Two-note stem-side slurs and Elaine Gould

[Anders Hedelin]

I agree on both your points, John. My examples were, as you guessed, defaults with different settings - in fact they were meant to illustrate these settings only.

[John Ruggero]

So far everyone seems to be on the same page with this one. it would be nice to know if Dorico has this under better control than Finale. I hope so.

[Vaughan]

Not yet, I'm afraid, but in contrast to most other notation programs, it's still being developed. The different situations described here are the kinds of contexts the Dorico team is working to get the program to understand, and it's a matter of increasing the ability of the program to recognise these contexts and provide settings for them.

I worked long and hard to achieve slur settings in Finale which worked well in most cases, but even then, slurs still needed more manual adjustment than should be necessary. I use slur settings in Dorico which come very close to this and, while manual adjustment is still necessary, I wouldn't be surprised if Dorico's ability to respond to a myriad of slur contexts improved considerably at the end of this year with the release of version 4.

[John Ruggero]

Thanks, Vaughan! Does Dorico have a separate engraving option for two note slurs?

[benwiggy]

I've seen a lot of slurs 'nearer the stem' in vocal music, where there's two parts to a staff. I prefer that generally. I think it also helps to differentiate them from slurs. I may well want something else in other kinds of music.

Dorico's defaults are to offset slurs of this kind by 1.25 spaces from the stem end, i think. But of course, you can set them higher or lower as you wish.

[teacue]

Out of curiosity I did a few tests to see how Dorico 3.5 behaves.
These are the results changing only one setting in Dorico: "Vertical offset from end of stem"
As I was not able to obtain good results trying to get the beginning of the slurs in the left hand further from the notehead, I did not change any other setting.

slut-test.jpg (82.09 KiB) Viewed 6883 times

[John Ruggero]

Thanks teacue. Are these settings for two note slurs only? 2.5 setting is good, but I would not want it to apply to three or more-note slurs.

[teacue]

Thanks teacue. Are these settings for two note slurs only? 2.5 setting is good, but I would not want it to apply to three or more-note slurs.

There are settings for "Short slurs" and "Long slurs".
Post an example with three or more-note slurs you would like to see and I can try it in Dorico.

[Anders Hedelin]

Can you change the settings for the curves and slopes of slurs too in Dorico?

[teacue]

Can you change the settings for the curves and slopes of slurs too in Dorico?

There are five categories for Design settings:
Style
Thickness
Height
Shoulders
Dashed, Editorial and Dotted Slurs

slurs-1-style-thickness.jpg (188.1 KiB) Viewed 6847 times

slurs-2-height.jpg (217.21 KiB) Viewed 6847 times

slurs-3-shoulders.jpg (198.46 KiB) Viewed 6847 times

slurs-4-dashed.jpg (128.88 KiB) Viewed 6847 times