Bumping this back up as it already contains a lot of useful info. I’ve been using my same basic text font for all musical elements for 10 years or so, and I figured it’s time to move on to something else. (I usually use a different font for all page-attached elements like titles, composer, folios, etc.) As this is for use with Dorico, here are some requirements:
- It’s a serif font. I’d be willing to explore other options if someone has good examples of it in use, but probably unlikely to change my mind.
- It has to default to lining figures. Even if they are contained in the font, there’s no way to tell Dorico to use the lining figures if a font defaults to old style figures, and I need a font that can be used for chord symbols.
- It has to have at least the 4 main styles: regular, italic, bold, and bold italic as I use them all. Further options (semi-condensed, caption, etc) are a plus but not a necessity.
- Non-horrible kerning of 11 and 13 is a plus too. There’s no way to make a global change to these in chord symbols, and it’s a PITA to edit them.
- Cost isn’t a huge issue, but I have an Adobe CS subscription free through the university, so anything from Adobe Type is fine. Obviously Google Fonts are fine too. I have a 20 year old Adobe Font Folio 9, and I’ve picked up or purchased a few randomly over the years too. Some expense is fine, but I’m not dropping $1K on a typeface collection.
So … here are a few contenders that I already have installed or have access to. I tried to more or less equalize the sizing. A few of these I’ve already ruled out as I’ve used them in the past, are too common, etc, but I put in for comparison. I would imagine at least three of these will be instantly recognizable to most people with enough interest to click this thread, LOL.
Any likes/dislikes? Anyone have a current favorite text font for music that’s particularly obscure? Any publishers currently using anything more interesting than the style guides cited above? Just curious if anyone has a grasp on any current type trends for music.