Broken beams on opposite sides of 8th note beam

[mark carlson]

Does anyone know how to do broken beams like in the attached, in which the 16th and 32nd beams alternate whether they are above or below the 8th note beam?

Mark Carlson
Finale 26.3
OS 10.15.6

[zuill]

Special Tools/Beam Break Tool. Choose only 16th and 32nd.

Zuill

[mark carlson]

Special Tools/Beam Break Tool. Choose only 16th and 32nd.

Zuill

Isn't that going to produce the normal broken beams, where the 16th and 32nd beams are all on the same side of the 8th beam?

[motet]

No, it works.

[mark carlson]

No, it works.

Geez, I am not getting this at all! I'll attach the file I'm trying to do this in, Patchen Songs 6.

I tried following your instructions in m. 25, but nothing changed: I still have all of the beams above the 8th beam. What am I missing?

I unintentionally attached Patchen Songs 5, and no matter how many times I click "Delete file", it remains. Patchen Songs 6 is the file I am talking about.

Thanks,

Mark

[David Ward]

After some effort and convolutions I was able to get this. I can go through what I did if necessary, but briefly, I entered the demisemiquaver decatuplet and quintuplet on the lower stave, applied special tools to break the beams, selected the first five notes and pressed option-up-arrow, did the same for the last five, and then used special tools again to adjust the beam angle.

[RVS Lee]

Mark,
One thing which you may already have noticed is that the various special tools are actually 'hierarchical.' Whenever I need to invoke more than one (as here - reverse stems/beam angles/secondary beam breaks), things generally go fine if I work top down, but can end up weird if I don't.

RVSL

[zuill]

Mark,

In which measure are you having a problem?

Zuill

[mark carlson]

Mark,

In which measure are you having a problem?

Zuill

So far, I have only tried in m. 25.

[motet]

I wrote sample above in the lower staff, used the plug-in to move the higher notes up (Alt+Up-arrow), then the Secondary beam break tool.

[mark carlson]

After some effort and convolutions I was able to get this. I can go through what I did if necessary, but briefly, I entered the demisemiquaver decatuplet and quintuplet on the lower stave, applied special tools to break the beams, selected the first five notes and pressed option-up-arrow, did the same for the last five, and then used special tools again to adjust the beam angle.

Thanks! I am able to follow what you describe until "selected the first five notes and pressed option-up-arrow". I am able to select only one note at a time using the secondary beam break tool. Is that not the tool you used when you selected the first five notes?

[motet]

"selected the first five notes and pressed option-up-arrow" is applying the cross-staff plug-in. Secondary beam break is one at a time, which is what you want. Click the handle.

[mark carlson]

I wrote sample above in the lower staff, used the plug-in to move the higher notes up (Alt+Up-arrow), then the Secondary beam break tool.

What plug-in? I've only used the cross-staff tool itself for moving notes to another staff, and as I am assuming you're talking about the cross-staff plug-in, I am not understanding how to do it. I don't see a way to select individual notes and then to move them up.

Am I having trouble because not all four notes in the first group are on the same staff?

[mark carlson]

"selected the first five notes and pressed option-up-arrow" is applying the cross-staff plug-in. Secondary beam break is one at a time, which is what you want. Click the handle.

OK but how do you select individual notes using the cross-staff plug-in? Using the selection tool, I am only able to select all of the notes in the measure. What should I use other than the selection tool?

[mark carlson]

Mark,
One thing which you may already have noticed is that the various special tools are actually 'hierarchical.' Whenever I need to invoke more than one (as here - reverse stems/beam angles/secondary beam breaks), things generally go fine if I work top down, but can end up weird if I don't.

RVSL

Thank you. By top down, you mean the order the are organized in the tool palette? I have two vertical columns there, so down all the way and then from the top down in the next column?

[mark carlson]

"selected the first five notes and pressed option-up-arrow" is applying the cross-staff plug-in. Secondary beam break is one at a time, which is what you want. Click the handle.

OK but how do you select individual notes using the cross-staff plug-in? Using the selection tool, I am only able to select all of the notes in the measure. What should I use other than the selection tool?

OK I finally got it. Thanks!

[mark carlson]

Thanks, everyone. I finally figured it out.

[zuill]

I wrote sample above in the lower staff, used the plug-in to move the higher notes up (Alt+Up-arrow), then the Secondary beam break tool.

For me, it is Shift+Alt+Up Arrow.

Zuill

[motet]

The beams are reversed top to bottom because of how you made the cross-staff notes (as RVS Lee implied). Instead of the Note Mover and Stem Reversal tools, use the TGTools Lite cross-staff plug-in, which will do those for you in the right order. On Windows, it is mapped to Alt+Up-arrow and Alt+Down-arrow. Get everything back to one staff (you may find Clear Selected Items/Special Alterations helpful), then highlight the notes you want on the upper staff and apply the plug-in either with the Mac equivalent of Alt-Up, or with the plug-in's dialog. Then the Secondary beam break tool should do what you want.

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[motet]

For me, it is Shift+Alt+Up Arrow.

The documentation does say Shift, but it works without the Shift as well for me. It might be because I've got the full TGTools. I'll try to get in the habit of saying Shift when I post advice.

[zuill]

In the Lite version, it says the Hot-Key is Alt-Up Arrow. However, that has never worked that way with the Lite version. Thanks for the clarification.

Zuill

[mark carlson]

The beams are reversed top to bottom because of how you made the cross-staff notes (as RVS Lee implied). Instead of the Note Mover and Stem Reversal tools, use the TGTools Lite cross-staff plug-in, which will do those for you in the right order. On Windows, it is mapped to Alt+Up-arrow and Alt+Down-arrow. Get everything back to one staff (you may find Clear Selected Items/Special Alterations helpful), then highlight the notes you want on the upper staff and apply the plug-in either with the Mac equivalent of Alt-Up, or with the plug-in's dialog. Then the Secondary beam break tool should do what you want.
0649.png0650.png0651.png

Thank you! I re-entered everything and then followed the steps you gave here, and it all worked. Yay!