Re: AutoBeam Behaving Properly?

[David Wright]

On Tue 05 Apr 2016 at 22:16:40 (-0400), Kieren MacMillan wrote:
> Hi Martin,
> 
> On Apr 5, 2016, at 9:58 PM, Martin Neubauer <address@hidden> wrote:
> > I was wondering how often the odd half measure beam really leads to 
> > ambiguity between 3/4 and 6/8 time in properly typeset music.

Apart from the example posted? If you look at the sort of hymns common
in the US and written in the short-note style favoured there, then
anything that starts with three quavers. Flicking through, I see
"O Waly Waly" which is easy to spot because it has a 3/4 signature.
OTOH I see "The Voice of Jesus" (not a hymn I know) which has no
time signature (mixed 3/4 2/4) so the beaming is the _only_
indication of crochet rhythm. Even the lyrics (underlain, again a
US convention) don't help. The two verses start:
1 The voice of ...
2 Chil-dren and ...
which contradict each other (no surprise for 1993).

These are typeset correctly, though whether you can call this hymn
book properly typeset is debatable. Some of the word underlays are
appallingly positioned.

Then again, these ambiguities are not helped (or hindered) with UK
hymn conventions: no time signatures, and longer note values where
these anacruses are therefore notated in crochets. But better not to
be told than to be told wrongly.

> In “West Side Story”, the half-measure beams in “America” indicate where the 
> measure grooves in 6/8, and the full-measure beams indicate where the measure 
> grooves in 3/4. (n.b. If I were engraving “WSS", I would go even further and 
> beam the three quarters separately.) If it were arbitrarily beamed, that 
> vital information would be lost.

I only have access to the choral selection by William Stickles, and
the beaming there is excellent: two groups of three in the first bar,
three groups of two in the second, and so on. The only bars with
single beams are those like e8[ r e r e] r and r8 e[ r e r e]
Similarly, in "I Feel Pretty" we have plenty of r4 f8[ f f f] | f4

But—and here's my point—that beaming is only in the piano part,
not the voices. Beaming IFP that way would send the wrong message
to the singers. The style needs to fit the both piece and the part.

Cheers,
David.