Tech: Creating New Fonts - Advice Please

Subject: RE: Tech: Creating New Fonts - Advice Please
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 19 Jun 04 - 07:59 AM

What you describe is pretty simple in Word.

Insert a field using Ctl-F9 (or go to the menu, click insert, go down the list and click on Field). You should see "{ }" with your cursor between the braces.

Inside the braces, type "eq" to make it an equation (sometimes called formula) field. "{eq }"

Next type "\a()" to tell it to make an "array." "{eq \a() }"

Whatever you type inside the parenthesese "()" of the "\a()," with commas between the "pieces," will print in a vertical column.

If you type (x,-,0,0,0,0) you should get a Bb tab (for a D whistle, if I remember my fingerings, but don't count on that). Top hole covered, second half covered, the rest open:

       x
       -
       o
       o
       o
       o

Except that the column will all be within one (tall) line of text, instead of on six lines as displayed here.

There are other things you can do with the \a in an eq field, to make multiple columns, left/right/center justify in the columns, etc, but the simple single column one should do all of what you want.

Ctl-F9 inserts a field.
Shift-F9 toggles between viewing the field, and viewing its "result."

Some kinds of fields "calculate" a result, so for them you need to know that:
F9 updates the calculated value.
Ctl-Shift-F9 "unlinks" a field, so that it becomes the "plain text" result. The eq field is just format, so it can't be unlinked.

If you really wanted "fancy" you could add a "\x()" to make it:

{eq \x(\a(x,x,o,o,o,o))

and get the tab column inside a box that looks a little like one of my old whistles.

I seem to recall that in the "standard" setup, if you "double click" on one of these fields it sends it to the "equation editor" and turns it automatically into a "graphic." I can't test that on my machine because I've disabled the "equation editor."

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Creating New Fonts - Advice Please
From: pavane
Date: 19 Jun 04 - 07:33 AM

Back to the quarter tones - It COULD be done in MIDI, and can already be done in HARMONY, by specifying a note style which bends the pitch by a suitable amount. The pitch bend control actually allows a range of +2 or -2 semitones, I think

This is a bit of a work-around, but could be automatically implemented as a nonstandard abc enhancement.

The display would need some work, though.

Subject: RE: Tech: Creating New Fonts - Advice Please
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 19 Jun 04 - 07:16 AM

John, thanks - that's interesting stoff. As it turns out my Word program yesterday decided to crap itself.

Are you game enough to try some experiments in Word (of which I only know the basics) to try some Whistle TAB based on your knowledge? If you're a whistle player that's fine, but otherwise you can assign any combinations of X, O, + (for the second octave) and maybe - (for 'alf covered 'oles).

I have no idea whether this can be done in Word - with or without macros because in my working life I only ever used it for fairly straight business correspondence. You only need to try a few symbols in upper and lower case, eg C,D,c,d in order to prove the concept.

Regards, John

Subject: RE: Tech: Creating New Fonts - Advice Please
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 19 Jun 04 - 06:45 AM

Small oops.

Should be:

If you hit Ctl-F9 in word, it inserts a field, that's shown as a pair of "curly braces" = "{ }."

Sorry.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Creating New Fonts - Advice Please
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 19 Jun 04 - 06:42 AM

John In Brisbane -

A little off the line of discussion here, but should you need to put your little stacks of "x"s and "o"s in a brief text, it's quite simple in Word, although you pretty much have to type each one.

If you hit the F9 key in word, it inserts a field, that's shown as a pair of "curly braces" = "{ }." If you type, inside the braces:

{eq \a(x,x,x,o,o,o)}

when you hit F9 again it will make the stack, in this case with 3 "x"s and 3 "o"s lined up vertically. Use Shift-F9 to toggle back and forth between looking at the "code" and seeing what will print.

You can't use the "autotext" or search and replace to insert fields, but if you type each one out once, you can copy and paste them where you want them.

And now back to our regular program....

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Creating New Fonts - Advice Please
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 19 Jun 04 - 06:13 AM

Probably stating the obvious about the current MIDI Standard - as I recall the current Standard does not allow an interval smaller than unity between each pitch value. Sooner or later there will be agreement reached about the acceptable musical pitches for quarter tone music in its myriad of modes. How developers handle this is beyond the view of my crystal ball. Is it likely that the MIDI Standard will ever be revised to handle intervals (of varying sizes) less than a semi-tone?

