Slurs between opposite-stemmed notes

[Anders Hedelin]

I haven't been able to find anything about this, but I might very well have missed something.
Is there a way to globally change these eyesores

into this?

I haven't found anything in Jari's or Tobias Giessen's plugins so far.

[zuill]

Instead of changing them after input, why not just change them globally in the Smart Shape Placement window. You might nee to do some experimenting to get exactly what you want, but it might be worth the effort.

Zuill

P.S.: I created 2 pictures to show the Default File settings vs. what can potentially be done with modified settings, which applies globally.

[Peter Thomsen]

Anders Hedelin,

Please forgive me if I am telling you something you already know about opposite-stemmed notes.

Who ever pays you, may have the final word on the slur position.
I do understand that.

1) According to Elaine Gould (on p. 13–14 in “Behind Bars”), in your example the mid-line note stems should be flipped (because of the context):

Slurs1.gif (5.43 KiB) Viewed 1657 times

2)Where there are no mid-line notes, the notes can be opposite-stemmed.
According to Elaine Gould (p. 111 in “Behind Bars”), instead of pointing to the stem end the slur may move slightly closer to the notehead, and beside the stem:

Slurs2.gif (5.41 KiB) Viewed 1657 times

[Anders Hedelin]

Thanks Zuill and Peter!
I'm grateful that you took your time with my example, Zuill. Now, my experiences with the Smart Shape Placement isn't that good, probably because I find it difficult to use. There seems to be unexpected side effects if you change something which works in one specific situation. But, as I said, maybe that is because I never learnt how to use it properly. However, that doesn't matter now because I choose to use the method described by Peter instead.

After a quick look into some Henle and Peters editions I found that the alternative use of up-stemmed notes on the middle line was not uncommon. In fact it looked so natural that I have missed noticing it before. I know that I have seen Gould's advice before, but then forgotten all about it. It must have something to do with old habits dying hard.

When it comes to pairs of opposite-stemmed notes without the middle-line note I think I prefer the treatment in the older editions, meaning that the slur has a significant slope between the two notes. (Here Henle.) Gould doesn't give an example of this specific situation, so it's a little uncertain what she would recommend in this case.

Opposite-stemmed third.jpg (10.73 KiB) Viewed 1624 times

[zuill]

I tested this short example in the file I created to test these things and it came out close to the example. The slur avoids the natural in bar 2, but just so slightly. I suppose I could have changed that setting as well. Those are probably the exception, so can be manually adjusted.

Zuill

[Anders Hedelin]

I don't think the natural in measure two of the example is essential. The slur would probably have looked the same without it.

If you found a setting in the Smart Shape Placement that effects that - and nothing else - I would be grateful if you would explain how you did it.

[zuill]

Here's the file I created quickly to do some preliminary tests. I am not claiming it is a fix-all. I merely wanted to see what would happen. If you put it through rigorous testing, I'm sure it will show places where the settings don't work. But we have to start somewhere.

Zuill

[Anders Hedelin]

I made some extra examples with your settings, Zuill. All of them work great but the last one.

I can't at this moment figure out which settings are more advantageous - in either way you have to resort to manual adjustments for some of the cases. Maybe your settings are minimizing the effort though.

[zuill]

I adjusted my settings in this version 2 of my file.

Zuill

[Anders Hedelin]

Thanks again, Zuill. I'll look into that.