Re: Angled Beams

[David Nalesnik]

Hi Mark and Gilberto,

<address@hidden> wrote:

 

The Beam #'positions always take a pair of numbers

as argument, written as = #'(n . m), where n and m are the absolute position
of the beginning of the beam and the end of the beam, respectively (unit =
distance between two staff lines). n and m can be negative values and they
do not need to be multiples of unit (so for instance, you can write
\override Beam #'positions = #'(-1.2 . 3.75) )

Some examples: \override Beam #'positions = #'(0 . 0) would create a flat
beam exactly on the centre line of the staff; \override Beam #'positions =
#'(0 . 2) will be a beam from the centre line of the staff to the top of it
(2 spaces above).

Of course, an override of Beam #'positions does the trick.  The drawback, however, is that you can move the Beam wherever you like without respecting its placement relative to staff-lines ("quanting").  (Were it not for this fact, I'd suggest upgrading so you could do

\override Beam.damping = #+inf.0 % all beams are flat

\offset positions #'(-1 . 0) Beam % available in current development version

then every beam would have precisely the same slope.)

I'm curious why the 'damping override doesn't work for you with 2.16.  It works perfectly with 2.17.95 (so, presumably, with the upcoming stable 2.18).  Perhaps you need to experiment with different values? 

Best,

David