Two-note stem-side slurs and Elaine Gould

[John Ruggero]

The following rule and example from Elaine Gould's Behind Bars (p. 111) is contrary to what I see most frequently in well-engraved music and music manuscripts, although I have seen exceptions. It also grates against every engraving instinct in my body.

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Here is an example of what I am accustomed to from Schenker's edition (Universal) of Beethoven's Piano Sonata op 22. The rule in effect seems to be to keep the slur tips close to the note heads whenever possible.

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Is Gould's rule a house style of some publishers? Or is it a relatively new preference?

[Schonbergian]

Looks like a computer engraving default (perhaps because it's easier to keep the slurs further away and avoid collisions). LilyPond doesn't do it, and I haven't seen it in any well-engraved music of the past.

Given the actual purpose of a slur being to connect notes, I see no reason not to place it as close to the noteheads as possible. Her left-hand example is ugly because of the Sibelius slurs being overly bowed, and not because of any inherent problem with the concept. It makes the slurs completely irrelevant from a visual standpoint and disconnects them from what they should be connecting.

From EP's score of BWV 244 (to give an example from a completely different style of music):

[John Ruggero]

Thanks for the corroboration. Schonbergian. I agree that none of the slurs in her examples are quite right. I wonder if Dorico follows her rule as the default?

Here is a version with the Finale default, which bears out your theory, a version with my own settings, which clearly needs some work, and with the adjustments that I normally make for such slurs.

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[Anders Hedelin]

I too am rather sceptical to Gould's recommendations, so I did some experimenting with the settings for the slurs placement:

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In this example the settings for the vertical start and end points are:

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- and of course the first slur above notes in A had to be manually adjusted as in B.

In the first example C, the slur below notes is too low, but if the settings are altered to suit this one, the others are too high (vertical 15p, start and end):

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So, no universal solution, I'm afraid, but maybe a clearer picture of the problem.

[Anders Hedelin]

While the settings I tried in my last post may work for pairs of notes, they don't for groups of three or more notes:

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Sorry. Clearly Finale could have had more granular settings for slurs.

[John Ruggero]

Thank you for analyzing that, Anders, It's indeed unfortunate that the settings only work partially and only for two note slurs. No need to make a feature request to MM, of course. Perhaps Dorico does this better? Fortunately, I am pretty happy with the way Finale does other slurs with my settings, so it is only this one case that needs a lot of adjusting. But I find Gould's recommendation strange. She is usually so reliable.

I found only one example of this situation in Ted Ross' book, but that involves the much rarer case of two flagged notes. He places the slur high over the flags to avoid intersecting the first flag. I don't think I like that either. Ties intersect flags all the time.

[John Ruggero]

Apropos the present subject, the following unpleasant slurs were spotted in the Tantacrul critique of Dorico:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-3wEC6 ... e=youtu.be

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This appears to be the result of a choosing the option to place the slur over the staccato dot in combination with the Gould rule under discussion.I have grown less fond of the slur over the staccato dot for many, if not most situations.

[Anders Hedelin]

I've found it useful to have two versions of staccati (at least). One where the slur interaction is set to 'always inside' - for portati and one-bow staccati as in A below. One set to 'auto inside/outside' - for situations as in B. The 'auto' setting does not work with portati as in A, though, as shown in C. Hence the need for the 'always inside' setting. ('Auto' isn't quite the same as 'educated' in this case.)

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[Anders Hedelin]

I notice that I skipped one option for slur interaction: 'ignore'. Perhaps because it sounded a bit like "Just ignore it!"

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And the result is, well, in any case not overly pedantic.

[John Ruggero]

Yes, portato would be one of the cases for an outside slur. I have keyboard commands for three staccati: note head side, stem side and manual, because the staccatos do strange things with centered beaming, and I need to place them manually.

Your example may just be a default illustrating your point, but I do prefer a portato slur that is less arched with the tips less close to the dot and staff lines. The slur at B is very nice, but I myself would place it closer to the note heads along the lines of the topic of this thread. Slurs that seem directed toward the side of stems bother me a little, although it is probably necessary at times. I prefer that they aim toward note heads or the tip of the stem. But this may just be a matter of taste.