Phrasing Lines (Different from Slurs)
It is almost exactly the same as slurs, only they are positioned above the staff. Muse Score's slurs can actually be adjusted to look like phrasing lines, of course, but this requires extra work on the part of the composer, since when the slur markings are attached to a note, they snap to a position inside the staff by default, requiring them to be manually adjusted to a position outside the staff, as would be appropriate to a phrasing line. Also, the ability to place a phrasing line over a whole highlighted passage, so that it automatically anchored itself to the first and last note of the phrase, would be valuable in my estimation.
Thank you again for your consideration.
Comments
Phrasing lines and slurs are so similar that the only difference at times is nothing more than the interpretation of the musician/conductor. When you have an obvious phrasing line like over 6 measures of piano arpeggios, then applying these are rather easy. Click the first note, ctrl+click the last note and press S. The slur will not look like it's actually attached to either note unless it sticks out in the direction of the slur. I find ctrl+click on the second end preferable to shift + click to select all of the notes because if there are voice 2 notes involved you will get spurious slurs you don't want, though it works exactly the same if there is only one voice. MuseScore usually does a decent job with default slurs that I rarely find a need to adjust them in this situation. Shorter slurs with large jumps are another story. I could probably enter 20 bug reports for those, but they're really not that difficult to fix.
I'm not aware of any official distinction between these - slurs are precisely what are used for phrasing, not just in MuseScore, but according to all references I have seen. Do you have some source that describes a relevant distinction (for engraving, not for interpretation)? In particular, one that says slurs used to indicate phrasing should be placed outside the staff?
In reply to I'm not aware of any… by Marc Sabatella
I must be mistaken.