"Warmth" and Note Size

Music notation symbols, fonts, font sources and font creation, SmuFL.
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John Ruggero
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Re: "Warmth" and Note Size

Post by John Ruggero »

Here is Beethoven's mezza voce from op. 109 clearly spelled out:
mezza voce.jpeg
mezza voce.jpeg (50.42 KiB) Viewed 7455 times
As to the performance of mezza voce on the piano: I would understand it to mean to play in an intimate manner, as if for oneself alone. I think this fits the mood of both the slow movement of op. 106 and the theme of the variations in op. 109. I think that most pianists would not use the una corda, reserving that for a sotto voce, which is a more extreme effect.
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Re: "Warmth" and Note Size

Post by Schonbergian »

Schubert also uses "ligato", at least in the Breitkopf edition I own of his Moments musicaux/Impromptus. I'm not sure if it denotes any difference from "legato" or is even consistently applied in either Beethoven or Schubert.

I have always understood "mezza voce" as singing "off the voice", i.e. unprojected tone, as if one is speaking to oneself, and "sotto voce" as a sort of stage whisper. That has always translated naturally to instrumental music for me.

John, I wouldn't be amiss if you used New Century Schoolbook in boldface for the tempo indication. Its rounded nature would harmonize better with your engraving and Wess's italic font than TNR seems to. You could also try EB Garamond 12 (with the 08 version for footnotes, which is bolder and simpler and reads better at lower sizes), the Roman Ionic font from Music Type Foundry, or even something like Caslon. I've used Roman Ionic with Espressivo for entire scores before and it harmonizes very well.
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Re: "Warmth" and Note Size

Post by Schonbergian »

Looking back over odod and OCTO's engraving vs. yours, John, the thing that stands out to me most is the increased weight of vertical lines on their page. On yours, the horizontal and vertical lines are around the same thickness, but I find the slightly bolder vertical lines guide the eye and help make it seem warmer. Part of the problem is that your example is much lower resolution than theirs, so it's not quite apples-to-apples and some of the symbols look jankier than they would on the printed page.
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John Ruggero
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Re: "Warmth" and Note Size

Post by John Ruggero »

You have a great eye, Schonbergian, and I tried all of your suggestions. You were right about the resolution illusion concerning the vertical lines. The bar lines are actually much thicker-looking in real life and probably as thick as is acceptable. So that stays as is.

I was surprised that the Garamond 9 pt I've got (not sure if it is E B Garamond) actually takes up less room than the TNR 9 pt. That is a real plus. And it is more pleasant. But I will need to print it tomorrow to if it can be read easily from a distance.
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Schonbergian
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Re: "Warmth" and Note Size

Post by Schonbergian »

EB Garamond in both its optical sizes can be found here: https://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/eb-garamond

The main reason I like it is that even the 12 size is slightly rounded, which gives it a warmer feel and helps harmonize it with rounded music fonts and symbols.
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John Ruggero
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Re: "Warmth" and Note Size

Post by John Ruggero »

The EB Garamond is quite a different animal from the Garamond I tried last night!. It actually looked a lot like TNR to me, and has the same advantages for footnotes, which is probably why you recommended it. It also takes up less space. It had only one disadvantage. I use the 1) style of footnote numbers and its number set is quite a bit smaller than TNR and doesn't look good before the ). So I am going to keep the TNR footnotes in my Chopin Etude edition, but am considering Garamond strongly for the Beethoven Sonatas where space is even more of an issue. But I will have to use a different font for the footnote numbers.

Here are larger examples to show the actual width of the vertical lines and the two fonts for the tempo. The New Century Schoolbook resembles what I see in the Associated Board edition and is much warmer than the TNR. But it takes up more space even at 12 pt vs TNR 14 pt which might be an issue with some of the very long tempo indications. In any case, you have me thinking about the issues , Schonbergian, which is always good.
Op. 106.3 New Century Schoolbook.jpeg
Op. 106.3 New Century Schoolbook.jpeg (155.13 KiB) Viewed 7384 times
op 106.3 TNR.jpeg
op 106.3 TNR.jpeg (155.02 KiB) Viewed 7384 times
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Re: "Warmth" and Note Size

Post by Schonbergian »

I don't know if you use Finale or InDesign for the footnotes, John. I don't use Finale and can't comment on its tools, but both InDesign and Affinity Publisher have options to enable "lining" figures in EB Garamond, which are more what you need for the footnotes.

Here's a comparison between the two styles in italics as per your score example:

Image

I still favour NCS for the tempo, even at a smaller size - and TNR is a very compressed font in relation to pretty much everything else out there. Depending on how much you do in InDesign, you could consider compressing or tightening the spacing of a wider font if it were to become an issue.

What is your justification for using thinner stems than staff-lines (at least to my eyes)?
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John Ruggero
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Re: "Warmth" and Note Size

Post by John Ruggero »

Exactly the tools I need, Schonbergian. I wish I had your knowledge of fonts etc. I have used inDesign up until now, but may switch to Affinity Publisher if it pans out.

I believe that my line settings are what was worked out in a long thread several years ago at Notat.io. The stems are the same thickness as the staff lines at .1. space. ledger lines are .125 spaces, bar lines are .150 spaces for this size staff. I had hoped to get it all set in my template and then forget it, but maybe it is time for a revision. Yes, it looks different in the picture, which is just a screen capture; no idea why.

On a previous subject, I should have mentioned that while Beethoven alternates una corda and tre corda throughout this movement, it appears to be something special and apart from the initial mezza voce marking. For example, the mezza voce theme of op. 109 has no una corda marking, and the una cord effects in other pieces like op. 110 have no mezza voce.
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odod
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Re: "Warmth" and Note Size

Post by odod »

tried different thickness ..
op 106.3 Default.png
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John Ruggero
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Re: "Warmth" and Note Size

Post by John Ruggero »

Hi odod. I assume you mean a different thickness of the note heads. I like it, but they do seem to overlap the staff lines a little. At least they seemed to when I enlarged it:
note heads.jpeg
note heads.jpeg (20.88 KiB) Viewed 7138 times
If the major axis of the note heads made a smaller angle to the staff lines, the actual length of the major axis might even be shortened (or maybe not) and it might begin to resemble the Associated Board note head more, if that is what you are attempting.
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