No beams on notes for singers in musicals

[Lebovitztap1]

Hello,

I am asking about full finale.

I write musicals and for the singers I don't wish to have ANY beams. I've tried everything and have greatly failed. HELP.

Thank you
Michael

[Peter S.]

Hi Michael,

two ways:
- when you enter the singers parts uncheck "control beams" (or so, I have the German version Fin 2009) in the speedy entry menu.
- you can change the beaming of existing music in extras/new beams, use beams for text...

Hope you can find it.
Peter

[Peter Thomsen]

What I would do:

1) Enter all the notes as usual.

2) In the vocal staves, use the Rebeam utility to rebeam the music to a time signature of e. g. 8/8 (if there are no durations smaller than an 8th), or rebeam to a signature of 16/16 (if there are no durations smaller than a 16th).
NB:
The rebeam utility does not change the real time signature.

[David Ward]

Does Utilities>Rebeam>Rebeam to Lyrics do what you want? (Select the region after entry and apply.)

[BuonTempi]

I write musicals and for the singers I don't wish to have ANY beams. I've tried everything and have greatly failed. HELP.

As a singer, I would strongly advise against it. Beaming to lyrics is a very old-fashioned practice and not generally desirable in a modern score; no beams at all would make discerning rhythmic groups unnecessarily difficult. If the music is entirely without rhythm, it might not be a problem.

But as said, your options are under Utilities > Rebeam.

[N Grossingink]

I'd have to agree that normal beaming is more appropriate. Present day vocalists are used to seeing this notation and might be less comfortable with the more archaic "beam to lyrics" approach. You can look at sample pages of vocal selections for any contemporary musicals and find they all beam normally.

N.

[Michel R E]

I just checked all of my scores for the musicals I've performed in the past, and the only one that has unbeamed vocal parts is Westside Story.
Otherwise, everything from Fame, to Chorus Line, to every Sondheim I have, has regular beaming for all vocal parts.

[Anders Hedelin]

I'm old enough to have learnt the traditional way of beaming to lyrics, and did use it for some time, but changed my mind. I simply saw that the traditional (non)beaming didn't offer any indispensable information to singers. And then it's not very pleasing to, nor considerate to, the eye.

[David Ward]

FWIW I sometimes use ‘beam to lyrics’ for recitative, but not elsewhere. Apart from anything else, this immediately separates the look of somewhat free recit. from the look of expressive legato. However, this is probably irrelevant in the world of musicals.

[Lebovitztap1]

Thank you everyone for your opinion, advice and help. I will consider it all.

Thanks again
Michael

[MikeHalloran]

I write musicals and for the singers I don't wish to have ANY beams. I've tried everything and have greatly failed. HELP.

As a singer, I would strongly advise against it. Beaming to lyrics is a very old-fashioned practice and not generally desirable in a modern score; no beams at all would make discerning rhythmic groups unnecessarily difficult. If the music is entirely without rhythm, it might not be a problem.

But as said, your options are under Utilities > Rebeam.

As a singer, I’ve sung too much 19th C. and earlier music to really care one way or the other.

Sight reading is easier with normal beams, no doubt about that. So is choral music.

It was an archaic practice when I was in college 45 years ago — only one professor still insisted on it and he retired soon after.