I’ve searched the form but could not find anything similar. I have a weird problem with a tenuto marking on the first note under a slur that for some reason plays back staccato. I’m currently on NotePerformer 5.1, but I don’t know if this problem already existed in 5.0.1 since it doesn’t happen all the time.
I only noticed the weirdest part when cutting down the project: the issue disappears when I cut it down to just the one bar. But if I leave any number of empty bars in, the issue persists:
(In my actual project that marking occurs at multiple spots for multiple players, and they all play back staccato. So it’s not limited to one player or one instance).
But after deleting the empty bars, the problem is gone:
I use NP’s default settings and my Dorico Playback options are also the factory defaults. I first tried to recreate this in a new project, but that played back correctly. In Play mode (of which I know practically nothing), the note shows Legato + tenuto in both cases.
Thanks for checking! That makes it even stranger.. makes me think if there is some local setting that’s interfering. But that wouldn’t explain why I can’t recreate the issue in a new file. Or why the issue disappears even within the same project if I delete all but those bars…
I tried deleting the content of those bars in the actual project and then reentering the music, but that doesn’t help either.
BTW, if I apply the Auto playback template to this file, the note plays back correctly (Legato+tenuto). Switching back to NP reintroduces the issue. @Wallander sorry to tag you again, but have you heard of such an issue before?
If you start a slur with an added tenuto, NP will likely perform it portato (pulsating).
Slur+tenuto lacks a clear convention for its performance, but is interpreted differently in different works. Portato is, however, how NP will most often interpret it.
An exception is that if tenuto is used only at the end of a slur, it indicates tenuto, or holding the last note.
Thanks for responding! But what would explain the fact that NP plays back the same notation in different ways? I’m referring to the sound files I added in the OP - that is playback of the same bar of music within the same file. The only difference is I deleted some empty bars.
It might be a user error since playback is unexplored territory for me, but I can’t understand why those C5’s (transposed D’s) play back differently even though their notation is identical.
Portato is typically indicated for an entire legato phrase, not individual notes. So, if you have a consecutive series of legato notes where tenuto is used inconsistently, it may subsequently rule out portato and ignore the marking from that point.
If you want tenuto under slurs, and don’t use standalone tenuto markings outside of slurs, you could choose to delete the tenuto “Add-on” from the “NotePerformer” expression map, only for this score, to ignore it in playback consistently.
Thanks for your explanation and your patience. I’m not trying to be obtuse or annoying but I’m trying to wrap my head around this.
If by inconsistently you mean “not on every note” then yes, in this project (I’m the arranger) the composer often writes a tenuto marking on the first note under a slur.
I’ve done some experimenting based on this and this appears to be the case. This also resets whenever a phrase is interrupted by rests and on each new playback.
When playing this from beat 1, the first C is played short and all the others through bar 3 are tenuto. Then the first note in bar 4 (after the rests) is short again. But when starting playback in bar 2, that first G is played short (even though it plays back tenuto when starting earlier).
However, that doesn’t explain two things: why in my attached project in the OP it plays legato for me after removing all preceding bars (hence upon the first occurence in the piece [second sound sample]), and why for @jesele (see post #2) my attachment plays back legato while the exact same file doesn’t do that for me. Could that be a Windows/Mac thing?
Yeah unfortunately I need tenuto on unslurred notes as well. Is there any way I can somehow disable portato while keeping the tenuto Add-on? (I don’t write for strings so I could basically do without portato playback).
I only meant “inconsistently” as in mixing both tenuto and non-tenuto notes under the same slur.
Unfortunately, I don’t know of a way to suppress tenuto at the level of an individual note. If you don’t need both tenuto and slur+tenuto for an instrument, you could duplicate our Expression Map into one that doesn’t handle tenuto, and assign the non-tenuto variant only to those instruments through Endpoint Configuration in Dorico.
Yes! I was actually working on that last night. I replaced the Unstressed glyph with a tenuto glyph (since I never use that and it doesn’t appear to influence playback, at least not for my purposes) and adjusted Engraving options accordingly. It works, but this occurs a lot in my project so I’m still contemplating if it’s worth the time to replace them all.
