Staccato dot placement almost makes it look like a dotted note.
Page View Example.
Dot on beat “3&” should be lower.
Measure with default noteheads, is ok:
You’d like it closer to the tip of the notehead rather than centred on it?
It looks fine to me.
Rhythm dots are always to the right of the notehead and vertically aligned with its center.
4 Likes
Agreed
@superblonde What about this?:
I agree: the staccato on beat “3&” should be one space lower to avoid confusion. An augmentation dot appears to the right of the notehead, which is why the staccato dot should never appear next to the notehead.
Dots on top (bar end of stem, not notehead end) seem more appropriate in this case but I am not sure which is the proper ultimate answer. This seems exacerbated by the default Slash notehead which so big it covers beyond its own “space”. I switched to Small Slash Noteheads and it is better. It could be somewhat argued that the default Slash notehead is not to be used with articulation; but, the engraving engine should also be aware to avoid too-small distances.
Small Slash Noteheads, two examples:
By the way it is interesting that Dorico does not modify the color of the articulation to follow the color of the note. The note color here is applied because the playback is suppressed. But the staccato markings remain black, even though they are “part of the note”. In a way it is nice that the dot does not follow the color of the note, because gray dots would be harder to see, and the same goes for the accent mark. But then, why the slurs are gray as well, is an interesting difference.
Not sure what your application is here, but it strikes me that I hadn’t run into this issue before because I’ve never needed slashes with contour. I’m therefore curious how you’re using them.
FWIW, I’m not as crazy about the small slashes because they look a little too much like normal noteheads. I wonder if you might consider resizing them to somewhere in between the large and small slashes.
It would happen on any staccato slash notehead which resides in a space rather than on a line. I suppose another workaround, if using articulations like this on slash noteheads, is to only use slash noteheads which reside on a line.
This was for an improvisational passage where the soloist is supposed to incorporate those specific articulations into the improvisation, within a planing harmony, thus the ‘pitched slashes’ indicate the root note of the planing chord as a visual hint. The live performance was successful.
Slash regions do not provide the detail of notation that I wanted. So I used slash noteheads to create the desired affect.
I glad the performance was successful. How much instruction did the soloist need to interpret the notation?
This depends directly on the level of the performers and on the level of the conductor.
The simple answer is that I gave the performers three short sentences of instruction and no more than that. (Which is apparently far more than anyone else is willing to risk, towards a performance piece.)
The more complex answer is below. This story will now get controversial but there are a couple very specific points to make on this topic of notation and rehearsal instruction.
I had 15-minute timeslots, strictly timed, with two different large ensembles: one single 15-minute timeslot (rehearsal plus play though) with the college ensemble, and two 15-minute timeslots with the professional ensemble (later followed by live concert with professional ensemble).
The college ensemble: The entire rehearsal was spotty. The college ensemble conductor made several ‘lecturing’ statements within the larger rehearsal overall, not necessarily during my timeslot, when the ensemble had difficulties in reading, such as: “this should be written like so-and-so and that should be written like so-and-so because if you want to gain performances then the sheet needs to be easy to read. So that’s how you need to write this and that”. Which is only half true, with the other half being complete b@#($&. Because: writing like everyone else to the ‘lowest-common denominator’ will therefore sound like everyone else at the ‘lowest-common denominator’ . This is why the music and performances are boring, uninteresting, and there is no audience for the ensemble; the genre is ‘dead’ (ticket sales number only in the dozens, not even in the hundreds, and that’s after many in the audience are coerced/forced to buy tickets; they are not actually fans of the music). To this “mandate of lowest-common denominator notation”, I say: my goal is not to lower my art in order to “gain performances” if it compromises the ability to express my intention of the music. Charles Ives did not bend to that standard either. Using ‘conventional notation’ will yield one thing primarily: conventional-sounding music. I do not intend to ever write conventional-sounding music and I am happy to trade-off conventionally-sounding-performances in order to make the art that I want to make.
The professional ensemble: The professional ensemble provided two 15-minute timeslots on 2 different days for rehearsal, prior to live performance. The first rehearsal I gave no directions regarding this passage in how to treat the slashes/articulations, and studied the result. The rehearsal was also audio recorded, so I had the next day, and only 1 day, to relisten to the recording to make any notational adjustments. The first rehearsal, the professional soloists did what they usually do, what I half-expected them to do: they overplayed, with a a mindless muscle-memory derived run of notes, without regard to the articulations written. The result would have been worse if using a slash region. Therefore, in the second rehearsal, I gave one direction for this passage: “restrain yourself. it is far more important to hit the articulations. Rather than runs of 16th notes you may want to only play 8th notes, the most important thing is to hit those articulations.” They very carefully listened to the directions and were extremely attentive during this instruction (which is how professionals behave). The passage during rehearsal was a bit hesitant sounding yet had more of the aspect as written. I had zero time to make any other comment than that. 2 hours later was the live concert. I don’t know what happened during that break time. The piece was performed live and this passage went from being hesitant and tentative sounding, to being stunningly good and poignant, with very well expressed articulations and harmony, as written on the page.
I will publish the live performance on my YouTube channel if the recording ends up being allowed to publish by the organization (the decision is still in limbo).
The only reason I relate such detail (which some forum members do not deserve) is to express the point that there is extreme pressure in notation, in academia, and performance settings, to conform to the generic. There is pressure on composers from the published-music world to write in “traditional, easy-to-understand” ways. Some of this pressure is valid due to the extreme time-limited nature of live performance. There is also pressure created by engraving programs to notate according to their own standards, because the programs are designed to support specific traditions and standards. Dorico itself does not have a priority on innovating notation; meanwhile, notation is equivalent to artistic expression. Art is best when it breaks the generic and breaks from standards. These ensemble performances have minuscule audience numbers in part as a byproduct of their lack of innovation in musical expression: what they do has become boring, generic, commoditized. Hand-written scores broke notational rules naturally as a byproduct of their artisan nature, and due to the lack of standards of their time, as well as having more access to performers to explain intention. My compositions will break notational standards because I am primarily interested in art and innovation and in performers expressing my intention. Be careful whose advice to listen to, that is, don’t listen to those spouting generic cliche $&#$ because their music itself sounds like generic cliche $&#$. I would rather have a failed concert performance than a generic-sounding concert performance.
I hope Dorico leans more towards the side of innovation in engraving to allow new written expressions to push the envelope of music.