How to do gliss line with stems?

[wing]

I’d like to know how I could achieve this style of glissando line with note stems to indicate rhythm. Examples:

(Kurt Stone)

(Elaine Gould)

(Bartok)

Thank you!

[Christian_R]

Hi @wing, you can just hide the noteheads, and apply a gliss. or a custom line.

[charles_piano]

With hidden noteheads?

Ninja’d by @Christian_R!

[wing]

Thanks! Is there a way to adjust the stem from the side where the notehead would be?

I only have the ability to adjust the stem from the opposing side of the notehead, but in some cases like this I find the inconsistent spacing from each stem to the gliss line to be visually bothersome. Wish I could just cheat the stem up a bit. Of course flipping the stem puts it on the wrong side and moving the notehead up to the next line will push it too far above the line:

And obviously adjusting the gliss line itself wouldn’t work without creating other angle issues.

If that’s not doable to adjust I will survive but it would be great if so!

[Christian_R]

@wing

Wish I could just cheat the stem up a bit.

Yes, you can. Here a possible workaround:

• copy the hidden notes into a separate voice (select the grey notes>copy>Paste Special>Paste into voice and choose another voice)
• hide their noteheads (the property should be already active, after pasting)
• set them at Voice column index 0
• remove the undesired rests
• (you may want to suppress the playback of all hidden notes)
• you have now a separate independent stem that you can position vertically, as an extension to the stem of the other voice, until it touches the gliss. line
  (If you need very fine adjustment, press Shift+Option(Alt)+Command(Control) while using the arrow keys)

Result:

Dorico file example:
gliss line aligned with stems without notehead.dorico (1.3 MB)

Here a video with detailed explanation:

[wing]

Wow @Christian_R, that is super helpful and a very clever workaround. Thanks for taking the time to show me a solution!

Hopefully in the future Dorico can add the ability to customize stem placement more precisely from either side (so this workaround wouldn’t be necessary), but it’s going to be helpful for the times I need a slow gliss like this. Fortunately it’s not something I have everywhere in my scores so it’s manageable.

Thanks again!