NOTATIO

I see I screwed up the second measure of my two Finale examples, but they are correct now. Here is the way I might try to correct by hand: I do it by eye and have yet to develop a system except to keep the beams roughly parallel to and continuous with the prevailing motion of the note groups both in part and as a whole, to avoid including staff lines whenever possible, but when forced to include them, to place them roughly in the middle of the group. As far as the length of the staff lines, I try to make the shortest stems about an octave in length.

A few of the examples here are, well, just wrong according to Ross. The primary (bottom in this example) beam only has a few possible positions and hanging out in a space is not one of them. Here's Ross page 121:



Normally, with a single beam the following applies:
1) An ascending beam contained within the staff can never begin with Sit nor end with Hang.
2) A descending beam contained within the staff can never begin with Hang nor end with Sit.

With the addition of a secondary beam, placement options are even more limited. Hang is now not an option for either end of a downstemmed primary beam because the secondary beam cannot end in a space. As a result, there are really only a few possible placements here. I think these are all "correct" according to Ross depending on your tolerance for stem lengths and beam angles.



I don't think there are many other "correct" solutions if you are following Ross beaming rules.

Heavens! I am not a pro-engraver, but a composer and erstwhile (but no more: old age!) performer. I really dislike the Ross shallow and mixed beams, which I find visually irritating. On the other hand I like John's latest example.

Well, Ross himself would never actually “allow” the shallow example due to the stem length. That was just my own example showing the only possible “allowable” attachment points for the beams. Henle may very well use the shallow example if they were to publish this though. Some of the stems just seem too long in the steep example, so I’m kinda leaning towards the mixed solution. The main point I was trying to make though is that there are only a handful of possibilities because of the rules governing beam placement. They can’t just go anywhere unless you just toss out the Ross guidelines.