Font Attempt

[odod]

Hello Master Engravers,

Here's my attempt to make a complete font .. i think i am gonna decide to keep this one as my default music font. still need some improvement though, because it does not fit with FINALE however i am using opus font as based template. anyone could teach how to make Finale's compatible font ? on win and Mac ? any feedback would be appreciated

kind regards

Pathetique_0002.png (1.65 MiB) Viewed 17423 times

[OCTO]

It looks very nice, congratulations!
Indeed, some of your slurs reminds me Sibelius default (dislike).
You can try making fonts for Finale in FontForge as a starter. There are several people on the board that could help you. Keep us updated!

[Schonbergian]

I feel as though the noteheads could be larger and fill the staff more.

I like the balance of the flat and natural, but feel the sharp could be a tad darker overall.

[Knut]

Very nice, OCTO!

I like the the size of the black notehead, although as Schoenbergian points out, it might be a bit too slight fore some, so it's worth experimenting a bit with the size and angle. Also, it looks to me as though you've tried to make it more 'authentic' by making a slight dent in bottom left part of the shape. I know a lot of people like this sort of thing, but in my personal opinion, it gets old pretty fast. I'm curious to see what the other noteheads look like in comparison.

I like the balance of the flat and natural, but feel the sharp could be a tad darker overall.

Actually, to me, the sharp and natural look almost entirely balanced. If anything, I find the sharp to be the more prominent of the two. The flat looks too slight to me in comparison.

[John Ruggero]

odod, I think that your font is fine in all respects. Congratulations! I like the proportions of the accidentals, the clefs, the dynamic signs, the note size and the font used for the expressions. You have a fine default music font. I don't understand your issues using it in Finale etc. Perhaps others can help you.

Since you seem to be are asking for help of all kinds, I think there here are a few engraving matters that could be improved:

1. The time signature is too close to the key signature.

2. The tempo indication is too high.

3. The title is too large for the subtitle and composer's name, which are themselves a little small.

4. The fingering is too small, alla Henle, and therefore harder to read than it should be, and the finger numbers over the chords are stacked too far apart. One never sees fingering placed this way in good editions. I prefer the use of an elision symbol to show finger interchanges rather than a hyphen, because this allows the hyphen to be used to show alternating fingering for trills. As well, if the second finger number in an interchange is placed far from the first to show an exact place for the interchange, a long slur connecting the two numbers looks better to me than a long straight line.

5. I don't think that Beethoven would have liked for you to break the beams in measures 4 and 9, because it places undue visual emphasis on the unimportant neighboring notes B flat in measure 4 and F in measure 9. He was "forced" to break the beam in 10 because of the sextuplet since he wanted to avoid an obscure notation and he didn't break secondary beams to clarify rhythmic divisions. He hoped that the earlier beaming in 4 and 9 would clarify the correct interpretation with the absence of an emphasis on the D.

6. Place the notes on the staves as Beethoven wrote them. Many of the right hand notes should be on the lower staff and many of the left hand notes should be on the upper staff. Modernization wreaks havoc with the visual picture of the voice leading. The first edition (since the autograph is lost) should be your source, not a modern edition. If Beethoven were standing right behind you as you engraved his music, would you have the guts to change it?

7. The slurs might be might be slightly less arched; but only slightly; this comment in possible agreement with OCTO.

[odod]

odod, I think that your font is fine in all respects. Congratulations! I like the proportions of the accidentals, the clefs, the dynamic signs, the note size and the font used for the expressions. You have a fine default music font. I don't understand your issues using it in Finale etc. Perhaps others can help you.

Since you seem to be are asking for help of all kinds, I think there here are a few engraving matters that could be improved:

1. The time signature is too close to the key signature.

2. The tempo indication is too high.

3. The title is too large for the subtitle and composer's name, which are themselves a little small.

4. The fingering is too small, alla Henle, and therefore harder to read than it should be, and the finger numbers over the chords are stacked too far apart. One never sees fingering placed this way in good editions. I prefer the use of an elision symbol to show finger interchanges rather than a hyphen, because this allows the hyphen to be used to show alternating fingering for trills. As well, if the second finger number in an interchange is placed far from the first to show an exact place for the interchange, a long slur connecting the two numbers looks better to me than a long straight line.

