Re: Autobeaming with subdivision in 4/4

[Hans Aberg]

On 4 Mar 2008, at 13:20, Hugo Flordal wrote:

> > The problem is that you want to beam differently than
> > implied by the time signature you want to write. So you
> > want to beam in what might be described as 8 =
> > (1+1)+(1+1)+(1+1)+(1+1), whereas the common interpretation
> > of 4 is (1+1)+(1+1) or perhaps 1+1+1+1. If taken
> > literally, your beaming implies that the 4/4 has one
> > primary accent, and on the 1/4s have secondary accents.
> > Then each 1/4 has a yet subordinate accent on the second
> > 1/8 of it. And LilyPond does not a dedicated function
> > doing just that, though it might be possible to do write
> > one.

> Thank you for the reply, but I'm not sure I get it... Are
> you saying (indirectly) that when I set the beatLength to
> 1/8, I implicitly change the timing to 8/8? Should I then
> use 8/8 beaming rules? Is that why my 4/4 auto-beam rules do
> not work but the */* rules do?

No. LilyPond currently only has ready-made high-level functions for  
some standard situations, where time signature and beaming agree. In  
other cases one will have to use low level functions, as I showed you.

  Hans Aberg