Beams |
Composer automatically determines how notes are beamed together, but you can change the beams if you disagree with any of Composer's decisions. You can add or remove a beam, or change the secondary beam. An example of changing a secondary beam is: You can specify the beaming pattern for many measures at a time, if they share a common meter. For example, in a 4:4: meter, eighth notes are normally beamed together as four pairs of two eighth notes each. You can change this so that for every measure, eighth notes are beamed together in two groups of four eighth notes each. Instead of individually changing the beaming of eighth notes in every measure, you can change the beaming of notes in all of the measures in one step. The procedure for doing this is described at the end of this topic. To add a beam from one note to the next:
-- OR -- Choose the Beam Right and Left command in the Beam Menu. -- OR -- Type "==". The two equal sign characters (==) are intended to look like beams on the left and right side of a note stem. In this example, the result is:
To remove a beam between two notes:
-- OR -- Select the second of the two notes, and click the Beam Left button, or type "l" for "left only". To remove beams on both sides of a note, so that it is left with only a flag:
To change the secondary beam between two notes:
-- OR --
-- OR --
-- OR --
To restore Composer's default choice for beams:
-- OR -- Choose the Default Beams command in the Beam Menu. Suppose your song has a 4:4 meter. By default, Composer beams eighth notes in the 4:4 meter as four pairs of two eighth notes each, as illustrated below:
If you want to change the beaming to two groups of four eighth notes per measure, follow the next procedure. To change the beaming pattern of notes for several measures at a time:
-- OR -- Type SHIFT+M.
Composer will display the Meter dialog box, such as shown here:
In the above example, the Beam Group pattern "2+2+2+2" of eighth notes indicates that there are four pairs of two eighth notes each, such as was illustrated in the score example before the beginning of this procedure. In this example, if the beaming pattern is changed to "4+4", that is, two groups of four eighth notes each, the notes will be re-beamed as shown here:
|