Beams and staff lines.

Discuss the rules of notation, standard notation practices, efficient notation practices and graphic design.
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MichelRE
Posts: 251
Joined: 07 Aug 2021, 17:11

Beams and staff lines.

Post by MichelRE »

Is there a rule on whether a (slightly slanted) beam should begin/end on (sitting on), astride, or below (hanging from) a staff line?

I assume that a downward slanted beam should not end between two staff lines, since this causes that "wedge" affect of white space between the beam and the staff line.

But otherwise, it seems to me that starting a slanted beam directly above the line, or straddling the line, and likewise ending in a similar position, seem to be comparable. But is one really preferable?

In other words, should I be looking to always end downward slanted beams so they end astride the line? hanging from the line? sitting above the line?
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John Ruggero
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Location: Raleigh, NC USA

Re: Beams and staff lines.

Post by John Ruggero »

There have been several threads regarding beam angles that you might look through. The latest style over at Henle seems to be to avoid wedges at all costs so the beams don't parallel the motion of the notes in a musical way. I try to strike a compromise and avoid unnecessary wedges by adjusting beams so that they start by sitting on the top of a line on the high side of the beam, and hanging from the beam on the low side. But if that doesn't work and the beams are not looking musical, I will allow wedges as necessary.

From what I have seen, the hand engravers didn't seem to be concerned about wedges despite all that one has heard about ink pooling in the wedges in printing plates etc.. But now when that is really not a concern, we have become ultra-concerned about wedges. Of course, there are also optical considerations, and every case can be different, which is why music engraving can be an art.

edit: I originally wrote "straddle" but meant "sit" on the high side of the beam, so I do what Ross describes in the post below.
Last edited by John Ruggero on 27 Mar 2022, 12:03, edited 3 times in total.
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Fred G. Unn
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Re: Beams and staff lines.

Post by Fred G. Unn »

The Ted Ross book has pages and pages of prescriptions for beams and beam slants including his sit/straddle/hang designations for each combination. Here's one page as an example:
Image

If you don't have a copy, they come up on eBay reasonably often, but are getting more and more expensive. NPC Imaging has a licensing agreement where they can sell the scanned PDF version of it. Here's a link:
http://www.npcimaging.com/books/TedRoss.htm

The end of a downward slanted beam should always be straddle or hang, never sit according to Ross. The end of an upward slanted beam should always be straddle or sit, never hang. He makes exceptions when the end is outside the staff but there aren't ledger lines, like A4-D5 could be hang (from the invisible ledger line) - hang (from the bottom of the staff) but that's a specific case. In general, downward slanted beams that end in the staff should not end with sit, and upward slanted beams that end in the staff should not end with hang.
MichelRE
Posts: 251
Joined: 07 Aug 2021, 17:11

Re: Beams and staff lines.

Post by MichelRE »

The end of a downward slanted beam should always be straddle or hang, never sit according to Ross. The end of an upward slanted beam should always be straddle or sit, never hang.
thanks, the above actually gives me at least a starting point to understand what's going on.

I only have a few spots where Dorico does some things I find unattractive with mid-staff beams (for example, one note is stem up, the beam is in the middle of the staff, the the next note is stem down, for a passage that covers a very wide range).

It makes the beam much too angular. I like it a bit flatter, covering less real estate.
benwiggy
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Joined: 11 Apr 2016, 19:42

Re: Beams and staff lines.

Post by benwiggy »

There have been some new Engraving Options in v4 to improve beaming in various situations. There's also also a lengthy thread here and on the Dorico forum about how to get the best from all the Options.

https://forums.steinberg.net/t/mini-art ... ens/766380

I got the PDF of the Ted Ross book, and printed it onto decent text paper and had it case bound, so it's a sturdy and ready reference.
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