Are the dots on these dotted notes in the right position?

• Jul 11, 2015 - 19:14

Have a look at the attached score, bar 2. The dots on the dotted chord are aligned vertically, but I'm sure this is not the right position because of the large gaps between dots and "parent notes."

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duration_dots.mscz 9.8 KB

Comments

• Jul 11, 2015 - 20:48

FWIW, my recollection is that when I was working on layout improvements last years, dots *had* to be aligned across all voices; there was no way to have this not be the case. I didn't change that; I just improved the positioning within those constraints. At some point afterwards, though, I believe changes were made (some by me, some by Werner?) that in theory could enable the dots to be positioned by voice. Or at least, separately for upstem vocies versus downstem voices. But I never redid the algorithms to take advantage of this. Pretty sure it's doable.

To be clear, though: in this case, the dot placement for the voice 1 chord is correct. Dots are supposed to all align for a single chord. The only question is whether the voice 2 note could have its dot closer in. Gould recommends it.

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• Jul 11, 2015 - 20:55

I think the dot in Voice 2 should either be closer in (as per Gould) or on the same level as the note (since it no longer needs to avoid a line). If possible I'd go for aligning with the note where ledger lines are involved but with Gould (closer in) when the note is on a normal staff line.

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• Jul 11, 2015 - 21:02

Gould specifically says notes on ledger lines should follow the same principle with regarding to offseting vertically, and *not* to try aligning the dot with the note. Looking at music in my collection, I'd say about 80-90% of publishers follow that advice, although there is indeed a small minority that choose to align the dot with the note in such cases.

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