I'm quite ABC-centric these days. There is already one experimental project that employs unofficial ABC syntax for quarter tones, plus some mods made to abc2ps (or is it abcm2ps?) to print unique note symbols. The problem remains of accurately playing a quarter tone tune using MIDI for some of the reasons mentioned above.

Back on the subject of Whistle Fonts. Today I wrote the kernel of a little Excel utility which allows you to copy in the notes as text, and then it gives you the Whistle TAB as a series of X and O in vertical stacks for each hole. There's no need for a special font of course, just a lookup table for each note in the scale. Nothin' fancy, but it works.

Regards, John

Subject: RE: Tech: Creating New Fonts - Advice Please
From: pavane
Date: 19 Jun 04 - 04:38 AM

Probably seeing a key signature of Eb scared too many people off?

The adjustment would be quite simple, just a number to be added to or subtracted from the pitch, like transpose.

Subject: RE: Tech: Creating New Fonts - Advice Please
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 18 Jun 04 - 07:47 PM

"If the instrument is usually written in a different pitch to the actual sound (e.g. guitar sounds an octave lower than written) then this will need an adjustment option, not yet implemented."

Octave transposing instruments are not as difficult as things like saxaphones, etc, ('band instruments' mainly) which move by other intervals.

I've always wondered WHY (I do understand about transposing instruments) the istorical decision was taken to use 'transposed scoring' instead of 'play the note as she sounds' notation. Never having studied such instruments (with the exception of the whistle family!) I wonder why it still happens that way. I know that some players learn how to 'sight transpose'.

Robin

Subject: RE: Tech: Creating New Fonts - Advice Please
From: pavane
Date: 18 Jun 04 - 01:33 PM

I have added a new option to HARMONY (in 3.3.0) to display the note in a special (selectable) font instead of the lyrics. This is to be used with such things as the whistle font mentioned.

This will only work properly if the glyphs are mapped to the absolute MIDI pitch of the note. Thus Middle C is 64, and each step up or down represents a semitone.

Mapping the glyphs in any other way would need a translation table.

If the instrument is usually written in a different pitch to the actual sound (e.g. guitar sounds an octave lower than written) then this will need an adjustment option, not yet implemented.

Subject: RE: Tech: Creating New Fonts - Advice Please
From: pavane
Date: 18 Jun 04 - 10:47 AM

So you see a market opportunity there then

Subject: RE: Tech: Creating New Fonts - Advice Please
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 18 Jun 04 - 09:39 AM

Don't disagree entirely Foolestroupe about the current conservative view, but do forecast that the practice of notating 'world music' has to change in order to   satisfy a wider audience of players. I may be obsessive, but in my view, if ABC were in Oz they'd be doing it now. The only argument in my mind is the timing. There are already a few Westies giving it some attention, but you'd be surprised how little music East of Istanbul (in abstract formats) exists on the Web. 'Cos it can't using existing conventions.

Regards, John

Subject: RE: Tech: Creating New Fonts - Advice Please
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 18 Jun 04 - 09:10 AM

For some time now it has been accepted practice for 'Irish Music' - jigs & reels etc, to be notated in standard 'Classical Notation', but the player is expected to give it the 'swing' or 'lilt'. Good books for beginners include this warning note - I have seen it in some. Unless some critical widely accepted changes are introduced, I expect the same to happen with other 'World Music' ethnic forms.

Robin

Subject: RE: Tech: Creating New Fonts - Advice Please
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 18 Jun 04 - 08:40 AM

Yes N. you will need to do some tweaking but I'm not so sure it should be a high priority.

However in saying this I'm very mindful that the push to World Music, as opposed to Western/Celtic Music, is unstoppable, with Celtic music comparatively out of favour in Oz - at least for cutting edge musos - the influence of quarter tone music and non Western/Afro rythms is growing rapidly. The days when a djembe player could belt out an indiscrimate 4/4 beat are over for many styles of newer music. I don't see any examples of notation or music presentation processes which are keeping pace with folk music developments.

This thread is devoted to the PITCH of the note to be used in music tablature, as opposed to exotic timings or interpretation techniques required for the true interpretation of folk music - ALL folk music. In my view the demand for representation of non-Western music will increase significantly in the next half decade in terms of all three factors. Trad music notation is unlikely to keep pace, and by its nature will be very resistant to change.

IF this scenario is true, then alternative ways of displaying music notation MAY resort to tablature for non-Pitch restricted instruments, at least partially.

