ugly slurs

[Yuval]

Hi everybody,

a friend asked my to edit her transcriptions of japanese Shakuhachi-music. It is for me the first time I encounter so many slurs, and most of them look ugly.....

I encountered mainly three problems:

1. If there are more than one slur on a note, they overlap.

2. Slurs with grace notes look ugly, if the interval is bigger than a second

3. Sometimes the slurs get quite big and high....

Which settings do you use for music like this? Is it possible to edit music like this without having to correct every slur manually?

Thanks and regards!
Yuval

[zuill]

I've never found a "one size fits all" setting for slurs. I do a lot of manual editing. Period. There are settings you can play with. I would start by writing down all the current settings (or take screen shots), so you can document what the changes are. Then, start experimenting.

Zuill

[Vaughan]

Finale really should do this sort of thing better. Dorico version 1 can already do it really well. In the meantime, Zuill's right, it's a matter of manual editing.

[N Grossingink]

One thing I notice is your slurs are really too thick, my opinion. Slurs and ties should have the same thickness, and the tips should not fade away to a zero thickness - there should be a noticeable chisel effect to the tip, just like a plate engraver would get with their awl.

Another suggestion would be to eliminate the slurs on the grace notes altogether. They're really not needed as each little phrase is encompassed by a slur.

I'm attaching a file with my own default slur contour and options settings. I'm not saying they are definitive at all, but I've spent a lot of time trying to get slurs that mimic the finest old plate engravers. With the right settings, Finale can produce beautiful slurs. And yes, even with a good default, you still need to do a lot of manual tweaks.

N.

[Yuval]

Hi everybody,

thank you for your great help! I'm happy that I'm not alone with this problems.... I hope, Finale will improve the behavior of the slurs - if not, it would be nearly a reason to change to Dorico.....

One thing I notice is your slurs are really too thick, my opinion.

Thanks for the remark, like I already said before I didn't use a lot of slurs until now, so I'll start to work a bit on them...

Another suggestion would be to eliminate the slurs on the grace notes altogether.

Since this is not my transcription I have to follow the manuscript....

I'm attaching a file with my own default slur contour and options settings.

Thank you so much! I'll take a look on this later and try to understand your settings...

[elbsound]

A long thread on Finale's slurs with many example settings can be found on the Notat.io forum:
http://notat.io/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=107

[MikeHalloran]

a friend asked my to edit her transcriptions of japanese Shakuhachi-music. It is for me the first time I encounter so many slurs, and most of them look ugly.....

People are assuming a lot. Are they right?

Was this done in Finale originally? You never said. If so, then they are correct.

If not, then what? In that case, is this a Finale readout we are seeing, MusicXML import or something else?