Grace note beams

Dorico Pro automatically beams multiple adjacent grace notes together if they are an eighth note (quaver) or shorter in duration.

Like all beams, grace note beams ideally follow the accepted standards for beam placement relative to staff lines, in order to avoid wedges. However, because grace notes are smaller than normal notes, this can lead to extreme slants in grace note beams.

You can adjust the slants of individual grace note beams in the same ways as for normal beams. You can also change how all grace note beam slants are positioned project-wide in the Vertical Position section of the Beams page in Engrave > Engraving Options.

Beam slants in two-note groups of beamed grace notes

If two adjacent grace notes covering a wide pitch range are joined by a beam at the same rhythmic position, the angle of the beam can appear very steep.

You can choose whether the beam slant in such cases is left unchanged, or whether shallower slants are used, in the Grace Notes subsection of the Slants section of the Beams page in Engraving Options.