NOTATIO

John Ruggero wrote:I think that OCTO's edited Finale version is actually better, because the notes in each hand should be equally spaced on each staff through the measure, even if they are not equally spaced in relationship to the note heads in the other hand.

FWIW, I completely agree as well. To be completely honest, when I first saw the way that Knut spaced his sample (no offense), I immediately thought that the spacing should be more even in each staff. I was even more surprised when I saw LilyPond do the exact same thing, but thought I should share it (yes, I know, it's hard to believe that it messed up on this one...). It does a great job at spacing the stems, but for some reason the note column spacing get messed up. I think I'll file a bug report for this one. I apologize if I made it seem like it had the right output.

I will say that making one tiny adjustment fixes it (albeit it must be done manually at the beginning of each beamed group):

John Ruggero wrote:As I mentioned previously, since there is no net movement, the beam should be horizontal. This is mentioned in E. Gould. And it is best if the staves not be too far apart.

Here is an example to give the idea. It is not perfect.

Nicely done, John and OCTO.

tisimst wrote:
FWIW, I completely agree as well. To be completely honest, when I first saw the way that Knut spaced his sample (no offense), I immediately thought that the spacing should be more even in each staff. I was even more surprised when I saw LilyPond do the exact same thing, but thought I should share it (yes, I know, it's hard to believe that it messed up on this one...). It does a great job at spacing the stems, but for some reason the note column spacing get messed up. I think I'll file a bug report for this one. I apologize if I made it seem like it had the right output.

No offense taken. I was so focused on the beam groups that I simply didn't realize what was going on in between them.

Knut, thanks for the Matthew Maslanka blog. It is very relevant to the discussions on this site. Do you know of other such sites? The Chlapik book "Die Praxis des Notengraphikers" also sounds interesting. Is it better than Ross and Gould for some engraving issues? I see that it is only 102 pages long.

You're welcome.

Mr. Maslanka is a very talented engraver, and except for Daniel Spreadbury's blog, I haven't found any other site discussing matters of engraving in as much detail as him. Unfortunately, it seems to be a while since he posted something on this blog, and I don't know if he even reads this forum.

I've never actually read the book, but based on the blog post it seems to have some unique things to offer.

Here is another tricky question:
How to notate simultaneously these two measures? What rule will be applied, and what is the reason behind it? P.S. This is done in MuseScore. I start to love it. It is easy to move notes, and they stay at that place fixed (not as Finale, they move all the time).

Good follow up question, OCTO.

In situations with such conflicting optical considerations, generic measures (i.e., the bottom staff in your example) take precedence, and dictate the spacing of other staves. In other words, the noteheads should always line up across measures, which leaves no possibility for optical adjustments of cross staff notes.

OCTO wrote:

How to notate simultaneously these two measures?

IMO even spacing of the LH would override the RH spacing issue.

I start to love it. It is easy to move notes, and they stay at that place fixed (not as Finale, they move all the time).

To play the Devil's advocate:

In Finale one can turn off automatic spacing and automatic updating, and check Incorporate Manual Positioning and Keep Current for Grace Note spacing. Does that produce the same spacing effect you find attractive in MuseScore? I rarely turn off automatic spacing and automatic updating, so I am not sure.

As far as moving notes, I think that Finale's Repitch Tool should work like MuseScore's Replace Pitches tool: one should be able to select one note from a chord and move it, leaving all the others in place. But Speedy edit does do exactly that, plus one can move the note horizontally as well as vertically.

Maybe if I actually used MuseScore I would see its advantages more clearly.

Thank you both for the clarification!
Off topic:

John Ruggero wrote:In Finale one can turn off automatic spacing and automatic updating

Of course, it is possible, but I can basically not do so much: any entry in that system will override the manual adjustments if you want to respace music correctly. After so many years working with Finale I start to dislike the very famous "leave it for the last stage"; because there are to many at the last stage.
This picture shows what you can do with one single note: And when you move it, it stays fixed (spacing included).

Knut, I see that our answers in response to OCTO's interesting problematic spot crossed, but that we are in agreement on this one, as is often the case.

Judging from his work, Maslanka is an excellent engraver who has asked himself many of the questions that have come up on this website. It is too bad that his blog is apparently inactive, and I too wish that he were aware of Notatio and were an active contributor here.

Just thought I'd test the waters a little bit more with LilyPond's algorithms. Here are all the samples on Maslanka's website we've been referring to, shown with/without optical corrections:
And here's OCTO's follow-up that is an excellent case study:
Personally, I have liked seeing when the engraver takes the liberty of fudging the lines a bit by giving the top staff more of the optical correction while maintaining the exact spacing of the lower staff. Seems like there are better candidate situations for this than others (and this isn't one, I think). For anyone interested, here's a discussion about this very thing:
http://lilypondblog.org/2015/12/optical ... an-part-2/