Beam Gradients

• Jun 28, 2016 - 23:52

Is it just me or would it be nice to have a gradient in degrees so that there could be a uniform degree angle easily applied to a set of beams? For instance, if there are 5 measures of ascending beamed notes and you have a particular user-defined angle you want applied from the first beam to all of them. Having the option available to implement that angle in the following sets without having to calculate the offsets by giving a particular degree, e.g. plus or minus 35 degrees, from the initial beam position would aid in the process. Just a thought: maybe I'm over looking something. Anyways, this way you wouldn't have to do any math between the start position and the end position, or eye-ball it, for the following beams with a user-defined angled. Any thoughts?


Comments

Beam angles seem too steep in general according to many experts I showed my scores and indeed matching beam angels would be a great option: manually or partly automatically.

The differences in beam angles between similar but not identical groups of notes are an important visual clue to musicians reading dense, difficult passages at speed. Putting all the beams at the same angle might make the music look neat and tidy but it would also make it harder to read.

In older, hand-engraved music, beams were curved to parallel the 'shape' of the melody.

Curved beams.png

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