I’ve set up slurs to achieve this - positioned just down from the top of the stem.
When other articulations are involved, this is the result.
I’m aware that there is more work being done on improving slurs, but in the meantime, is there any way to give the slur priority over positioning?
No, this isn’t something that we plan to do. Published music prioritises the placement of the slur outside articulations of duration, even in situations like this.
Bartok, “Mikrokosmos” Book 2, Boosey & Hawkes, 1940 - and elsewhere.
(But the Muzyka (Moscow) edition does it Daniel’s way.)
Thanks Daniel.
The score I was looking at was Williamson Music’s Vocal Score for “Carousel”. I have a ton of Broadway Vocal Scores here and the reason I keep returning to this one is that it is far and away the best of any of them in terms of quality. All vocal scores are idiosyncratic and rule breakers - as you’d expect from scores trying to cram in as much in as possible, but this one is arguably the least so. It allows the music to breathe - there doesn’t appear to be any intention to minimise the total number of pages - and unusually (and regularly), it contains separate staves for instrumental parts.
Here’s the section I was studying. Interestingly, this occurs on a page when there was more than enough room for them to do what you suggest (i.e. ample room between sections)
Looking through the rest of the score, it appears to adhere to the principle you outline. I can’t find an example of voice 1 of the treble stave that doesn’t. But when voice 2 vies for space with voice 1 in the bass clef, rather than make a significant expansion to the space between the staves in a Grand Stave (imagine the impact of doing it in the example I’ve just posted), they do it differently.
Rob, your example doesn’t seem particularly relevant, unless I’m being especially unobservant. All of the examples in there appear to be beamed, which is a different situation (though Dorico will still always put slurs outside articulations of duration in that case too).
David, I can understand why the editor/engraver chose to do it in that specific situation illustrated, since it’s a compromise to minimise the usage of vertical space, but it’s not an entirely happy compromise.
True, but that edition does the same thing consistently with unbeamed notes as well.
Thanks again Daniel. Since my last post I’ve checked a number of other scores and while I’ve seen a few instances of this being done on single staves and with voice 1 on the treble clef in a Grand Stave, they can all pretty much be regarded as rogue as they all had an opportunity to do it the other (right) way. Where is gets interesting is with the space inside the Grand Stave. It seems to me that the score I quoted in my previous post follows your lead on this until such point as the result exceeds what they see as an acceptable distance between the two staves. As they didn’t need to compromise on space, there was plenty between systems, that’s really the only possible conclusion.
On the grounds that I may have shown you the most extreme example you’re likely to see - although I suppose there could have been a hairpin in there too - and solving this is all perfectly manageable in Engrave mode, I’ll leave it there. Thanks.
