Beaming: secondary beams

If you want, you can specify places to break secondary beams even though the primary (eighth note) beam continues.

1. Choose the Special Tools tool , and click the measure in question.
2. Click the Beam Break Tool . A handle appears over every note grouped by a secondary beam.
3. Double-click the handle at the right end of the pair of notes whose beam you want to break. The Secondary Beam Break Selection dialog box appears, letting you specify exactly which beams you want to break.
   • If you select Break Only, you can specify individual levels of beams to be broken; thus if you select Break Only 32nds, the sixteenth-note beam (and always the eighth note beam) will remain intact.
   • If you select Break Through, however, Finale breaks the beams of the note value you specify and all smaller values.
4. Select the desired break options, and click OK (or press RETURN). To restore the beam grouping, click the handle you used to make modifications and click Reset.

Depending on the meter, it’s sometimes useful to override Finale’s decision about which direction a secondary beam “stub” should extend: Using the Broken Beam Tool, you can flip such a stub from its default position (below, left) to the other side (below, right).

1. Choose the Special Tools tool and click the measure in question.
2. Click the Broken Beam Tool . Handles appear on each broken beam in the measure.
3. Click the top/bottom handles to alternate the direction of the secondary beam.

You can specify the amount of vertical space between the beams in sixteenth-note (or smaller value) beam groupings. You can also change the separation between secondary beams on a case-by-case basis with the Secondary Beam Angle tool in the Special Tools tool. See Beaming: feathered beaming below.

1. Choose Document > Document Options, then select Beams. The Document Options - Beams dialog box appears.
2. Enter a new number in the Secondary Beam Separation text box.
3. Click OK (or press RETURN).

1. Choose the Special Tools tool and click the measure in question.
2. Click the Beam Stem Adjust Tool . Handles appears on each beamed stem in the measure.
3. Drag the handles to the desired location. For example, stems could be dragged to touch the beam closest to the noteheads, and not go all the way through the secondary beams. Don’t forget that you can select more than one handle at a time.

In some music, ritardandi and accelerandi are notated with converging secondary-beam angles in a technique called feathered beaming. In the case of the ritard, the player increases the rhythmic values gradually from the faster values, at the left end, to the slower values, on the right end. To create this form of notation, notate all values as the smallest values (in this case, 64th notes). Then proceed as follows.

1. Choose the Special Tools tool , and click the measure in question.
2. Click the Secondary Beam Angle Tool. Handles appear at both ends of secondary beams.
3. Drag the handles so that the secondary beams converge with the primary beam. The left handle moves its entire beam up and down, without changing its angle; the right handle changes the angle. To remove any changes you make this way, click the appropriate handle and press DELETE.