A compromise of 1/2 space produces bad results for both types which would lead to twice as much adjusting. Changing the defined length of a short slur in the slur engraving option seems to have no effect on this.
I wonder if there is an other way to go about this, or if a third category should be added to the types of slur. Perhaps short, medium and long.
No idea if you like those, but I’m using 1/2 space for the short height. I’ve changed the length of a short slur down to 2, so it’s possible I’m getting different scaling results. Changing the shoulder offset has a big effect too. I’m using 1/2 for short and 5/8 for long, but definitely don’t neglect to experiment with that too, as it has a huge effect on the overall shape.
If the team are reading this, perhaps they might also consider another example of short slurs that I find, well, horrible… It’s short slurs at a system break. Clearly there are attempts to shape the slur based on the following note but, at a system break, it can result in very strange behaviour.
I know this has been discussed several times before (as early as 2016) but this is my biggest gripe with Dorico. Well, that and slurs into second time bars.
Could slurs over a system break point at the note above or below, regardless of the actual distance to the following note? That would satisfy most cases (acknowledging that there is recalculation required should the system break be deleted).
@FredGUnn I had the length of a long slur set too high. When I make it 15 spaces I get the following with height of short slurs set to 3/8 and length to 2 spaces. This is the look I am after. I didn’t mess with the shoulders because I like my settings. Thanks for your help, as always!
@Beechside I agree with you about these wildly-exaggerated slurs across system breaks and actually wrote a post about it awhile ago. I pointed out that Gould seems to be promoting such slurs, which I have never seen in well-engraved music.
If the programming of the real thing is exceptionally difficult, I would prefer that such slurs simply go straight across like ties which would be easier for the user to shape properly.
I’m in the process of setting up a template and the first thing I want to tackle is slur settings. What is meant by “length of slur”? When I change that number, it simply changes the height.
I believe that it is a way to define what you consider to be a "short slur " vs. a “long slur”. Finale has something similar but also has a medium slur. This definition affects the other settings you make for slurs. Dorico then interpolates those settings for slurs the fall between the lengths you define.
Incidentally, there are some slur settings mentioned earlier in the thread that you might try.
I have created a Paragraph Style called “Expressions”, and (because I’ve saved it as a default for my setup), I’ve given it the shortcut SHIFT E.
This means that every instance of “dolce” is a separate item; and I can’t change that text all at once, but I find it good enough. Other things I use Playback Techniques.
One could also create expressions as Playing Techniques. When users can organize the Playing Technique panel (like Finale expressions) I will probably recreate the libraries I had in Finale. I loathe typing in this stuff.
Ok, so using Playing Techniques, I would replace, say, “vib.” with “a tempo” and create a keyboard shortcut? I use these ten expressions 90% of the time.
As much as I wanted to leave that, I decided to correct it.
