MuseScore 4 Beam Angles

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John Ruggero
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MuseScore 4 Beam Angles

Post by John Ruggero »

Fred G. Unn pointed out that the MuseScore 4 on-staff beams follow the convention now seen at Henle and other publishers to cover the staff lines at all costs. Lists of individual intervals might make it appear beam angles are only a matter of personal preference. But beamed groups don't function in a vacuum. Here is an example of what MuseScore 4 does in actual practice:
MuseScore 4 beaming.png
MuseScore 4 beaming.png (59.42 KiB) Viewed 4260 times
I do not see this kind of jagged beaming in fine engraving of the past and for good reason.
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John Ruggero
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Re: MuseScore 4 Beam Angles

Post by John Ruggero »

Here is a comparison of the beaming in a older Peters edition (1938) with MuseScore 4:
Peters (1938).png
Peters (1938).png (37.59 KiB) Viewed 4200 times
MuseScore (2022).png
MuseScore (2022).png (26.59 KiB) Viewed 4200 times
What is missing from the beaming equations used by MuseScore and some other software is context. Beamed groups don't exist in a vacuum; what is happening around them must be taken into account.
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tisimst
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Re: MuseScore 4 Beam Angles

Post by tisimst »

This is a very interesting example, John.

For what it's worth, I think we've overlooked an engraving style that makes the Peters edition more visually clean than it should be under normal circumstances. To illustrate, if you re-enter the line with the Peters beams in the same place, you'll notice the indicated places are different than in the original. (right-click -> open image in new tab if you can't see it clearly enough here)
actual-peters-without-staff-line-hiding-vs-ms4.png
actual-peters-without-staff-line-hiding-vs-ms4.png (47.36 KiB) Viewed 4184 times
What's different? The staff lines are being hid behind the beams, which I personally think makes a lot of sense, but figured I'd point it out as it's relevant to this discussion. Would love to see an app that implements this since it allows you to do beams however you want and they always end up clean in appearance.

P.S. LIlyPond, once again closely follows Peters beaming by default, but it shows the same kind of issue when the staff lines are NOT removed:
default-lilypond-beaming.png
default-lilypond-beaming.png (10.03 KiB) Viewed 4184 times
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John Ruggero
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Re: MuseScore 4 Beam Angles

Post by John Ruggero »

While it is interesting that the Peters whites out the staff lines, one can find many more examples from the past that don't. I find the wild, jagged overall beaming picture produced by this new concern for placing beams on the staff lines at all costs far more distracting and ugly than a thin little staff line lodged unobtrusively between the beams.

Brahms 51 Exercises in the original edition offers a whole encyclopedia of repetitive patterns in which the staff lines are present within the beams:

https://s9.imslp.org/files/imglnks/usim ... S._520.pdf

Here is a measure from the Brahms that might be compared to the MuseScore example in my first post. This one is from the Breitkopf complete works:
Brahms Exercise 1a.png
Brahms Exercise 1a.png (62.19 KiB) Viewed 4157 times
Here is what a Finale default file produces for the second example:
Finale 1 revision.png
Finale 1 revision.png (55.85 KiB) Viewed 4053 times
With my settings:
Finale 2 revision.png
Finale 2 revision.png (54.6 KiB) Viewed 4053 times
I prefer what Finale produces with my settings over the other examples given, including Peters. But I often refine the Finale further. This is what the program should be doing.
Last edited by John Ruggero on 22 Dec 2022, 19:37, edited 2 times in total.
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tisimst
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Re: MuseScore 4 Beam Angles

Post by tisimst »

Great thoughts, John. I think your settings have one other advantage over some of these other defaults and that is thicker beams/smaller beam-gaps. I noticed the same thing in some older printed scores I saw last night. The slightly thicker beams seem to make the crossing staff lines to be less prominent and keep the focus on the notes and their runs instead.

Do your settings typically follow the contours of the notes like this? I think it looks nice, personally.
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John Ruggero
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Re: MuseScore 4 Beam Angles

Post by John Ruggero »

Thanks for your opinion about the beams, tisimist. Benwiggy noticed the same thing about the distance and thickness and also liked it. I had forgotten about and when I had changed those settings.

