Tie collisions

[Hector Pascal]

Hi all,
This piano chord uses bass clef for both hands, and the RH is all flats, left hand all naturals. Having said that, do you think it would be good notational practice to clean up the tie collisions? I would like to make the ties look their best if possible.

screenshot-ties.jpg (53.95 KiB) Viewed 17602 times

Thanks!
Hector.

[tisimst]

Oh, yes, please correct this. The generally accepted result for almost any chord, if it’s the only “voice” on the staff, is to have the group of ties bend around the vertical middle of the chord, the top half of note ties bend up, the bottom half bend down. This would solve both cases quite nicely. Give this a try.

[John Ruggero]

And I think it looks better if the ties are all of about the same length. In a case like this, that means that one must thread the ends of the ties between the dots (don't let them touch the dots) to get close to the note heads. But not everyone likes that style.

[Hector Pascal]

Ok, thanks for the advice! I'll give it my best shot!
Cheerio,
Hector.

[hautbois baryton]

And I think it looks better if the ties are all of about the same length. In a case like this, that means that one must thread the ends of the ties between the dots (don't let them touch the dots) to get close to the note heads. But not everyone likes that style.

It's definitely a visually beautiful look, but sometimes difficult (or time-consuming) to achieve, depending on the complexity.

[Hector Pascal]

Here is my attempt so far: What do you think?! (I think they are an improvement on what I had!)

The bottom example is my attempt at equal tie lengths.

Screen Shot 2023-02-18 at 3.17.10 pm.png (1.56 MiB) Viewed 17454 times

Cheerio and thanks for any extra advice!
Hector.

[John Ruggero]

It's very nice, particularly the second one You've emphasized the equal lengths. I bring the tips of the ties closer to the note heads and beyond the dots even if this gives the ties slightly different lengths. Don't think it's a good idea to let the tie tips touch each other, as in the lower staff of the second example.

Incidentally, note the rather large distance between the augmentation dots and the quarter rests. I move them a bit closer.

[Hector Pascal]

Thanks, John! It's much appreciated.
Cheers,
Hector.

[tisimst]

This is really a curious example of what apps will choose to do by default and what fixes might be required. Here's what MS4 does by default. Seems like it could do a bit better job balancing out the inter-tie spacing. No reason in my mind to have them appear in pairs. I do like the tighter nesting of accidentals, though!

ms4-chord-ties-example.png (79.4 KiB) Viewed 17346 times

In this specific case, I'm not impressed with LilyPond's latest (2.24) capabilities, both the default behavior and when I tell it the directions to bend each tie:

LP2.24-chord-ties-example.png (51.37 KiB) Viewed 17346 times

[John Ruggero]

I'd be interested to see what Dorico does with this. it seems to be a particularly difficult programming problem.