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Topic: Putting notes in the other staff in piano music (Read 2123 times) previous topic - next topic

Putting notes in the other staff in piano music

I am trying to transcribe some fast arpeggios and sometimes a note or two at the beginning or ending of a beamed set will be on the other staff, perhaps with an N shaped beam (notes out of both sides).

Does anyone have a workaround for this?  TIA

Finishing Grieg III Sonata for Violin & Piano
Since 1998

Re: Putting notes in the other staff in piano music

Reply #1 –
For notes in the other staff on the same side of the beam, just add the notes in the staff they will sound in and set their stem lengths to zero. Cover these notes with muted notes with no ledger lines, but with stems, from the staff with the beam. For what you call "N-shaped" beams, you will have to have a beam in each staff. Set stem direction down in the upper staff and up in the lower staff, and adjust the stem lengths so the beams exactly overlap.

Re: Putting notes in the other staff in piano music

Reply #2 –
This won't help Warren's issue (at least not right away), but in NWC 2.75a, there are a couple plugin API calls which were added to assist in cross-staff beaming. I've only taken a passing look so far, but I think it should be possible to create some sort of plugin object that would draw at least some of these. It would probably involve an approach similar to what Bill describes: in one of the two staves, the notes would be given 0-length stems (which also suppresses the beams), and then the object would draw both the stems and beams to meet up with the notes in the other staff.