Re: beatLength / beaming in 4/4

[Carl Sorensen]

On 6/15/10 11:17 AM, "Urs Liska" <address@hidden> wrote:

> Today I tried to use the \overrideBeamSetting (near the bottom of this email)
> in my real score and I am very happy that it works perfectly now.
> 
> By now I understand the logic behind this from a programmer's perspective.
> But I have to say it seems quite counterintuitive from a musical or
> typesetter's point of view. If I change the beatLength setting I'd expect that
> beams are now grouped according to this new beatLength. I wouldn't expect that
> there is a default setting somewhere (which I as a typesetter originally don't
> see at all) which produces four groups in a 4/4 regardless of the length of
> the group.

Well, I'm not the one who invented these rules.  These rules come from
established handbooks of music notation, such as Read, Ross, and Stone.  I
think that doing things according to the handbooks is the best thing to have
for a default.  And that's what we've tried to do.

> I'd expect the grouping - if not explicitly set to some irregular values - to
> repeat throughout the bar.
> I'm not quite sure what the best solution would be, but maybe one should have
> some kind of default grouping similar to the default beam type shortcuts.
> 
> This setting:
> \overrideBeamSettings #'Score #'(4 . 4) #'end
>      #'(((1 . 8) . (4 4))
>         ((1 . 16) . (2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2))
>         ((1 . 32) . (4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4)))
> might then be written something like:
>         ...
>         ((1 . 16) . (*))
>         ((1 . 32) . (*)))
> or
>         ((*) . (*)))
> , the right "*" meaning "group beams according to beatLength".
> I think this would be clearer and less redundant.

In the documentation, it say that if there are no default rules or beam-type
rules, then beatLength governs beaming.  So all you would need to do to have
the beatLength govern beaming is to do:

\overrideBeamSettings #'Score #'(4 . 4) #'end #'()

That kills all of the beaming rules, and beatLength will completely cover
autobeaming.
> 
> I am not complaining about anything.

I'm not taking your comments as complaining.  Suggestions are always
welcome.

> And probably it's no good moment for
> these ideas - either your current changes go into this direction anyway or you
> won't care to rethink everything again...
> Just wanted to give some ideas from a user's perspective. Whether or not they
> are useful for anybody dealing with the issue from a programmer's side...

Well, I think the new code will have a very easy solution for you.

If you want to always have beaming follow beatLength, you can simply do

\set Score.beamSettings = "#'()

Then beatLength will control the beaming.

HTH,

Carl