Crescendo line still crossing the barline

Hi,
I’m wondering why the crescendo hairpins are still crossing the barline even though the indication not to is toggled in the property panel. Is it because of the grace note on the first staff above?

I suspect it might well be because of the grace note, as it adds extra horizontal space.

You could shorten the hairpins a fraction so their rhythmic end position is inside their bar, rather than at the start of the next bar.

And/or increase this value in Engraving Options:

Hi pianoleo,
I don’t think this will help because the option in the property panel to stop the crescendo before the carline is already activated (and still don’t work…). I adjusted it manually in Engrave mode. I hope this can be fixed in a future version

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If you definitely want them to end before the barline in all layouts, you might find it easier to shorten them rhythmically in Write mode; that way you don’t have to adjust them graphically in Engrave mode differently in each layout.

Thanks for the tip Lilly, but I’m using 32th notes in this passage. By shortening the line by a 32th note, it is now to far from the barline, because of how the music is spaced in other staves. I think I don’t have the choice to go in Engrave mode.

You have the choice to tweak the setting I already mentioned, which will avoid your having to manually adjust these hairpins in Engrave mode.

Hi pianoleo,
Even if I multiply this value by 5, it doesn’t change anything… I’m pretty sure there is a bug because of the grace note. Also, I’m not sure I would like to avoid in any situation the crescendo./dim. crossing the barline. I just think it should not cross the barline if this specific option is activated in the property panel.

In order to report a bug, please upload a cutdown version of the problem project.

I know that in general this functionality works - including with grace notes at the barline - because I tried it (before suggesting it).

I have also had difficulties with hairpins not being positioned the same in parts as in the score (even dim. hairpins in the score turning into cresc. hairpins in the part). The recommended methods for adjustment have not worked for me, and I have had to check and adjust almost every one by hand in Engraving mode. The initial position of a hairpin does not follow expectations.

I think this aspect of Dorico would benefit from a revisit by the programmers.

David

With respect, your issues with hairpins - at least the ones you’ve mentioned in the past day or two - seem to be unrelated to the issue of hairpins crossing or not crossing barlines.

The setting in Engraving Options is a threshold for barline interaction; if the engraving option is set to 2 spaces and the gap on the page (between the barline and the first beat) is more than 2 spaces, the barline interaction property will not do anything. If the engraving option is set to 5sp and the gap on the page is 4sp, the barline interaction property should - and normally does - work if you turn it on. There’s also a global engraving option for whether hairpins should cross or not cross the barline; as usual the property is an override, so it’s not the case that all hairpins must cross the barline if you’ve set the threshold to something much higher.

FWIW I do interact with these settings quite a bit in my day to day work, and certainly in Dorico versions 4 and 3.5 they work predictably and correctly.

If you are referring to this thread where you wanted to move the end position of a hairpin, and you’re finding that my recommendation to lengthen the hairpin rhythmically in Write mode is not producing the result you want, could you please update/reply to your original thread accordingly?

Are you finding that after lengthening the hairpin in Write mode, its end position looks off? If so, does it still have the graphical offset you set in Engrave mode, and does deactivating the offset properties (to revert it to its default length and position) resolve the issue?

There it is!

Best,

Francis
Bug.dorico (605.0 KB)

This file prompts me to observe – and reproduce in a fresh file, in both Dorico 3.5 and 4.0:

  • When the engraving option is set to cross-barline, the Property switch does not work at all in the presence of grace notes. The choice to override the engraving option is not honored.
  • When the engraving option is set not to cross the barline (my preference, which may be why I didn’t notice this before), the Property switch does work to override it.
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I’ve never seen this. The only way I can even countenance it appearing to happen is if you have somehow managed to turn the hairpin inside out by giving it a negative length, but that ought to be impossible. Please provide an example of this happening in practice.

I assure you, it has happened to me a couple of times. The dim. hairpins were created in the score (and perhaps adjusted there) and then in the part, before I had made any adjustments to the part. were reversed and under the right hand end of the cresc hairpin which preceded them in the music.

Sorry, I cannot provide more evidence at present; but if it happens again, I will certainly do so then!

Best,

David

To return to the initial issue under discussion in this thread: the behaviour here is a bit subtle, but I believe explicable.

Gradual dynamics are unusual in that they can start and end at grace note positions; not many items in Dorico can do that. If you select a bar by clicking on a blank bit of staff and create a hairpin, if there is a grace note immediately following the barline, the hairpin will be set to end at the start position of that grace note. In this circumstance – where the duration of the hairpin matches the start position of the grace note – the Barline interaction property will take effect as expected. That’s because the barline position really is the same as the start position of the leftmost grace note to the right of the barline – and that’s regardless of whether the grace note is on the same staff as the gradual dynamic, because the rhythmic space occupied by grace notes applies to all instruments in the ensemble.

However, if you change the duration of the grace note, or add more grace notes, or remove them, then the duration of the hairpin will no longer match the barline’s position, and thus the Barline interaction property won’t apply – because the hairpin doesn’t end, rhythmically, at the barline position.

There’s a good deal of subtlety in all this (some of which arises from gradual dynamics that end at the barline at the end of the system, with grace notes at the start of the following system) and it’s not something that I would be particularly inclined to change at this point.

The practical, if inconvenient, thing to do would be to recreate the gradual dynamic after having made whatever adjustments to grace notes are required.

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I see! I have been playing around with this for a while now, and confirmed that I can also realign the endpoint of a hairpin with grace notes that were added later – in the same staff. When the grace notes are in a different staff, one can still do it by placing a temporary grace note in the staff with the hairpin. Thanks for the explanation, Daniel.

Further details:

I note that in the specific example of the score in message #13 – with a hairpin on a single note, preceded by a rest, and one or more grace notes added afterward in the same staff – shortening the hairpin skips over the (first) grace note, and jumps to the previous grid position. This doesn’t happen if the hairpin spans more than one note, or if there is a note rather than a rest right before the hairpin! There needn’t be a barline involved; this is also true within a bar.

Lengthening a hairpin always works as expected, not skipping the first grace note (again, in the same staff). This makes the above anomaly quite trivial, but I wanted to mention it in case the OP or others try it on the score in message #13.

Hi, is there a way to automatically make all crescendo and decrescendo stop before barlines, instead of going on each one and changing its properties? I could potentially use “Copying property settings to other layouts/frame chains”, but I am afraid it could change something I did not intend to change because it may copy more settings than just the stop before barline (or if I select a harping with only this change, it could remove other changes in other harpins).

In Engraving Options → Dynamics, there is an option for hairpins not to cross the barline. You have to open the Advanced Options… chevron under Gradual Dynamics. I wish this option were a little easier to find, it’s very useful.

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