Enough day-dreaming! I'm proud of the fact that Australia is one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the world. We'll enjoy the music even if we don't have the wherewithall to join in.

Regards, John

Subject: RE: Tech: Creating New Fonts - Advice Please
From: pavane
Date: 18 Jun 04 - 08:20 AM

Just checked - it didn't work properly, but I have now fixed it. The space allowed for the lyrics depends on both the number of verses and the height of the text in the chosen font.
Will be in version 3.3.0

Subject: RE: Tech: Creating New Fonts - Advice Please
From: pavane
Date: 18 Jun 04 - 07:01 AM

Harmony DOES allow you to change the font used for the lyrics. I may have to check that it automatically calculates the space using GetTextHeight.

BUT it also has a facility by which you can display the note names (in abc form) instead of the lyrics, so you wouldn't even have to include a lyric line in the file.

It may have to be tweaked a bit, as you say, for accidentals and especially implied accidentals (as in the key signature) though.

I think I did receive your font, but haven't done anthing with it yet.

Subject: RE: Tech: Creating New Fonts - Advice Please
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 18 Jun 04 - 05:45 AM

Foolestroupe, thanks for the advice re the TIM site. The first font is where I originally stole the idea. As I acknowledged at the start of this thread it is unfortunately diatonic only and reverses the logical order of upper and lower case letters used for the scale in ABC Notation.

The second font looks really excellent, but it's a music font as opposed to a tablature font. It's probably better used in instruction books or in a program like HARMONY which could inter alia provide Larson's interpretations of grace notes on the printed page. I'm not aware that ABC Notation makes explicit provisions for the rolls etc that Larson has so carefully documented. In fact by contrast the conventional design philosopphy for most notation is to minimise ornamentation.

Pavane, I don't have any problems with positioning using my simple text concept, but admittedly I haven't trird it out with Harmony - please bear in mind this was somewhat of a teaser project a couple of years ago. If HARMONY allows you to select the Font Type and Size for the lyric line, then each Note Name is entered as a separate Lyric Syllable. Or you can import an ABC file with W: aligned lyrics (but using the root Note Name instead of conventional lyrics). Whether HARMONY allows sufficient height for the lyric line is clearly problematical. (I used NWC as my test vehicle a couple of years ago 'cos that's what a lot of Mudcatters used at that time - it allows a lot of flexibility in space between staves).

Mine is a simple concept, but it works quite well within its current build specs. If you were to use your existing parser to write a lyric syllable for each note, then the instrument's range is the only limit.

You can make provision for double sharps, odd characters for syncopation, tuplets etc. In fact once you've parsed correctly to a Midi value the hard work has all been done. I may have sent you a copy of my font in the past, but let me know if you'd like a copy - if I can find the b----- thing.

Regards, John

Subject: RE: Tech: Creating New Fonts - Advice Please
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 18 Jun 04 - 03:36 AM

I have found a couple of free fonts for tinwhistle at Irish Traditional Music Resources ... lots of other related stuff too.

Subject: RE: Tech: Creating New Fonts - Advice Please
From: pavane
Date: 18 Jun 04 - 02:14 AM

John,
The positioning problem could possibly be overcome using the method I have adopted in Harmony (Next version).

I work using the centre of the character for positioning, which means deducting half the width of the character from the X position where you want the centre of the printed character.

The width of a character at the current font size can be obtained from a Windows function (at least in VB)

For vertical positioning, I have built a table which specifies where the alignment point occurs in the font character. For example, a treble clef should be aligned so that the central point of the circle is on the G line of the staff (cos that's what the treble clef sign is - a big G)

This occurs at about 65% down from the top. So then I work back to where I want the top to be (Y position) based on the current scaling factor.

The result is that the new score in HARMONY 3.3.0 (Not yet available) is almost identical in positioning to the old version which used to draw the characters directly. (I have left the old version as an option in the program in case the font doesn't install correctly.)

Subject: RE: Tech: Creating New Fonts - Advice Please
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 18 Jun 04 - 12:32 AM

Just a few notes of explanation - I'll stick to the musical part of the story in this instance:

- I wanted to create a font to portray the fingering for tin whistle.
- It needed to cover a 2 octave range
- Semi-tones, rests and ties were required
- I wanted it to be as compatible as possible with the ABC Notation system so that users could download one of the many thousands of tunes available freely on the Web. I never intended however to include any visual info about the duration of the note.
- Likewise if a user knew what the notes were for a tune they should be able to use a normal text editor to enter the notes from the PC keyboard. This means a further departure from the standard ABC Notation, but one that is essential if only one keystroke is to be used to generate a whistle shape.

