Changing how notes are beamed

QuickStave beams eighths and shorter notes for you, following the time signature. Where a passage needs different beaming, change it at one note from the Articulations tab; the rest of the score keeps its automatic beaming.

How the time signature beams

• Shorter than an eighth: in most meters, 16ths and shorter are beamed by the beat.
• 2/4 and 3/4: eighths can be beamed across the whole bar. In 3/4 a beam of eighths never starts or ends halfway through the bar, so the bar can’t be mistaken for 6/8.
• 4/4: eighths are beamed in half bars, never across the middle of the bar.
• 2/2, 3/2 and compound meters such as 6/8: notes are beamed by the beat.
• 2/8, 3/8 and 4/8: a beam can cover more than one eighth beat, with its inner beams broken at each beat so the count still shows.
• Inner beams: a run of 32nds or shorter is divided into eighth-note units by its inner beams, while its main beam carries on.
• Fractional beams, the short beam on a single note such as the 16th of a dotted figure, point toward the beat they belong to.

To beam a meter by different beats, such as 7/8 as 3 + 2 + 2, set its Grouping in the time signature picker (F8 T, then G).

Changing the beam at one note

Select a note and press F3 B to open the beam menu. Each choice says how the note joins the one before it:

• A Auto: the time signature decides. Choose it to undo any of the others.
• B Break before: a new beam starts at this note.
• J Join to previous: the note stays on the previous note’s beam, even across a beat.
• N No beam: the note isn’t beamed at all, and takes its own flag.

The menu highlights the note’s current choice, and the Beams button on the tab lights up when a note has one. Choices that can’t do anything for the selected notes are greyed out: a quarter note has no beam, for instance. Beams never cross a barline.

Beaming a selection

• T Beam together beams exactly the selected notes as one group, even across beats. A selection over two bars gets one beam in each, and a quarter note or longer inside the selection splits it.
• N over a selection unbeams it: every note takes its own flag. The command palette (^K) calls this Unbeam.
• A over a selection returns every note in it to automatic beaming.

Inner beams

The digits break the inner beams between a note and the one before it, while the main beam carries on:

• 1 Inner beams: 8th: the two notes are joined by the eighth beam only.
• 2 Inner beams: 16th: joined by the eighth and 16th beams.
• 3 Inner beams: 32nd: joined by the eighth, 16th and 32nd beams.

Use them to show how a run of 16ths or 32nds divides, such as 16ths grouped in pairs. Each is available only where the notes have more beams than it keeps. J joins every inner beam again, for a run you want undivided, like a fast scale.

Beams over rests

A rest inside a beat doesn’t break the beam: the beam runs over the rest, so the beat still reads as one group. A rest at the start or end of a beat stays outside the beam.

Select a rest and open the beam menu to change it:

• J carries the beam over this rest, joining it to the notes before.
• N keeps the beam off this rest.
• B starts a beam at the rest. This needs Stemlets, below.

Two settings in Score Properties (Ctrl+P, the Beams section) apply to the whole score:

• Beam over rests (on by default): turn it off and every rest breaks its beam, unless you join it with J.
• Stemlets (off by default): a short stem from the beam toward each rest under it. With stemlets a beam may also start or end on a rest, so it can cover a whole beat, and Beam together keeps rests at the ends of the selection.

Feathered beams

A feathered beam shows the notes speeding up or slowing down freely within the group: its inner beams fan out from the main beam, or in toward it. Select any note of a group with 16ths or shorter:

• F Feathered: accelerando: the beams fan out toward the end of the group.
• S Feathered: rallentando: the beams draw in toward the end.
• O Feathered: off.

The notes keep their written values, in playback too.

Tips

• MusicXML files keep their own beaming when you import them. On export, a score with any beaming change writes every beam as drawn; a score beamed automatically throughout writes none, so the program that opens it beams by its own rules.
• A choice is kept when an edit leaves it nothing to do, such as Break before on a note you lengthen to a quarter, and works again once the note can be beamed. A removes it.
• X on the Note tab flips a whole beam group’s stems at once; see Entering notes.