On 5 Nov 2005 at 10:03, Chuck Israels wrote: > Flat looks better to my eyes because the figure seems centered around > one note, even though the last note is lower than the first, and the > flat beam expresses that. I even tried entering a descending figure > afterward, in order to see if that influenced my response - making > the passage an overall descending one, and the flat beam still seemed > more a pro pos. That's just my personal reaction.
I've never paid much attention to beaming. Finale's early beaming algorithms were truly horrid and looked just awful, and I recognized that, but back then there was no way to fix it except by manually tweaking practically every beam. So I ended up basically getting in the habit of ignoring beaming. Now, the default beams are much less odious (though still often problematic) and running Patterson Beams gets me something that is good enough for me. But all of this discussion raises some interesting points. David Bailey remarked that beam angle can provide useful analytical information -- in a figure that is basically static (like an Alberti bass) a flat beam conveys the static nature. Chuck's remark above makes a related point, and makes me ask: >From a sight-reading point of view, from an analytical point of view, what if you had 4-note static figures in a descending sequence? Would it then be helpful to slightly slant the beams to give the overall passage a descending motion? Or is it enough that each successive group's beam is lower (though that won't always be the case because of staff line avoidance)? In transcribing 18th-century sources I religiously maintain beam breaks and reversed beams (the |\| kind of beam), because I think they indicate subtle things about phrasing (though not always). But standards for beam angle are completely different in modern notation than in the old, and so I never even thought to replicate any of that. Johannes and Dennis C., and any others who edit older music, do you think there's anything in the beaming angle of the original sources that might be worth preserving? Do you also try to preserve the beaming breaks and reversed beams? Maintaining the reversed beams makes for some bad engraving, in some cases. Here's an example: http://www.dfenton.com/Midi/MozartK581Arr/MozartK581Arr_019.png That looks terrible in modern engraving, though it looks fine in the original. And, interestingly, an 1811 reprint of the same piece that follows the 1802 first edition very closely does *not* use the reversed beam, but simply breaks it between the first two 32nd notes. I'm not sure there's any utility in my slavish devotion to following the original, and if I were preparing the edition for publication I'd probably take out the reversed beams in this passage, because the 32nd-note beams make it so unwieldy. I'd probably retain it everywhere that it doesn't cause vertical spacing issues. -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
