same pitch in two voices, note spacing

• Apr 15, 2020 - 20:43

These are observations about voicing in piano music where two occupy the same pitch, either from two voices or from cross staff. See the attached image.

In the first example I adjusted the lower voice f sharp and f natural to occupy the same space they do in the upper voice. The e natural is the Musescore defaulted layout. I could argue that the default is correct, but the measure is spaced on the dotted eighth notes rather than the sixteenths, and that probably should not be. I could decrease the stretch some, but not enough to make the sixteenth notes occupy equal space.

In the second example, surprisingly the default formatting made the sixteenth from the bass occupy the same space and cover the half note in the treble. That should not be.

Third example shows where I attempted to move in properties the sixteenth to the right of the half note, but I could not find a way to make the beam follow the note. The beam properties horizontal spacing didn’t move the left end of the beam.

These examples are from the piano part in a song by Faure, Clair de Lune.

Attachment Size
piano voicing.png 71.55 KB

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