Re: Shorten stem length

Thank you.  That gives me something to play with for the beamed eights.  Still haven’t figured out how to shorten the unbeamed eighth.

Carolyn

> On Jul 1, 2026, at 4:28 PM, William Rehwinkel <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> Dear Carolyn,
> 
> It seems that Stem.details.beamed-lengths gets overridden by other spacing rules in some way. You can try manually setting the position of the beam like this:
> 
> \version "2.26.0"
> 
> \relative d'' {
>  \time 6/8
>  d8 b cis
>  \override Beam.positions = #'(-1 . -1.3)
>  d b cis
> }
> 
> Does this work for you?
> -William
> 
> On 7/1/26 3:54 PM, Carolyn Beeton wrote:
>> I am trying to shorten the stem length for a couple of notes (because there is another voice underneath, from the other staff) to reproduce this music.
>> This snippet shows the default rendering, and then I’m trying to shorten and revert the stem length, but nothing changes.  This is only the one voice, but I can’t shorten the stems even in this simple example.
>> I have been able to make the stems long, but not short.
>> What am I doing wrong, and how can I achieve this?
>> Thanks,
>> Carolyn
>> \version "2.24"
>> \include "english.ly"
>> shortBeams = {   % none of this works
>>   \override Stem.details.beamed-lengths = #'(0.5)
>>   \override Stem.details.beamed-minimum-free-lengths = #'(0.5)
>>   \override Stem.details.beamed-exteme-minimum-free-lengths = #'(0.6)
>>   \override Stem.details.stem-shorten = #'(0.5)
>> }
>> \relative c'
>> {
>>   \time 6/8
>>   e'4^"default" d8 cs4 d8 | d b cs d e8 e8 | d4 c8 b4 c8 ~ | 8 a b ~ 8 d c
>>   \section
>>   e4 d8 cs4 \shortBeams d8^"short" | d b cs \revert Stem.details.beamed-lengths d^"revert" e8 e8 |
>>   d4 c8 b4 c8 ~ | \shortBeams 8^"short" a b ~ \revert Stem.details.beamed-lengths 8 d c
>> }
>