Music: Why does the stem in note go up sometimes and down sometimes?

Question

I have noticed that the stem goes up sometimes and down sometimes; when I asked my daughter's teacher she said that anything above the middle of the staff goes one way and other way when the note is below the middle.

Is there a better explanation? does it have anything to do with the notes going up or down?

Comments

Check the following link will help you -
http://www.musicreadingsavant.com/the-stem-rule-how-to-know-what-direction-the-stems-should-go/

Answer 1

By choosing Up or Down you can manually flip a region of stems up or down. If you’ve specified a multiple voice arrangement
for example,

upper voice = stems up
lower voice = stems down

Here are reason which will explain you about the Stems Direction

---

• One Octave
  

• When a note extends beyond one leger line, the stem must touch the middle staff line
  

• For notes on the middle staff line and above, the stem is down
  

• For notes below the middle staff line, the stem is up
  

• Stem direction

  • When two notes are an equal distance from the middle line, the preferred direction is down
  • If the note above is farther from the middle line than the note below, the stem goes down.
  • If the note below is farther from the middle line, the stem goes up.
    

• When the outer notes (extreme top and bottom notes) are an equal distance from the middle line and the majority of notes are above the middle line, the stem goes down.
  

• When the outer notes are an equal distance from the middle line and the majority of notes are below the middle line, the stem goes up.
  

• The stem is always placed between the two notes of an interval of a 2nd, with the upper note always to the right--the lower note always to the left.
  

• Notes have opposite stem direction when sharing a staff if the parts represent different melodic lines. Stems in the "wrong direction" will have shorter stems than normal.