system are as close to the same height as possible. But both of those rules are flexible if there is a need. Do try to center dynamics under the first note they apply to.

Re: Moving or placing all dynamics in one position

Reply #3 –
While I don't disagree that GlobalMod.og is a powerful and useful tool, it's not the only way to make "global" changes in a single staff. NWC has a feature called "Filtered Properties", which, although not as user friendly as GlobalMod.og, is something you can use without needing to install anything.

As an example, this is how you might use Filtered Properties to move all of the dynamics on a given staff.

1. Highlight all of the notes on a particular staff. I.e., put the cursor somewhere in that staff and do Edit > Select All.
2. Right click on the highlighted section and choose Filtered Properties... (or you can press Ctrl-F3).  This will show you a dialog with a box saying what you want to filter on, or find. It will usually remember whatever you filtered on last, and it will show you how many of those it found. Since you want something new, you could type it in the box, but the syntax might look strange, so we'll let NWC help fill it in. Click the "dice" button on the right (it has ": :" on it) and you'll see a drop-down list of different types of elements. Choose "Dynamic" from the list. This will put |Dynamic|* in the box. The "*" means to find all dynamics in the selection. There is a syntax you can use to select only certain dynamics (i.e. just the pp or fff) but let's keep it simple for now.
3. Click Next. This will show you a "Filtered Notation Properties" box, and will let you make changes to all of them at once. Just change the Staff Position property to the new value that you want, and click OK.

Let us know if you were able to make the changes you want with either of these methods.

Re: Moving or placing all dynamics in one position

Reply #4 –
Thank you all for such quick replies. I decided to try Mike's idea with the filtered properties and I am happy to report that all dynamics are now below the clarinet staff! It was quite easy to do it this way, I have adjusted two that still collided with some beamed runs, but what a time saver this was!! Now I am curious to know what else I could use filtered properties to save time on. Suggestions?

Re: placement of dynamics, what are the best settings to use? Best fit seems to make them all too far in front of the note. (Is there an easy way to post a snippet of what I mean rather than a complete score?) Why are there so many options for placement? What does preserve width do? When I make changes, the score doesn't seem to be actually changing.

I have more questions, having to do with setting up templates, what fonts to use, using x to insert a direction such as rit. versus using the dynamic variation option, etc. I will wait to get the dynamic positions figured out first.

Thanks again for your time and patience. I am learning so much and my scores are looking much more professional!

Re: Moving or placing all dynamics in one position

Reply #5 –
This page gives a description of the various placement options, and describes what they do. The best way to see how they work is to put something in a score and then change the various options and see how they appear.

When "Preserve Width" is not checked, the object is inserted without changing the spacing of the notes around it. You need to move it up or down so it doesn't overlap anything. When you check "Preserve Width", it effectively creates a spacer that is the same width as the object you are adding, so the notes get moved over. A historical note: the Spacer item is relatively new to NWC, and since its arrival, most people don't use the "Preserve Width" anymore. (I know someone will contradict me here).

Re: Moving or placing all dynamics in one position

Reply #6 –
The setting you want for placing dynamics in the right position (left to right) relative to the note they first apply to is "at next note/bar". Set the justification to "center".

Re: Moving or placing all dynamics in one position

Reply #7 –
Another tool for dynamics placement:  dynplace.js
Since 1998

Re: Moving or placing all dynamics in one position

Reply #8 –
Using the Global_Mod user tool, use the following command(s) in the dialogue:

Dynamic Pos-=n
where n is the number of steps DOWN you want to move the dynamic from its current position,

OR

Dynamic Pos=-n
where -n is the absolute position below the centre line you want the dynamics to be.
I plays 'Bones, crumpets, coronets, floosgals, youfonymums 'n tubies.