Tremolo slurs

[DBird90]

Why did Danny Troob put slurs over tremolo and pizz. (also repeated notes but they’re not that bad)? I thought it’s frowned upon to do so. Players know how to phrase music, especially simple ones such as these, so I don’t really see the point. (Colors of the Wind sketch)

[MichelRE]

I'm going to hazard a guess: because some composers are not very good engravers?

[John Ruggero]

Another guess along the same lines: many composers and arrangers are pianists who are a little hazy about the meaning of slurs, both in piano music and for other instruments?

Or to give the arranger the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps he was concerned that the tremolo and pizz passages would not be musically shaped without the precaution of the slurs?

[RMK]

His slurs for the winds don't make much sense either.

[DBird90]

To be fair, someone said the orchestrator wants, “a certain dynamic phrasing and subtle connectedness to the tremolo and pizz that may or may not be executed without them,” but I still think it’s unnecessary. In the same way harp slurs probably make no practical difference.

But also, the wind slurs are a common oversight.

[frames]

I get the meaning behind it, it looks like he wants the notes to be legato or connected and sometimes string players have the habit of accenting note changes in tremolo passages or not letting pizzicato notes sustain in the left hand (tangentially related gripe: I hate the practice of not notating pizzes as anything longer than a quarter note, but that’s a rant for another day).

Maybe using dashed slurs might be more clear in terms of showing that the slurs are for phrasing and not articulation, but I don’t think that’s a super widespread practice, and if I were to see what’s currently written in a part I would be able to ascertain the meaning pretty quickly.