[Dorico] Flat slurs

[Schonbergian]

As unintuitive as it may sound, the larger noteheads actually aren't too large for the staff at all. It's well-known that round objects appear smaller than they are, and if they are left at the "correct" size the notes will just disappear into the background. This "overbleed" is practically ubiquitous in hand-engraved scores and helps to bring the notes back to the visual foreground.

It's a bit unfortunate that there doesn't seem to be a single program that can allow for the slur customization we need except for, perhaps, Illustrator (which is ultimately a workaround) I would normally agree with your reasoning about meeting the noteheads, but here I feel it would lead to too tapered of a slur, ultimately distracting from the musical contour at hand.

[John Ruggero]

As unintuitive as it may sound, the larger noteheads actually aren't too large for the staff at all. It's well-known that round objects appear smaller than they are, and if they are left at the "correct" size the notes will just disappear into the background. This "overbleed" is practically ubiquitous in hand-engraved scores and helps to bring the notes back to the visual foreground.

I think that there is a big difference between the accidental overbleed slightly observable in a few notes in the scan below from a modern hand engraved edition, and the intentional overflowing of the staff lines of every note head with the precision possible with a computer and laser printer. Th impression I get from the scan is that the notes are contained within the staff lines. The impression I get from benwiggy's example is that they are overflowing the staff lines.

In any case, if you are correct, then it follows that the notes of almost all computer engraving disappear into the background because the note heads do not bleed over. But that is not my experience. For me, computer engraving is clearer than the hand-engraving.

Noteheads hand-engraved.jpg (192.96 KiB) Viewed 1532 times

I would normally agree with your reasoning about meeting the noteheads, but here I feel it would lead to too tapered of a slur, ultimately distracting from the musical contour at hand.

I am sorry, Schonbergian, I don't understand why the slur would be have to be more tapered than usual if brought to the note heads.

[Schonbergian]

I am sorry, Schonbergian, I don't understand why the slur would be have to be more tapered than usual if brought to the note heads.

In the example that you provided and engraved, the slur doesn't quite reach the noteheads and it's already quite curved. Making it reach the noteheads at any cost would lead to an unnaturally curved slur.

[benwiggy]

The impression I get from benwiggy's example is that they are overflowing the staff lines.

I've checked this, and it seems to be a screen artefact. At 500% zoom, the noteheads seem to have gained a little fatness which is not present at other zoom levels - larger and smaller. As said, I use Engraver at 24pt.

When an object's size falls between two pixels, the OS has to decide whether to round up or round down - or more usually, they do shaded hinting to smooth the edges.