On Tue, Dec 20, 2022 at 11:46 PM Werner LEMBERG <
wl@gnu.org> wrote:
> When a beam group (especially 1/16 or shorter) crosses a staff line, it can
> create some annoying skinny triangles that can be visually
> distracting. [...]
>
> Is there a way to turn the stencil into a composite of the original
> with a big block of whiteout that follows the entire group's outer
> skyline so it hides the staff lines? Would be a nice feature, IMO.
> I know the stems can be "frenched", but would be cool if the staff
> lines could be instead.
I think this is the wrong approach. In classical typsetting, it
wasn't common to remove already engraved staff lines, and the engraver
always started with drawing the staff lines.
No disagreement there. It certainly is more common. However, does that mean it's the way it *should* be? Or is it just a by-product of the engraving process that now has to be dealt with? Just thinking out loud.
What's needed IMHO is an improved algorithm to better quantize
vertical start and end positions of beams so that the number of
grazing intersections is reduced and/or optimized.
Yeah, you're probably right. It's easy enough to increase the beam's damping factor to 2 and that turns the beams into something more like Henle would do. Should they be less-dampened, though? Should the beams follow the linear trend of the notes more exactly? I don't know what the right answer is. Seems like there's lots of opinions about this.
BTW, my thoughts returned to this because of some discussions on the topic after the recent release of MuseScore 4 and how the new beaming algorithm basically follows Henle's approach to only use nearly level beams at all times in order to eliminate the tiny triangles.
But maybe I'm wrong, and the approach you suggest produces more
legible scores – at the cost of maybe a somewhat strange, non-standard
look.
I'm not sure yet, but I've always wondered. Legibility is paramount in music and in any score that I've seen that does a really good job at maintaining legibility despite all the other complexities of the layout, those have also been very beautiful.
BTW, do you know whether the feature you suggest is available in other
score writing programs?
No, not that I'm aware of, but like the second example I shared, I have seen this effect out in the wild on older printed music. The style has also captured my interest.
Appreciate your feedback,
Abraham