Finale seems to be following the melodic contours quite well if the beam angles are not limited too much in the settings. But I go further than Finale in actually "interpreting" the music through the beam angles which requires hand work. I mentioned this on the Scarlatti K. 1 thread. So the same set of notes might have different beam angles depending on context, since the same set of notes can mean many different things. I see some of this also in older engraving. The beam angles are not following set rules blindly. There is room for artistic license. Of course, it is a much simpler to force the beams on to staff lines which may be why there is such a rush to do this across the software and publishing world.
Last edited by John Ruggero on 22 Dec 2022, 13:29, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: MuseScore 4 Beam Angles

Post by tisimst »

Agreed, John.

FWIW, here's what the same passage looks like with the staff lines hidden behind the beams, which I am really liking:
beaming-with-staff-lines-removed-behind-beams.png
beaming-with-staff-lines-removed-behind-beams.png (14.75 KiB) Viewed 4133 times
In a way, since our eyes are getting more used to not beaming strategies that keep staff lines from appearing behind beams, this gives the best of both worlds, both contoured beaming and lack of visual collisions.

And just 'cause we can, here's the same effect with thicker beams (like your settings) and then without hiding staff lines. Interesting how similar they feel, visually:
thicker-beams-with-staff-lines-removed-behind-beams.png
thicker-beams-with-staff-lines-removed-behind-beams.png (14.76 KiB) Viewed 4133 times
thicker-beams-normal.png
thicker-beams-normal.png (14.28 KiB) Viewed 4133 times
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Anders Hedelin
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Re: MuseScore 4 Beam Angles

Post by Anders Hedelin »

In notation programs it seems to be a rule that one of the end notes in a beamed ascending or descending motion has a fixed length. In ascending motion with downward beams the first stem has 3 spaces for notes on staff spaces and a little less for notes on staff lines. In descending motion with downward beams the same applies to the last stem.
From what I've seen in 'good old editions' this isn't an absolute rule, as seen in the example from Brahms/Breitkopf supplied by John, where especially the first triplets in both hands differ from that.

I think your emendments are much nicer than the default, John. I found the beams on the first beat a little too steep, though, probably due to the 'rule' I described. So, I made the stem length a tiny bit shorter than in the default. (I guess there might be settings for this, but I'm not really good at that, too often finding that one changed setting looks very nice in one situation and awful in another. I've decided to hold on to the old eye-and-hand method, which of course can be rather time-consuming, but much less so than making repeated experiments with settings that never work quite as you want, leaving you to tidy up by eye and hand all the same.)
Jagged beams.JPG
Jagged beams.JPG (28.04 KiB) Viewed 4133 times
The placement of the beams in regard to the staff lines is less perfect in this screen shot than in the Finale file, so I left it at that.
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John Ruggero
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Re: MuseScore 4 Beam Angles

Post by John Ruggero »

I agree completely tisimst. Whiting-out a background often calls attention to itself too much, but in the case of beaming it gives the engraver a lot more flexibility without negatives and should be an available option. And as you said, the narrowed thicker beams give almost the same effect. In looking at the older editions it is sometimes hard to tell which approach was taken.

Thanks, Anders. The examples were done entirely by Finale but with different settings. I agree that first group doesn't line up well with the others and would alter that by hand while still trying to avoid including much of a staff line if any. So I might not angle the first beat of m. 1 in your example quite so much. The first beat of m. 2 is exactly what I would do. The third beat of m. 2 I might try to get rid of that staff line since just a little adjustment is needed that wouldn't put it too far out of line with the surrounding groups and might actually line it up better with the previous group. In any case, its the kind of adjustments that you and I are doing by hand that the program should be doing.

I am glad I brought this subject up, because it has brought up a interesting resource and confirmed some of my thinking.
Last edited by John Ruggero on 22 Dec 2022, 19:19, edited 1 time in total.
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Anders Hedelin
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Re: MuseScore 4 Beam Angles

Post by Anders Hedelin »

Well, this being the forum to discuss even the tiniest details, I tried another, slightly different solution:
Jagged beams 2.JPG
Jagged beams 2.JPG (27.99 KiB) Viewed 4072 times
By the way, I would like your opinion, John, about the standard that the shortest stem in a beamed sequense of notes always is three spaces or a little less (to put it better perhaps than in my previous post). The 'good old' Breitkopf in your example doesn't do it that way.
Maybe this is a well-known practise for most engravers except me. I just can't recall having seen it addressed before.

And, since this is a thread about another progarm than mine, Finale, it would be appropriate to ask if other programs have this standard setting for stem lengths.
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