5. I don't think that Beethoven would have liked for you to break the beams in measures 4 and 9, because it places undue visual emphasis on the unimportant neighboring notes B flat in measure 4 and F in measure 9. He was "forced" to break the beam in 10 because of the sextuplet since he wanted to avoid an obscure notation and he didn't break secondary beams to clarify rhythmic divisions. He hoped that the earlier beaming in 4 and 9 would clarify the correct interpretation with the absence of an emphasis on the D.

6. Place the notes on the staves as Beethoven wrote them. Many of the right hand notes should be on the lower staff and many of the left hand notes should be on the upper staff. Modernization wreaks havoc with the visual picture of the voice leading. The first edition (since the autograph is lost) should be your source, not a modern edition. If Beethoven were standing right behind you as you engraved his music, would you have the guts to change it?

7. The slurs might be might be slightly less arched; but only slightly; this comment in possible agreement with OCTO.

My Gosh .. these inputs are gems for me. Yes, i will surely do what you've said on this post. at no 6 i was like .. best input ever.


Thanks to OCTO, Knut and Schonbergian for all inputs, i am happy that you guys like the font.
Here's another attempt after following some feedback from Knut and Schonbergian (this time different piece)

Traumerei - Schumann.png (1.74 MiB) Viewed 17351 times

[John Ruggero]

I am glad that you found my comments helpful, odod.

Here are more concerning the Schumann:

1. I have my own rule regarding the correct distance between the staves of a double-staffed part: the two staves should be no further apart than is required to allow the material between the staves to be clearly read. By this rule all of your systems are too widely spaced, those in system 2 are especially too far apart. If you follow this rule, you will have gained more space between the systems, which aids clarity. As well, melodies that move between the staves as in 11, 15, and 17 will be much easier to follow.

2. The slurs are mostly too arched. I pointed this out to Henle on their blog concerning their recent new edition of Brahms Clarinet Trio, but without any real response or acknowledgment from them even though I supplied a counter example from the Breitkopf Complete Works which shapes the slurs as one would expect in a fine edition. It is clear that excessive arching has a negative effect not only aesthetically but also for spacing since it uses up too much space on the page and leads to crowding.

3. The direction of the stems of the left hand half notes in measures 11 and 15 is incorrect. Down stems in both cases according to the 1st edition and standard practice to show three voices on one staff. As well the half notes are too far from the immediately preceding note since they are "played" simultaneously.

4. I have expressed my opinion several times on this site and others concerning the pedaling indication style that you are using. For me it is the least satisfactory, the simple Ped. * system being the best in this case, unless one wishes to show the pedaling in greater detail as in an educational edition, in which case the all-bracket system would be best. Schumann shows only two Ped indications in this piece in the first edition and without terminations. That your pedaling is editorial should be made clear in some way. The final one seems to be incorrectly placed since it causes two different harmonies to coincide. The ped. should terminate completely one note earlier than indicated by the ^ and a new pedal taken on the very last chord. The next to last chord (the C7) is probably best unpedaled.

5. The beam in measure 17 should angle downward as in the first edition since the melody is basically moving downward.

6. Again, you should go back to the first edition as your source. There are numerous discrepancies in slurring and other matters between your engraving and the first edition.

[Schonbergian]

I agree with John about the slurs, and also believe they are too tapered. I think a more even distribution of weight across the entire slur is the most appealing, and have witnessed this in my favourite hand-engraving.

[OCTO]

Thanks to OCTO, Knut and Schonbergian for all inputs, i am happy that you guys like the font.
Here's another attempt after following some feedback from Knut and Schonbergian (this time different piece)

Traumerei - Schumann.png

WOW, this is the first time that one's font look like the Russian publisher Myzgiz!
My late composition professor once told me that statistically Myzgiz has the lowest number of mistakes. Despite his francophilia, he was quite distasted by French publishers, because of the number of mistakes he found.

Congratulations!

[John Ruggero]

In working on a Chopin Etude edition, I have found that there is less editorial intervention by his French publisher in correcting composer mistakes than his German publisher, but also less intrusion, which may explain in general be why French music is notoriously error-prone.