Page 1 of 1

Beams in 6/8

Posted: 15 Mar 2023, 15:34
by DePaule
Is the beaming right?
signal-2023-03-15-162828_002.png
signal-2023-03-15-162828_002.png (392.45 KiB) Viewed 2002 times

Re: Beams in 6/8

Posted: 16 Mar 2023, 12:53
by swetom2011
While not being an engraving expert, it's what I would expect to see in orchestra music. Violin in my case.

Re: Beams in 6/8

Posted: 18 Mar 2023, 02:32
by John Ruggero
If you are asking about beaming vocal music like instrumental music, this is now standard and preferred by many to the older style. Your measure numbers are too close to the brackets. You could also place them midway between the two staves in each system.You need an "extender" for the "sind" in m. 12 since there are two notes in the alto part.

Re: Beams in 6/8

Posted: 08 Apr 2023, 11:11
by Ander
Hi DePaule,

If you're still interested, I can offer a few (good-natured!) suggestions:

• Consider beaming over your rests, as I think it's easier for performers to count notes as beamed units rather than singly. In 2- and 4-based time signatures, you won't want to beam more than two beats; but in 3-based sigs like 6/8 (here), beaming three beats is fine; it's all about legibility.

• When a one-syllable lyric is held over two or more notes, it's fine (and often clearer) to hyphenate it.

• Serif text (lyrics, chord symbols) is usually easier to read than sans-serif, as it has a bit more detail for the brain to pick up on.

BTW, what notation app are you using? The notes seem unusually small. You may find larger noteheads easier to read.

Here's an example, using these ideas, that I just whipped up in the free MuseScore notation software (www.musescore.org), which has really come into its own with its latest version. (I've switched to it from Sibelius.) Once you learn the basics, it's quite fast; this example took about 10 minutes (including the special German characters—LOL).

It uses their new Leland music font, which I really like for its legibility and esthetics. It has a fun history, too:

How I Designed a Free Music Font for 5 Million Musicians (YouTube)

Finally, maybe it's just me—but when simultaneous rests in two voices of vocal music are a certain distance apart, I like to give each voice a rest (as in T/B in the 2nd bar here), rather than requiring both parts' eyes to jump to a single rest between them.

Hope this helps. (It helped me feel useful, at least 😊 ) Cheers, A.


music_example.png
music_example.png (40.74 KiB) Viewed 1843 times

Re: Beams in 6/8

Posted: 08 Apr 2023, 18:47
by John Ruggero
Very nice engraving, Ander. And the note head font is very, very nice. However, I would never beam two distinct phrases together over a rest like that and prefer the original beaming. The additional rest in "m. 4" looks redundant to me, but why didn't you also place one between the tenor and bass part in "m. 6"?