beaming issues

• Aug 25, 2021 - 12:43

I want a cross staff beam to be like beam 2.png , but its appears as beam.png . Can I fix it?


Comments

It doesn't seem to make a difference whether you write the cross-staff notes originally on the upper staff or the lower staff. In both cases, MuseScore chooses to render the beam as you show it.

Have you considered pulling the beam downwards? That might make things more legible, as highlighted below:
Cross-staff beaming.png

In reply to by DanielR

Did you notice: there are two consecutive E (mi) notes, one in the lower staff and the other in the upper staff, there is no need for this. If the previous note could be written to the lower staff, the next could also be written.

Cross-staff_forum_issue-Z0.png

PS: If this score is for pianoforte, the lower e note on the upper staff is unnecessary. It's not possible to hold it, but if it's for a two keyboard organ it can be played.

In reply to by SLJK

I thought about pointing this out as well even though it's kind of beside the point. But FWIW, I agree this particular example seems quite confusing. I don't see any reason for the first E ( the one that comes in just before beat 2) to have been duplicated between the staves either. And certainly the lower E in the RH cannot be sustained while also repeating it just after beat 2. It's also quite confusing to have the arpeggio on beat three notated as it is with the B on the bottom staff but the G on the top.

So really, the entire passage should be simplified greatly. I'd guess cross staff notation isn't needed at all here, a pianist would be able to determine for themselves which note to play which hand. Or a suggestion "(RH)" could be added next to notes that you believe would be best played with that hand.

On the other hand, if this is from a published score that you are attempting to copy exactly - which is I assume how you got the picture of how you'd prefer the beam to look - then maybe changing the notation to something more logical isn't something you're comfortable with. Depends on your goal in re-copying it, I guess.

(btw, I was also kind of assuming the key was Eb here, which would likely change the fingering and thus notions of which hand might best play which notes)

In reply to by SLJK

Understood. Still, my other observations hold - this passage doesn't really make sense to me as notated and could be simplified pretty radically without changing a thing about the end result, and in any case, as mentioned, the beaming is correct as is, the image you show of the desired result is actually incorrect.

FWIW, according to Gould, our default is correct here, and the example of the desired layout is wrong, at least according to the standard Gould follows. Her rule is, if the notes connected by such a sub-beam have opposite stem directions, the sub-beam goes to the side of the main beam opposite the first note. Here is the relevant passage, see the third example:

Screenshot 2021-08-27 7.09.46 AM.png

The goal is to avoid unnecessary beam corners, and you can see our layout does this while the "desired" arrangement suffers that flaw. So I don't think this is just some quirk of Gould's, I suspect in this case most engravers would make the same choice.

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