I see how to set the minimum duration for slashes in slash duration, but when I set it to the half note for meters with a half-note beat unit, the result is diamond noteheads. Is there a way to change these to normal “quarter” slashes?
If you go to the Notes page of Engraving Options, you’ll see the Slashes with stems option, and can cohose Normal there. This will use oblique unfilled slashes for half notes, and wider ones for whole notes.
You can of course edit the Slash noteheads notehead set in Library > Notehead Sets to change which noteheads appear in this set. To use the regular slash for both quarter notes and half notes, select the half note slash and click the button to remove it from the set. Then select the quarter note slash, and in the panel below, set Duration to 1/2 note (minim) and ensure that Use for durations shorter than and equal is set.
Thank you @dspreadbury, but I don’t also want to change the appearance of stemmed half-note “slashes” for passages where I need them to look like typical half notes. Instead, I just want to be able to use plain unstemmed slashes to represent the beat unit in regular old slash regions. Is that not possible? I’m guessing not without also changing the appearance of half notes slashes everywhere.
My solution for now has been to manually insert quarter note unstemmed slashes and then hide every other one with 1% scale. Perhaps this is the only way.
I don’t think there’s a better way of achieving this than what you’re doing. Is it a commonly-used approach to show half note slashes in this way? What’s the benefit to the player of having some bars show two “quarter note” slashes while another bar shows two “half note” slashes? I’m curious what the different notation is communicating.
In my experience, a stemless slash represents a beat, not a quarter note duration. Typically of course they are the same, since the majority of music in styles that use slash notation also use the quarter note beat unit. In 3/2 or 4/2, with three and four beats respectively, it is confusing to see six or eight slashes in a measure, as it would be to see three slashes in a measure of 6/8.
Ideally, there might be some better alternative, like a half-note equivalent slash—and Dorico does this with diamonds. But it just looks so odd to see three diamonds without stems in a measure of 3/2.
I recognize I might be in the small minority of folks who need x/2 meter slash notation!
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Perhaps if you use the “Standard” rather than “Oversized” stemless slashes, the angled half-notes in 3/2 (or similar) might look less weird than the diamond ones. Just a thought…
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I just wanted to mention if you do use the angled half notes as Richard selected above, I prefer them at 95% rather than 100%.
95%
100%
It’s subtle, but I like to see the top and bottom of the notehead here, and they sort of blend in with the staff lines at 100%. It’s an easy edit to your Notehead Set if you like that look anyway.
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@FredGUnn, thanks for this tip. I actually think the reduced-size half-note slashes might be a good option. At full size, I’ve found them not to work for me because they look like plain 1/4 slashes. But with the horizontal top and bottom more visible, I think they might do the job. Thank you!
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