From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A beam in musical notation is constructed as one or more lines used to connect multiple consecutive eighth notes (quavers), sixteenth notes (semiquavers), or smaller note values. Some notes cannot be connected because of the time signature. Beams usually connect notes of the same duration, but may connect any combination of notes otherwise written with flags. Quarter notes (crochets) and notes of longer value cannot be connected.
Beams are only used in vocal music when multiple notes encompass a single syllable of a word.
