Accidentals and cross-staff beaming

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Alan

Post by Alan » Mon Mar 08, 2004 3:23 am

Is there some obscure rule of notation that requires an accidental to be repeated between staves when cross-staff beaming is used? I've noticed that in certain cases, Sibelius 3.1 inserts what appear to be superfluous accidentals, for instance, a G# even though the first G# in the measure is already indicated with a sharp. It's almost as if when the alternating beamed chords pass from one staff to the other, the accidental is permanently forgotten (the key signature is D major).

I can hide these ugly "extra" sharps, but if I delete them the playback is wrong (the subsequent G#'s, after the first one in the measure, are played as G-natural). On the other hand, sometimes Sibelius does not insert any extra accidentals yet the playback is correct.
So my question is why does Sibelius insert extra accidentals at all, in any cross-staff beaming context?

Does it depend on how I construct the cross-staff beaming (e.g., put all notes on the top staff, select alternating notes, hit Shift + Control + DownArrow, or else start with all the notes on the second, lower staff).

The Manual states that users may want to hide accidentals when using cross-staff beaming, but it doesn't say why these accidentals seem to be needed in the first place.


Guest

Post by Guest » Fri Mar 12, 2004 1:44 am

I think it's a bug in Sibelius. Even if Sibelius uses the extra accidentals internally to make its task easier, it should know enough to hide them once it is through. However, these accidentals also play a role in playback and the notes will not play back correctly if the accidentals are deleted, so perhaps the problem is with the playback code.

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