Text fonts in musical scores

Music notation symbols, fonts, font sources and font creation, SmuFL.
jrethorst
Posts: 122
Joined: 09 Apr 2016, 18:48

Re: Text fonts in musical scores

Post by jrethorst »

IIRC the plurality of scores I've seen, not just from UE, use Times for text. It's not my favorite font: I like Caslon and Baskerville better, among a few others, but Times is certainly legible and fairly compact.
John Rethorst
benwiggy
Posts: 834
Joined: 11 Apr 2016, 19:42

Re: Text fonts in musical scores

Post by benwiggy »

OUP certainly use Minion. Yes, Times is pretty ubiquitous, but it doesn't fit the style of my pages. I also think TNR is chosen because it's the "digital default". It don't think it was ever used on music before computer typesetting.
Anyway, hopefully, my typographic wanderlust has settled now, and I can get on with doing some work! ;-)
babul
Posts: 6
Joined: 03 Mar 2017, 10:40

Re: Text fonts in musical scores

Post by babul »

Hey guys, thanks for this great thread. Made me spend bunch of money for G. Schirmer manual and even buying some fonts they recommend.. and I'm just a beginner doing scores for myself.. so yea thanks a lot.. :piano :fer

:forte But seriously, I like the fonts a lot! Got Linotype instead of Adobe (as Schirmer recommends). Times Europa Office - this is improved Times Europa, also with much more characters, including national, which will be useful I think - maybe when doing some LaTeX when I get to it. Goudy (Monotype) for titles and Bodoni LT Pro (again, not Adobe but Linotype - looks almost exactly the same but has more characters).

I thought that it won't matter much, but seriously, good roman font and italics for expression look so cool! Considering I can use if forever, as long as I don't make money off of it, I believe it's worth. Will probably save a lot of time when I make some more scores - won't have to revisit them to correct the font, as they feel universal.

P. S.

Schirmer Manual of Style says on p. 13: "See also the section on Microtones (page 121)". There's only 100 pages, so it's possible that the manual they sell is somehow incomplete? But maybe it's only specific contemporary notation, so I won't miss much, as I use only traditional one.
User avatar
composerjk
Posts: 6
Joined: 06 Jun 2016, 22:22
Location: SF Bay Area, California, USA
Contact:

Re: Text fonts in musical scores

Post by composerjk »

babul wrote: 03 Mar 2017, 10:58 Schirmer Manual of Style says on p. 13: "See also the section on Microtones (page 121)". There's only 100 pages, so it's possible that the manual they sell is somehow incomplete? But maybe it's only specific contemporary notation, so I won't miss much, as I use only traditional one.
See page 101 for Schirmer’s microtonal notation preferences. Perhaps they reformatted (without checking for page number references) when moving to print-on-demand, though a quick check of a few other page number references seem correct. I do not have the earlier editions to check if a section was removed.
Typeface designer, Composer, Pianist, Analog synths, Dancer
https://1403.slantedhall.com/ | https://slantedhall.com/
babul
Posts: 6
Joined: 03 Mar 2017, 10:40

Re: Text fonts in musical scores

Post by babul »

composerjk wrote: 03 Mar 2017, 21:36
babul wrote: 03 Mar 2017, 10:58 Schirmer Manual of Style says on p. 13: "See also the section on Microtones (page 121)". There's only 100 pages, so it's possible that the manual they sell is somehow incomplete? But maybe it's only specific contemporary notation, so I won't miss much, as I use only traditional one.
See page 101 for Schirmer’s microtonal notation preferences. Perhaps they reformatted (without checking for page number references) when moving to print-on-demand, though a quick check of a few other page number references seem correct. I do not have the earlier editions to check if a section was removed.
That's it, it seems they forgot to update. Also, Font Appendix lacks space in the contents. Not a biggie, thanks for clarifying :)

For others, I recommend Schirmer, especially if you're from US (I had to pay a lot of money for international shipping, but still I think it's worth).
Post Reply