So I then:

- Created all the various fingering shapes of little whistles in the range of C C# D D# E F F# G ...B c c# d d# ...... a# b c' and saved them as individual .bmp files.

- Chose to use only Sharps instead of Flats (or a mixture of both)for reasons of standardisation and for the reason which follows.

- For the Sharp Accidentals I used the kepad letter between 9 o'clock and 12 0'clock of the main note. If you look at your PC (or Mac) keyboard you'll see that it's fairly easy to come up with a logical rule hence C# uses X, D# uses S, F# uses R (because D is used elsewhere), G# uses T ('cos F is already used), A# uses Q and so on for the next octave using lowercase letters.

- When you get to the the highest note in the two octaves c' I used the letter v immediately to the right of the letter c (you could alternatively think of the c' note as being the note b# - and hence my 9 o'clock rule is maintained).

I'll finish off the rest of this description in a second episode.

Regards, John

Subject: RE: Tech: Creating New Fonts - Advice Please
From: Rasener
Date: 04 Jun 04 - 01:45 AM

Just in case anybody wants to know what orthography is, then read on.

The orthography of a language is the set of rules of how to write correctly in the language. The term is derived from Greek ïñèï ortho- ("correct") and ãñáöïò graphos ("that writes") and, in today's sense, includes spelling and punctuation. Orthography is distinct from typography.
An example of an orthographic rule for English is

A vowel that
is not preceded immediately by another vowel, and
is followed by an "E" at the end of the word, without any consonants between the vowel and the "E"
may represent the "long" sound of the vowel.
(This is the pronunciation rule "final E makes the vowel long" restated as a spelling rule.)

Subject: RE: Tech: Creating New Fonts - Advice Please
From: Rasener
Date: 04 Jun 04 - 01:43 AM

Just incase somebody asks what Typography is then .......

Typography (performed by a typographer) is the art of creatively arranging letterforms on a page to be printed, usually using a recognised typeface, in order to achieve a combination of both aesthetic and functional goals.

While the term orthography usually refers to correct writing in general, typography includes:


layout of blocks of text on the page, and throughout a publication;
thoughtful selection and use of typefaces (fonts);
correct use of emphasis;
optional decoration such as initials;
adhering to rules of typographical syntax, such as when to use a hyphen vs. a dash, or what glyphs to use for quotation marks, which varies greatly among different languages.
The term typography has broadened to include arranging text on the computer screen. When an overall layout specification has to handle a range of actual content – whether on screen or not – the term more often used is information design.

Note that type design is generally considered a separate activity from typography, although it can be considered a branch thereof.

Subject: RE: Tech: Creating New Fonts - Advice Please
From: Rasener
Date: 04 Jun 04 - 01:35 AM

Not wishing to be associated with GUEST, but never the less trying to be helpful to people who do not understand the difference but would like to, then this is my offering.

In typography, a typeface is a co-ordinated set of letter designs, making a complete alphabet, and generally intended to be made into a font for printing or use on a computer display.

The art of designing typefaces is called type design, being the occupation of a type designer.

A font (originally fount, from typefoundry) is a set of glyphs (images) representing the characters from a particular character set in a particular typeface. In digital fonts, the image of each character may be encoded either as a bitmap (in a bitmap font) or by a higher-level description in terms of lines and curves enclosing space (an outline font, also called "vector font").

The term fount has been used for centuries to refer to the contemporary technological device used to print in a particular size and typeface (though in phototype and digital type, it need no longer refer to a specific size). Virtually all founts were cast in various lead alloys from the 1450s until the middle of the 20th century. A few large founts were made of wood, especially in the USA. This is known as wood type. There was a relatively brief overlapping period (ca. 1950s-1990s) where photographic technology, known as phototypesetting, was used; founts came on rolls or discs of film. From the mid-1980s the move to digital typography has been relentless and the American spelling has been almost universally adopted. The term font nowadays almost always refers to a computer file containing scalable, outline letterforms, usually in one of several common formats. Some fonts, such as Microsoft's Verdana are intended primarily for use on computer screens.

Subject: RE: Tech: Creating New Fonts - Advice Please
From: michaelr
Date: 03 Jun 04 - 07:11 PM

Why don't you explain it then, you nameless know-it-all?

