reference.book Page 102 Monday, August 31, 2009 2:47 PM
2. Notations angle has to be adjusted because beams are not allowed to appear in certain positions, such as in between two staff lines. Also when two notes are very close together, producing a steep beam, the angle may have to be reduced to the value specified in Maximum beam gradient: Up to an 8ve, 1 in n. Maximum beam gradient: 1 in n controls the angle for intervals greater than an octave. The beam follows the angle between the first and last noteheads, as long as it is no steeper than this value. If notes in the middle of a beam curve towards the beam, producing a concave shape, it is normal for the beam to be horizontal. You can control this using Horizontal if middle notes intrude by n spaces (which specifies the distance a note must protrude through an imaginary line between the first and last notes to make the beam horizontal). By default, this same rule also applies to beamed groups that include rests in the middle of the group (switch off Also for middle rests if you want to exclude beamed rests when considering whether the beam should be horizontal). Avoid simple wedges prevents some cases of “wedges� in groups of eighth notes (quavers). These are white triangles whose three sides are a beam, a stem and a staff line, and are believed to look irritating by some music engravers. Other engravers are very unconcerned about them: to avoid wedges, the stems have to be lengthened, which to some eyes is worse than the wedges themselves. Therefore this option is truly optional. The stem lengths specified in Default beamed stem length are typically less than for normal notes (and will be shortened further for very high or low notes). However, this is offset by the fact that stems are lengthened again if necessary to move the beam to a good position. You can further control stem lengths using Minimum length n spaces at the bottom of the page, which affects both beamed and unbeamed notes. Cross-staff beams are always horizontal by default (assuming Optical beam positions is on), and go in between two staves. If you want cross-staff beams to go at an angle you should drag them on a case-by-case basis. The Use precise Magnetic Layout bounding boxes option improves the accuracy of Magnetic Layout for irregularly shaped and angled objects, e.g. beams, tuplet brackets, hairpins, etc. With this option switched off, Sibelius uses only rectangular bounding boxes, with the result that articulations and slurs do not get positioned correctly. As a consequence, it is strongly recommended that this option be switched on in all scores that use Magnetic Layout.
102