I don't want beams

• Oct 11, 2015 - 16:50

I nearly never want beams. But it looks like hard not to get them. In the handbook it says: "(back to) Automatic mode: the mode MuseScore chooses on note input, dependent on current time signature."

Now I wonder which time signature to use to get notes without beams? It is easier to write without beams and than add beams where needed. Now I need to spend a lot of time breaking the beams.

Is there a way to make a template that avoid beams?

Comments

• Oct 11, 2015 - 17:18

I don't think you can do this via a template, but there is an easy method to get rid of all of the beams in one go:

1. Write all the music as normal (i.e. with beams)
2. Open up the Pallet (press F9) and expand Beam Properties.
3. Right-click on any notehead in the score and choose Select > All similar elements. Now all notes are selected.
4. Now change beam mode to "No beam" in the Beam Properties pallet and it will apply to all notes.

FWIW I think standard notation uses beams for all notes except in vocal scores, in which case notes are only beamed if they are also tied (i.e. if a single lyric syllable is to be sung for more than one note). If you only want to remove beams for a vocalist and not the instrumentalist then use "Select > All similar elements in same staff" in step 3. Perhaps at some point MuseScore will handle beaming of lyrics automatically, but in the meantime "Select all similar elements" is a good enough method once you know about it.

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• Aug 30, 2018 - 22:54

Hmm, I'm not understanding why you've chosen to hide the stems and beams here - it just causes confusion. I guess maybe you were trying to avoid collisions between voices 1 & 3, but really, you shouldn't have resorted to three voices at all here. Drum music is almost always written in no more than two voices. The key to doing this is to realize duration basically doesn't matter. It's writing the note on beat 3 as a dotted eighth that got you into trouble here. On a drum there is no difference between a dotted eighth and an eighth or even just a sixteenth. So, simply write that as an eighth, and then you don't need another voice for the note on the "and" of 3. Similarly for the rest of the measure. That passage is thus more properly written like this:

drum-2-voice.png

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• May 2, 2020 - 04:21

I think you are calling "stems" beams. Beams are flags that join to adjacent notes that each have a flag or flags. The flags and beams reside on the stems. Stems connect to individual note heads and support the flags. Flags, beams, and stems indicate varying time duration based on the particular symbol as they relate to the time signature itself.

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• May 1, 2020 - 05:59

Sorry to butt in. I would like to remove the ties between notes. In the particular piece the time signature is mostly 5/8 and the ties imply 1-2-3 4-5, while I want 1 2 3 4 5 ie not grouped, or sometimes 1-2 3-4-5. The option "no beams" doesn't seem to be available, and anyway I want tails on the notes. (Mostly quavers but some semiquavers)

Any ideas? I could make them all crotchets I suppose and write in 5/4?

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