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Setting automatic beam behavior

In normal time signatures, automatic beams can start on any note but can only end in a few positions within the measure: beams can end on a beat, or at durations specified by the properties in Voice.autoBeamSettings. The defaults for autoBeamSettings are defined in scm/auto-beam.scm.

The value of autoBeamSettings is changed using \override and unset using \revert:

     \property Voice.autoBeamSettings \override #'(BE P Q N M) = dur
     \property Voice.autoBeamSettings \revert #'(BE P Q N M)
     
Here, BE is the symbol begin or end. It determines whether the rule applies to begin or end-points. The quantity P/Q refers to the length of the beamed notes (and `* *' designates notes of any length), N/M refers to a time signature (wildcards, `* *' may be entered to designate all time signatures).

For example, if you want automatic beams to end on every quarter note, you can use the following:

     \property Voice.autoBeamSettings \override
         #'(end * * * *) = #(ly:make-moment 1 4)
     
Since the duration of a quarter note is 1/4 of a whole note, it is entered as (ly:make-moment 1 4).

The same syntax can be used to specify beam starting points. In this example, automatic beams can only end on a dotted quarter note.

     \property Voice.autoBeamSettings \override
         #'(end * * * *) = #(ly:make-moment 3 8)
     
In 4/4 time signature, this means that automatic beams could end only on 3/8 and on the fourth beat of the measure (after 3/4, that is 2 times 3/8 has passed within the measure).

You can also restrict rules to specific time signatures. A rule that should only be applied in N/M time signature is formed by replacing the second asterisks by N and M. For example, a rule for 6/8 time exclusively looks like

     \property Voice.autoBeamSettings \override
         #'(begin * * 6 8) =  ...
     

If you want a rule to apply to certain types of beams, you can use the first pair of asterisks. Beams are classified according to the shortest note they contain. For a beam ending rule that only applies to beams with 32nd notes (and no shorter notes), you would use (end 1 32 * *).

If a score ends while an automatic beam has not been ended and is still accepting notes, this last beam will not be typeset at all.

For melodies that have lyrics, you may want to switch off automatic beaming. This is done by setting Voice.autoBeaming to #f.

BUGS

It is not possible to specify beaming parameters for beams with mixed durations, that differ from the beaming parameters of all separate durations, i.e., you'll have to specify manual beams to get:

[picture of music]
It is not possible to specify beaming parameters that act differently in different parts of a measure. This means that it is not possible to use automatic beaming in irregular meters such as 5/8.
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Copyright (c) 1997--2002 Han-Wen Nienhuys and Jan Nieuwenhuizen.

Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.


This page was built from LilyPond-1.7.14 (development-branch) by

Buchan Milne <(address unknown)>, Thu Mar 6 21:11:35 2003 CET.