Length of Stem of “Small” Chord with Hook(s) or Beam(s) Scaled Incorrectly

When reducing the size of a default sized note to “small” size, it is most reasonable to expect that the proportions of each “small” sized note would be the same as its larger counterpart. That is typically not true for the stems of “small sized notes with hooks.

The attached file illustrates this. It contains two groups of notes: a down-stem group and an up-stem group. Each group contains three identical measures of the notes with stems through the 32nd note. (I know there are many more notes with shorter durations. I chose to omit them to simplify the example.)

The first measure in each group contains default sized notes. Except for the 32nd note, the length of the stems of the other notes is virtually the same. Furthermore, the notes in the up-stem group and down-stem group are symmetric; i.e. the length of the stem of the corresponding notes in each group is the same.

The second measure in each group is a copy of the first measure with each note reduced to “small” size by selecting the note and, using the Inspector, checking the “Small” box in the “Chord” section. In the result shown, the length of the stem of the notes without hooks is different from the length of the stem of the notes with hooks. Furthermore, by noting the distance between the note head and the hook, the stem of the notes with hooks is typically too long.

The third measure in each group is a copy of the second measure with the length of each stem of a note with a hook changed by selecting the stem and, in the “Stem” section of the Inspector, entering an appropriate number for the “Length change” value so that the stem length has the same relative length as that of its equivalent default sized note. For the down-stem notes with hooks, these values are -1, -1, and -.5 respectively. For the up-stem notes with hooks, the values are -.5, -.5, and 0 respectively.

While, as previously mentioned, the default sized notes in the first measure of the up-stem and down-stem groups are symmetric, the original “small” notes in the second measure of the up-stem and down-stem groups are not as noted by the different length changes required to make them symmetric.