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Topic: Keeping beamable notes unbeamed (Read 2907 times) previous topic - next topic

Keeping beamable notes unbeamed

   A succession of notes (like quavers, semi-quavers etc) can be beamed manually (select, then Control-B), and all beamable notes in a staff can be beamed "automatically" using Alt-TA.  Once beamed, selected ones can then be unbeamed if required (with Control-B again). 

   Is it possible, however, to prevent beaming in the first place - to force a note NOT to be included in any beamed group - in the same sort of way, say, that a note can be forced NOT to have a lyric syllable attached to it?  This would be quite useful in the instances I regularly come across when I'm keying stuff in, a line at a time, and Alt-TA beaming at the end of each line, but nevertheless want some notes to remain unbeamed no matter what (and although I could, eventually, go back and unbeam them manually, I'd rather not have to remember!).

   And I appreciate that sometimes a note can be left - and remain - unbeamed ... for example, when a group of 4 semi-quavers has either the first three or the last three beamed manually, the fourth one will remain unbeamed even when subjected to an Alt-TA ... but how can I *prevent* a pair of semi-quavers being Alt-TA beamed?

   MusicJohn, 5/Feb/07

Re: Keeping beamable notes unbeamed

Reply #1 –
Here's a case where I've wanted this too:  when you have 3 quavers finishing a phrase, then a pause on the third or caesura after it, and then the 4th quaver as the pick-up to the next phrase.

I've found it's either manually adjusting after auto-beam, or you can replace the 4th quaver with an invisible rest, and put the real 4th quaver on a layered staff.  Depends what you find more tedious - manually adjusting each time, or all the bother of setting up the properties of an extra staff just for a few notes.

Would love to hear of other solutions using clever grace-notes or something!

Re: Keeping beamable notes unbeamed

Reply #2 –
You can make it a RestChord. RestChords - hiding the rest (NWC2) shows how to hide the rest. A bit of "digital white-out" will do the same for 1.75b
Registered user since 1996

Re: Keeping beamable notes unbeamed

Reply #3 –
   Yes; that certainly seems to work (in 1.75b I seem to be able to place the rest, and move it up or down wherever I want, before adding the chorded note in the right place).  And by "adjusting" the length of the rest-chord up or down to its limits and then back, I can end up with a rest/note combination which has exactly the right length to fit at that place in the bar/measure.  And since this rest/note combination can't be beamed to, and so won't form the end of a beam set, I can Alt-TA beam the staff without fear that I'll also beam the notes I want to stay unbeamed.

   It's interesting that you can beam *over* a rest but not *onto" a rest.  It's also interesting that you can in this way beam over a rest-chord, and that the latter - not really a part of the beamed set at all - can then be manipulated almost independently of the beamed notes.  In fact, it can be created somewhere else and then Control-C/Control-V inserted into the beamed group (and it can be extracted from the group without breaking the group), where it adds to the bar but not to the beamed group.  I wonder what other properties it has!

   MusicJohn, 6/Feb/07

Re: Keeping beamable notes unbeamed

Reply #4 –
And, yes, it works in NWC2.