Hi, I’m a new Dorico user, and I’m struggling to set Dorico up to have a consistent handwritten jazz font for the chord symbols.
I would be greatly appreciative if someone could point out how to do this.
Steps to Reproduce
Dorico 5.0.20, MacOS
Open the Clocks example file
Use Library > Music Fonts... to change font to Finale Jazz
Expected Behaviour
All characters in the chord symbols should now be in a handwritten font.
Actual Behaviour
The flat symbol (and also the sharp symbol if I add one) are still in a typeset font that does not match the handwritten font of the letters/numbers (see screenshot).
If that worked for you, it might just be a case of an incorrectly installed font on my end. If that’s the case, I’ll give reinstalling everything a go.
Ah, hang on, sorry for the bum steer, Tim. If I remember rightly, Finale Jazz Text doesn’t have the necessary chord symbols accidental range from SMuFL implemented. You might have to settle for choosing Petaluma Text, whose accidentals don’t look exactly like Finale Jazz’s accidentals, but at least look handwritten.
Apologies for hijacking this thread (not sure if I should start a new one) but I have a similar question with the LS Iris font. Is that also a case where the accidentals needed for chord symbols are different than those used in staff notation? I thought the font was SMuFL compatible, but I’m not totally sure.
The font will need to have the Standard Accidentals for Chord Symbols SMuFL range. If a font is missing those, I think you’ll end up needing a doricolib hack to redefine where Dorico looks for those glyphs.
Thanks, that makes sense. I knew the LS Iris font didn’t have the complete glyphs of, say, Bravura. I just didn’t realize that the accidentals for chord symbol alterations were different. But it makes total sense that they would have to be.
Sorry, I’m about to leave and don’t have time to do it, but the location Dorico looks for these is defined in the factory glyphs.xml file. The two sharps used are below for example:
You’ll notice that the ED62 codePoint matches the sharp in that Standard Accidentals for Chord Symbols range. You could create a doricolib file to change that location to point to a glyph that the LS Iris font has. (I assume, I don’t actually have time to try it.)
As a follow-up to my original question. It looks like the missing glyphs for Finale Ash, Finale Jazz, Finale Broadway were added in Dorico 5.1 and everything looks correct now.
Hello everyone, new Dorico-user here. I looked into this more closely and found that the font for the accidentals only changes automatically when switching between Bravura and Petaluma.
@Nordine. This workaround works for Finale Jazz. However, Finale Ash does not have the corresponding glyphs. One could also use Finale Jazz for the accidentals here.
I happened to be having this exact issue: suddenly, any accidentals in chords disappeared (accidentals for both the chord root and for altered extensions). My selected “Chord Symbols Music Text Font” is Sebastian. Like you, @SawtoothSoul, I was only able to make the accidentals reappear by changing between Bravura and Petaluma as my “Default Music Font.”
HOWEVER, when selecting the “Chord Symbols Music Text Font,” I noticed that the Parent was set to “Default Music Text Font.” As soon as I changed it to “Default Music Font,” this problem is fixed.
(Actually, fixed in two ways: my accidentals reappeared, and if I select ANY of the available SMuFL "Default Music Font"s, those chord accidentals change accordingly - not only Bravura and Petaluma.)
Thank you very much for the tip! Unfortunately, not all Finale fonts include the necessary characters, so for the accidentals, you see the glyphs from the previously selected font that does contain the required symbols.
