Boom! Crash! Collisions…
It is imperative that notational elements do not collide. Slurs should not collide with notes, nor dynamics, nor ties. Likewise, nothing should collide with notes.
And accidentals should definitely not collide with notes or each other, or other elements of the score. It is best to sacrifice a page at the printers than to sacrifice clarity in your score. Better a 101-page long score that is readable, than a 50-page score that is gibberish.
Slurs, phrases, curvy lines and other pretty things
This is one notational element that gets mistreated in more scores than I can shake a conductor’s baton at.
Be aware that a slur (phrase marking) means something completely different for a wind player, a string player, and a keyboard player. For the keyboardist, it simply indicates the beginning and end of a phrase. It can imply a style of playing that is more legato, but this is not an absolute rule. It is, generally, a phrase indicator.
For the wind players, however, a slur indicates tonguing and breaths. With no slur over a phrase, the wind player will tongue every note (“tu tu tu tu tu… “), which gives a marked little accent to each note. This doesn’t necessarily create a staccato effect, but it is not a smooth legato. You will hear an attack on each note. Placing a slur over a number of notes normally indicates that those notes will either not be tongued or only very delicately be tongued. The phrase will be as smooth and legato as it can be. The length of a phrase you can realistically include under a single slur is dependant on the amount of breath a musician can supply. An instrument that requires more wind will be incapable of the lengthiest of slurred phrases, while an instrument that requires very little wind will be able to get away with considerably longer phrases.
For string players, much the same principle applies. A slur over notes indicates that a single bow stroke will encompass those notes. This is entirely dependant on the tempo of the music as well as the dynamic and length of the bow. When writing bowings in a string part, try to be realistic about the number of notes to be included in a single bow-stroke. Soft music gives you a tiny bit more leeway on slur lengths, as less presure on the bow means a tiny bit more bow length to play with. Loud music, conversely, will require more bow pressure and give you considerably less length of bow to play with.
Tied notes that end (or begin) a slurred phrase, require that the tip of the slur go from the first of any tied notes to the very last of any tied notes. This is an error I see far too often in scores.
While there are rules about the placement of slurs:
- a phrase with all stems up will have slurs beneath the notes
- a phrase with all stems down will have a slur above the notes
- a phrase with mixed stems (up and down) will always have the slur above the notes
there is a certain flexibility where clarity in your score is concerned. You may find that a phrase where the slur should be placed below the notes causes a conflict with a hairpin or other dynamic element. You may take a certain liberty, in this case, with the actual positioning of the slur.
Instruments where this sort of situation might arise include most bass instruments, and instruments that regularly cover a wide swath of space on the staff:
- clarinets
- bassoons
- horns
- tuba
- violins
- celli and basses
Which brings us to another notational bugaboo: hairpins. Some notation programmes allow for slanted hairpins. Don’t! Just say “no!”. Hairpins should be horizontal in all notation. If you find that the music is too tightly spaced to include a horizontal hairpin, then by all means! add space between the staves. This is part and parcel of the engraver’s work. Regularity of spacing is not a prerequisite. Enough space for notational elements, however, is!