Is it possible to unbeam only from a certain side? “Unbeam” command works for both sides and I end up struggling to beam things correctly every time I need to change beaming. What’s the most efficient way to edit beaming?
Split Beam breaks it only before the selected note.
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My shortcuts (those are custom ones, you can add them in the key bindings editor) :
Cmd-b: beam together
Alt-b: unbeam
Cmd-alt-b:split beam
I’ve been using them for three or four years now and still find them convenient.
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Generally, rather than use unbeam, I try to just beam together what I actually want beamed. Less faffing around.
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When you have 4 quavers beamed together and you want them locally beamed by 2, it’s actually faster to split beam on the third that to select the third and fourth and beam together… But we’re talking about extreme optimization 
If you want a consistent beaming/note grouping result across a passage, using a time signature to set the beat grouping in combination with the right beat grouping Notation Options for the flow might also be easier in the long run.
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concerning optimization, I just button-mash my beaming shortcuts until the result that I want magically appears… I just can never remember, which of my shortcuts goes to which option…
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That is what I like about the shortcuts I have shared : one meta key is for “simple” operation (beam together or unbeam) and two meta keys for more complex one (split beam).
I use combo shortcuts to make them more mnemonic.
I chose H because it reminds me of stems and beams:
Beam Together (H, –)
Split Beam (H, /)
Split Secondary Beam (H, \)
Reset Beaming (H, R)
The problem with h is that it’s the toggle between Hand tool and selection tool… But I must say I love those sequencial keyboard shortcuts ^^
Yeah – Of course I removed it from the tool toggle because I don’t use that.
Yes, I figured that out. I was just sayin’, because some people here are newbies and might be tempted by your shortcut… and there are drawbacks, for those who use h to toggle hand/selection.