Beam direction for three or more notes

• Oct 9, 2011 - 07:00
Type
Functional
Severity
S4 - Minor
Status
closed
Project

When groups of beamed notes have an equal number of notes above and below the middle staff line, then MuseScore does not correctly determine the direction for stems.

Attached is a set of test cases. The left side shows the expected beam direction, and the right side shows the actual beam direction.


Comments

Status (old) fixed active

The test cases in the original bug report all passed, but attached are a couple cases where MuseScore isn't quite following the rules.

Generally, notes on the center line should be treated as neutral in determining stem direction. (Of course the custom is still to point stems down if everything else is neutral, i.e. four notes on the center line beamed together)

Personally I think MuseScore looked neater on the above examples. If there is debate about whether to put the beam up or down I'd go with keeping it the same as any other beams in that measure rather than having higgledy-piggledy beams. For the right hand of a keyboard I would err on the side of beam-up and for the left hand, be-down. Fortunately MuscScore lets you [Ctrl]-x to invert the beam with ease so it's not a major problem as far as I'm concerned.

underquark. The goal here is to have a logical default based on the standard rules of notation. Although some traditions depart from this default to match the surrounding context, this is an editorial choice and beyond the current role of automation.