beams in 6/4
I'm struggling to get the beams correct for a particular bar in 6/4 (in a piece that moves in and out of 3/2)
The first four beats in the bar are CQQQQQQ (crotchets and quavers/ quarter and eighth notes)
The last 4 quavers should be beamed and separate from the first two quavers.
But using the beam inspector, and 'start' beam consistently links the start of the second 4 quavers to the previous two quavers. Or gives me two pairs of quavers for the last 4.
Any suggestions?
More generally, the beaming algorithm seems to be struggling a little with 6/4. Mostly I can make it work, but this one has me stumped.
thanks
Chris
Comments
It's always easier to help if you post the actual score you have trouble with. Depending on how that 6/4 got there, it could have different defaults and thus we'd have different suggestions for how to change it to whatever you want.
In general, information on beaming can be found in the Handbook under Beam. If you want a beam to start on a given note, click that note and double click the "Start of beam" icon. If you want a beam to *not* start on a particular note, click it and double click "Middle of beam". If I select the third quaver and set it to "start" and then set the fifth to "start", it gives the result you want.
If this is your preferred beaming *in general* for this piece and not just for this specific passage, consider instead changing the time signature properties - see "Time signature" in the Handbook. If the time signature keeps changing, consider creating a *new* 6/4 that has your desired beaming and adding it to your palette as described under "Custom palette".
Not sure what you mean about beaming "struggling" in 6/4, though. If you right click the time signature and go to "Time Signature Properties", you'll see how the defaults are set, and these seem to be honored correctly. They do seem to be pretty standard defaults - treating 6/4 as a compound meter just like 6/8, with two "big" beats that are each covered by a beam.
In reply to It's always easier to help if by Marc Sabatella
Hi Marc (and Jeetee) - I appreciate the quick response.
I've got the book (bought it the day it came out) - also means I usually don't have to post many questions - I highly recommend it to others.
It's not compound time unfortunately - more like 3/2 (I mistyped - it moves in and out of 3/4 for speed changes).
(And jeetee's response has come through and and shows I was misusing the middle beam button - user error/misunderstanding :-)
And thanks to both of you for the suggestions on setting up a different default for the time signature - that hadn't occurred to me despite seeing that it was using compound time.
cheers
Chris
So default beaming gives you: C QQQQ QQ
Select the 3rd quaver and set beaming to start: C QQ QQ QQ
Select 5th quaver and set beaming to middle: C QQ QQQQ
If you require different beaming defaults than the one currently used in MuseScore, see https://musescore.org/en/handbook/time-signatures#change-default-beaming