Skip to main content ↑ ↓
Topic: Automatic beam (Read 9070 times) previous topic - next topic

Automatic beam

There is a way to do automatic beam only upon selected measures ?

Re: Automatic beam

Reply #1 –
Currently, no.
But you can always cut/paste them to a "tool" staff, where the time signature is the one you need, beam them there, and cut/paste back the result.
A 3 seconds action.

Re: Automatic beam

Reply #2 –
This gives me an idea for another application of the new "mute note" feature.
Currently, if you want to have beamed notes with a rest in the middle, you can put a hidden note chorded with the rest, but to make sure the score sounds right, you need to have an entire extra hidden stave.
Now, though, you can just mute the hidden note.

Robin

Re: Automatic beam

Reply #3 –
Good one! And if you want the note to sound correctly, perhaps use an invisible Pedal Down instruction to artificially extend the length of the first note, releasing before the next sounded note.

Re: Automatic beam

Reply #4 –
>>to make sure the score sounds right, you need to have an entire extra hidden stave

I think you need only 2 staves to do this right, with or without per-note muting. 1: the staff with the beamed notes, one or more of which are hidden; 2: the staff with the rest(s) that will appear under the beams. A correct sound can be maintained with this configuration by using MPC events or dynamic overrides to set the hidden notes' volume to 0, or (in 1.75) by muting the hidden notes.

>>if you want the note to sound correctly

This has to depend on how you interpret a rest between beamed notes. I don't see why such a rest would require extending the preceding note any more than a rest between un-beamed notes, unless there's an explicit instruction to the contrary (e.g. an explicit pedal-down).

Re: Automatic beam

Reply #5 –
>>to make sure the score sounds right, you need to have an entire extra hidden stave

>I think you need only 2 staves to do this right, with or without per-note muting.

Actually you only need one staff, if you insert the rest(s) as text "anchored" to the hidden muted note(s) [nwcv15.ttf font in a User slot].

>I don't see why such a rest would require extending the preceding note any more than a rest between un-beamed notes, unless there's an explicit instruction to the contrary (e.g. an explicit pedal-down).

You're right. Don't know what I was thinking (or rather, "if").

Re: Automatic beam

Reply #6 –
Further investigation reveals that I was wrong in my response to Robin's comment. Setting the volume to 0 for a hidden note has the unpleasant, if not always noticeable, effect of truncating the decay of the preceding note - something that does not happen when the note is followed by a rest. Using the sustain pedal is no remedy for this, since its effects are also eliminated when the volume is set to 0.

I don't have access to 1.75 at the moment to check this, but if muted notes in 1.75 act like rests - i.e., they don't interrupt the decay of the preceding note - then in this respect Robin is right that an extra hidden staff was previously necessary for correct sound, and that the necessity is removed in 1.75.

Re: Automatic beam

Reply #7 –
>but if muted notes in 1.75 act like rests

This is an accurate statement, at least in the context of this thread.

Re: Automatic beam

Reply #8 –
Robin: IIRC what Shakespeare wrote, it is "hear! hear"! ;)
Peter: wish list item, I think. Otherwise, I can't see another mean than using 1. layering, or 2. text item with the rest wanted (btw you can insert a text item between the two notes, "preserving width", with some white spaces as text values, to make the 2nd note more on the right)

HTH

Re: Automatic beam

Reply #9 –
>Please can we have a native ability to beam over rests

"Hear, hear" here too. Also, if it's not too much trouble, the ability to beam across barlines would be handy, since (AFAIK) there's not so much as a hack for this one. And dare I mention beaming between staves and beaming across a clef change?

Re: Automatic beam

Reply #10 –
Perhaps Robin actually meant to say 'There, there!' in sympathy. ;-)

Re: Automatic beam

Reply #11 –
> Also, if it's not too much trouble, the ability to beam across barlines would be handy, since (AFAIK) there's not so much as a hack for this one.

I've never needed this myself, but played around with it just now to come up with a (perhaps) passable hack. Insert two ALT 0124 "fence" characters, one with PW on and followed by a space, the other just before it without the space and PW off, best-fit alignment. Font "Page Text" on both. They line up nicely, and you can adjust their respective vertical positions to make a believable artificial barline.

Hope this is of some help in the interim.

My biggest beaming gripe is the algorithm that determines the angle of the beam. A linear curve-fitting routine would be just terrific in this regard.

Cheers,
Fred

Re: Automatic beam

Reply #12 –
Please can we have a native ability to beam over rests though?

Re: Automatic beam

Reply #13 –
Here, here! (or is it "hear, hear!" - anyway)
Normally, I don't bother too much whether it looks right, as long as it sounds right, but I know I'm in a minority there, and even I find it a bit irritating when I can't reproduce the written score as closely as I'd like.

Robin

Re: Automatic beam

Reply #14 –
Hear hear!
Better beaming angle algorithm would be a boon.
As would beaming between staves. That would help some of my keyboard transcriptions.

Re: Automatic beam

Reply #15 –
to beam over clef changes and stuff like that just
1. layer two staves together.
2. Hide everything on one (turn it all silver and mute the
one that is normal)
3. on the silver one, write everything out as it should be played with the clef. This will disturb the beam.
4.On the visible staff do the same but don't include the clef
5. on the hidden one leave the clef visible

This should make it look like a clef change inside the beam.

It works with rests as well

Re: Automatic beam

Reply #16 –
Simon, you should submit this as a user tip. Great :)

Re: Automatic beam

Reply #17 –
And with bar lines - just miss out the bar line and layer with another staff that still has it. Although you'd have to be careful if there happened to be a line break at the missing bar line!

Re: Automatic beam

Reply #18 –
But layering causes a bar line to appear at the left end of the staff. This should NOT be there. If somebody knows how to remove this, I would be indebted.

Re: Automatic beam

Reply #19 –
The problem with Simon Carroll’s user tip is that a clef which is not at the beginning of a staff should be cue size.
Simon’s method uses a full-size clef.
I insert the clef as a piece of text, sized smaller than the “real” clef. This works for the “bar-line-within-a-beamed-group” problem as well (yes, I do have a bar line as a font character, even a dotted bar line), although the measure numbers are no longer accurate. To compensate for this, I need to add a hidden bar line just afterwards.

Re: Automatic beam

Reply #20 –
The difficulty with a text clef insertion is that it won't be carried through to subsequent systems. You can fix that by combining the two tips - put a real clef (hidden) and a text clef (visible, smaller font size).

Fred

Re: Automatic beam

Reply #21 –
But alas a hidden clef fails to carry through too!

I can't think of an easy answer (well NW could easily implement smaller clefs, but I wished for that five years ago) other then inserting the clef again at the line break.
 

Re: Automatic beam

Reply #22 –
My apologies. I forgot to mention inserting the clef again at the line break.