Dear Aleksa,
This is something I work on a lot as well, as I obsess with making my
engravings look like published editions too. Here's what I've found so far:
Your first problem can simply be fixed by modifying Beam.damping, see
https://wiki.lilypond.community/index.php?title=Controlling_beam_damping&oldid=4930
(also attached here)
For your second problem, I use a snippet created by Jean Abou Samra (I
can search for the email in this list if you like) that whites out the
area behind the beam.
With these two changes, combined with changing the beams to be more
thick and closer together, I get beams that are really beautifully
engraved to my eyes and leave nothing to be desired with respect to
looking more professional.
(I haven't encountered the third problem or tried fixing it)
Take a look at the attached file beams_example.ly, and let me know if
that helps accomplish what you were hoping for.
Thanks,
-William
On 12/10/25 10:36 PM, A Jakovljevic wrote:
Hi all,
While Lilypond tends to do a very good job in most cases, there are two
issues which seem to be recurring a fair bit in the music I'm typesetting:
-beam angles being too steep
-beams crossing staff lines (which is a style choice, arguably, but
usually avoided by the better publisher out there)
-in a few rare cases, an angled beam starting or ending in a space (this
is generally frowned upon, cf. Gould, p. 17f)
Both of these can be arguably rather easily be fixed with manual
overrides (fyi, if necessary: the syntax is \once \override
Beam.positions = #'(-3 . -2.75) , numbers adjusted as needed); but of
course that takes time, makes for pretty unreadable code post facto, and
is in fact one of the most frequent and few things I have to fix
manually, so if it were at all possible to make beams shallower by
default that would be a huge time saver.
I don't know enough about the internals to know where even to look at
for something like this (it is at least independent of notation font as
far as I can test out). If I may mention it, I've seen something similar
discussed regarding another open-source software here [https://
musescore.org/en/node/152276 <https://musescore.org/en/node/152276>]
(with reference to how one of the other WYSIWYG options allows to set
defaults for it, scroll down a bit).
As an example, here are the first few bars of the 1st violon part from
KV 418:
\version "2.24.4"
\language "deutsch"
\score {
<<
\new Staff {
\key a \major \time 2/2
\relative c'' {
r2^"Default" r8 cis16.[( e32] a8[) a-.] |
a4 r r8 e16.[( a32] cis8[) cis-.] |
cis4 r r2 | r r8 d,16.[( fis32] h8[) h-.] |
h4 r r8 f16.[( h32] d8[) d-.] |
}
}
\new Staff {
\key a \major \time 2/2
\relative c'' {
r2^"Manual fix" r8 \once \override Beam.positions = #'(-3 . -2.75)
cis16.[( e32] a8[) a-.] |
a4 r r8 \once \override Beam.positions = #'(-2.25 . -2) e16.[( a32]
cis8[) cis-.] |
cis4 r r2 | r r8 \once \override Beam.positions = #'(-2.25 . -2) d,16.
[( fis32] h8[) h-.] |
h4 r r8 \once \override Beam.positions = #'(-1.25 . -1) f16.[( h32] d8[)
d-.] |
}
}
>>
}
You can of course compare with the old Breitkopf offering on IMSLP; the
more recent Neue Mozart Ausgabe is very similar to that and both match
the manual fixes I have applied:
image.png
Cheers,
Aleksa Jakovljevic,
harpsichordist / organist / musicologist
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
\version "2.24"
% Source:
https://wiki.lilypond.community/index.php?title=Controlling_beam_damping&oldid=4930
%% http://lsr.di.unimi.it/LSR/Item?id=375
%LSR contributed by James Lowe, after
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/lilypond-user/2008-11/msg00629.html
notes = {
\repeat unfold 5 { f,16 e' d' c' }
\repeat unfold 5 { a16 c, e, c }
\repeat unfold 5 { b16 f' c' g' }
\repeat unfold 5 { d,16 g c f }
\repeat unfold 5 { e,16 g b d }
\repeat unfold 5 { g,16 a b c }
\repeat unfold 5 { \stemDown d,16 a' e' b' }
}
damping = \repeat unfold 7 {
%% default beam damping is 1:
\override Beam.damping = #1 s4^"1 (def.)"
\override Beam.damping = #2 s^"2"
\override Beam.damping = #4 s^"4"
\override Beam.damping = #-3 s^"-3"
\override Beam.damping = #+inf.0 s^"+inf.0"
}
\score {
\relative c' {
\time 5/4
\override Staff.TimeSignature.stencil = ##f
<<
\notes
\damping
>>
}
\layout {
indent = #0
system-count = #7
ragged-right = ##t
}
}
\version "2.25.28"
\layout {
\context {
\Voice
\override Beam.damping = #4
}
#(use-modules (ice-9 match) (srfi srfi-1))
\context {
% This beam whiteout stencil is written by Jean Abou Samra
% Temporary solution to whiteout stave lines inbetween beams
% To avoid collision
\Score
\override Beam.stencil = #(grob-transformer
'stencil
(lambda (grob orig)
(define (sanitize lst)
(filter (match-lambda ((x . y) (and (finite? x) (finite? y))))
lst))
(match-let* (((down . up) (ly:skylines-for-stencil orig X))
(down-points (sanitize (ly:skyline->points down X)))
(up-points (sanitize (ly:skyline->points up X))))
(ly:stencil-add
(stencil-with-color
(ly:round-polygon
(append-reverse down-points up-points)
0.0)
"white")
orig))))
\override Stem.layer = 10
}
}
\language "deutsch"
\score {
<<
\new Staff {
\key a \major \time 2/2
\relative c'' {
r2^"Default" r8 cis16.[( e32] a8[) a-.] |
a4 r r8 e16.[( a32] cis8[) cis-.] |
cis4 r r2 | r r8 d,16.[( fis32] h8[) h-.] |
h4 r r8 f16.[( h32] d8[) d-.] |
}
}
>>
}