Subject: RE: Tech: Creating New Fonts - Advice Please
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Jun 04 - 06:37 PM

It would be a good idea to learn the difference between 'font' and 'typeface.'

Subject: RE: Tech: Creating New Fonts - Advice Please
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 03 Jun 04 - 06:15 PM

Thanks for the feedback all - it'll take me a while to absorb it all.

michelr - i was a bit cryptic when i talked about tyoping out the tune - I was actually referring to the ABC notation convention which uses cdefgab and CDEFGAB as a means of representing two octaves of music.

I'm off to Darwin tonight for the Top End Folk Festival, so it will be two weeks before I can pidk up this thread.

Thanks for your interest.

Regards, John

Subject: RE: Tech: Creating New Fonts - Advice Please
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 02 Jun 04 - 12:11 AM

michaelr - I read him to mean that if you type "A" and show it in his font, you'll see the "fingering for A" instead of the "character A."

I don't know whether it will be useful, but Microsoft's Typography group offers some general assistance for development of True Type and/or Open Type fonts. If you have a decent "font builder" program, you really shouldn't have to worry too much about the details of the font specs, but there is some "general info," some "helpful hints," and according to the index, some recommendations on available software. They should have some info on what "features" need to be defined to get the character sizing you want.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Creating New Fonts - Advice Please
From: michaelr
Date: 30 May 04 - 01:53 PM

John, I don't understand. What do you mean by type out the tune?

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: Tech: Creating New Fonts - Advice Please
From: Rasener
Date: 30 May 04 - 10:34 AM

Go to google and type -

music note fonts

Subject: RE: Tech: Creating New Fonts - Advice Please
From: Rasener
Date: 30 May 04 - 10:32 AM

Have a look at this website. It might be what you are looking for and is free.

http://www.icogitate.com/~ra849/fonts/music-fonts2.htm

Subject: RE: Tech: Creating New Fonts - Advice Please
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 30 May 04 - 08:36 AM

Not meaning to stop your fun, but...

There are already such fonts around I had some on my old machine - try starting a search or asking questions at Chiff & Fipple.

Subject: RE: Tech: Creating New Fonts - Advice Please
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 30 May 04 - 08:14 AM

Haven't played with this subject for about 18 months, really just long enough to prove that the concept works, ie to create a pictorial/graphical image of how notes are played for a variety of instruments - over a 2 octave scale including semitones. I did it for tin whistle, harmonica and saxophone. Presumably it could be used for any instrument which requires fingering, particularly woodwind.

The concept is simple:

- Create a unique Font for a given instrument and install on your PC or Mac with other test or True Type fonts.

- Type out the tune in any simple wordprocessor, in any convemient Western text font.

- Change the font to that for the nominated instrument, eg Alto Sax and hey presto you have a little picture of the fingering for each note. If the text is used in the lyrics line of a score printing program (such as NoteWorthy Composer) then you can print the notes in conventional music notation and the fingering for each note will be displayed under each note.

Any future queries just drop me a PM.

The Font Creator Program is of medium difficulty to learn, requires a degree od dogged tedium, but works fine. At the time I was using it I found nothing else to rival it on the Web.

Regards, John

Subject: Tech: Creating New Fonts - Advice Please
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 16 Oct 02 - 12:04 AM

This is a brand new subject for me and I would appreciate any advice please. In another thread (re Tin Whistle Tablature) I volunteered to try and create a new font incorporating the two octave lower range of the tin whistle. In this basic scheme typing the letters CDEFGABc (and then selecting the new Font) would give a graphic of the fingering for each of the notes, a lot like WinDings I guess.

So far so good, I've created a .BMP file containing the fingering for each of the notes in the two octaves, including all the accidebtals.

I've downloaded a shareware program from High-Logic known as the Font Creator Program. I had a fairly extensive play with this last night and creating basic new fonts is pretty easy - you simply import the .BMP images into bobxes labelled A,B,C ...a, b, c etc.. But I'm having real trouble with the sizing, particularly my desire to minimise the width of the font elements. In order to insert this tavlature under a line of printed music it needs to be the same width as each musical note (roughly). The proportions are similar to a cigarette standing upright.By way of analogy it is similar to the letter I occupying the same space as the letter W using conventional text fonts.

Has anybody had any experience in using this or any other font creation program please?

Regards, John

PS I stole this idea from a whistle tablature font known as Penny Whistle, but unfortunately it isn't as musically robust as it could be, and its syntax isn't readily compatible with ABC notation.