First of all when trying to select “erase background” for instrument change text… the option is simply not there (we are of course in Engrave Mode under graphic editing) :
For dynamics the “erase background” option is there :
But the this option is ineffective on simple barlines, here is the end result for those two hairpins :
Not all items have an “erase background” property.
For instrument change labels, you can set the corresponding paragraph style to have a white background, which should produce the same effect.
Thanks a lot Lily,
This is valuable information and I will use your solution.
Now what shall I do about hairpins ??
As far as I’m aware, hairpins don’t generally erase barlines, it would be any descriptive text shown alongside the hairpin that would need to erase their backgrounds.
You can change how long hairpins must be on the far side of barlines in order for them to cross the barline in Engraving Options > Dynamics.
I really appreciate the speed and quality of your responses and will now write music with hairpins all over my barlines… as God intended !!
Sorry for the alarming Title, I will try to amend it, and thank you again for your precious help !
No worries!
This isn’t any fun if you have a lot of them to do, but you can add the hairpins as lines, add some Shift-X text that’s a few blank spaces, set the text to Erase Background, and move it into position. With the current drawing order, the text will erase the barline but not the lines you input.
Interesting … it does seem to be a lot of work, but the result looks great !!
Actually, it doesn’t. Hairpins crossing barlines is a non-issue. Look up any score from any major publisher.
Lily has already convince me to give up this approach, but let us not confuse “looks great” with “looks right”, from a purely aesthetic point of view, one may find one more attractive than the other !
In fine engraving the tradition is that hairpins do not erase barlines, and that is what musicians are accustomed to and expect.
