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Tertiary beams: a case for widening/thickening?

Posted: 06 Feb 2022, 17:16
by benwiggy
After entering the following phrase, the beaming looked 'a bit wrong' to me on the selected (orange) notes.

Screenshot 14.png
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Is this a candidate for thickening of the beams and/or widening the separation? I made an attempt to widen and re-position, as can be seen in the repeated example in the second bar. But I'm not sure if it looks odd when placed next to the unmodified beam immediately adjacent.

Here's one with beams not separated, but thickened.
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As ever, grateful for your thoughts.

Re: Tertiary beams: a case for widening/thickening?

Posted: 06 Feb 2022, 18:36
by tisimst
I guarantee, if you had only shown the second (adjusted) passage, not a single person would have noticed them being thicker. Personally, I think you’re on the right track because it keeps it from drawing unwanted attention. I agree that something about that beam group doesn’t feel right between the beam stub and the neighboring staff lines.

Seems like you could solve this two ways: make the beams more prominent by thickening them a little, which is what you proposed, or reposition the beams to cater to the optical cohesiveness of the beam stub. Not sure which is better because there are trade offs in both cases.

Re: Tertiary beams: a case for widening/thickening?

Posted: 06 Feb 2022, 18:38
by tisimst
Looking at the first example again, you’ll notice there’s an identical pair of notes in the second measure that looks totally fine by comparison. That groups beams seem to have a little more white space between them. Why is that?

Re: Tertiary beams: a case for widening/thickening?

Posted: 06 Feb 2022, 19:39
by OCTO
Is this something that Dorico does automatically?

Re: Tertiary beams: a case for widening/thickening?

Posted: 06 Feb 2022, 19:45
by benwiggy
tisimst wrote: 06 Feb 2022, 18:38 Looking at the first example again, you’ll notice there’s an identical pair of notes in the second measure that looks totally fine by comparison. That groups beams seem to have a little more white space between them. Why is that?
Because I adjusted it! First pair: default; second bar: increased separation.
OCTO wrote: 06 Feb 2022, 19:39 Is this something that Dorico does automatically?
There is this setting:
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But it doesn't seem to apply in this situation.

Re: Tertiary beams: a case for widening/thickening?

Posted: 06 Feb 2022, 21:02
by tisimst
benwiggy wrote: 06 Feb 2022, 19:45
tisimst wrote: 06 Feb 2022, 18:38 Looking at the first example again, you’ll notice there’s an identical pair of notes in the second measure that looks totally fine by comparison. That groups beams seem to have a little more white space between them. Why is that?
Because I adjusted it!
(Facepalm) Yes, indeed you said that. Sorry lol. Well, it definitely looks better than the default.

Re: Tertiary beams: a case for widening/thickening?

Posted: 06 Feb 2022, 22:32
by John Ruggero
Ben, I don't care for widening the beams or the space between them, and if this really bothered me I'd probably do the following and call it a day:
beams.jpeg
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My edition of the Haydn Piano Sonatas in the older Wiener Urtext edition (Landon/Jonas 1957) is filled with these, and they do like in my example when it works and don't worry about it when it doesn't.

The beam stubs themselves are quite long in your examples, and look particularly strange and maybe even a little confusing when the notes are close together. Maybe that is playing into what bothers you?

Re: Tertiary beams: a case for widening/thickening?

Posted: 07 Feb 2022, 02:13
by JJP
I think John nailed it. There are two things happening that cause problems.

1. The length of the stub and spacing between the notes create a conflict. The stub beam is encroaching into the horizontal space occupied by the previous notehead. This makes it difficult to understand the rhythm. In fact, the overall note spacing seems inconsistent to my eye which makes reading complex rhythms difficult. The same rhythm happens three times in a row with wildly different spacings.

2. The beam angle and stem length is problematic. As John demonstrated, the stem length/beam angle must be adjusted to ensure the beams begin and end in acceptable locations.

Re: Tertiary beams: a case for widening/thickening?

Posted: 07 Feb 2022, 09:21
by benwiggy
Thanks all. I've decreased the length of the stub (down from the factory length of 1 and 5/24th spaces(!) to 7/8), and added some space using Dorico's new setting for 'space after dot', which has the effect of decreasing the angle and evening out the rhythm; all of which means I don't mind them as much.
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Re: Tertiary beams: a case for widening/thickening?

Posted: 08 Feb 2022, 01:33
by John Ruggero
That looks fine, Ben. The factory needs to issue a recall on that default.