The current beta of MuseScore has a brand new music font, which is SMuFL-compliant.
It’s called “Leland”, which should given an indication of its influence to those who know their notation software history.
At the moment, it only has a few hundred glyphs, but it’s expected to grow over time.
Ah, cool! I don’t know SCORE well… I’d be curious to hear how other think it compares in appearance.
Cool! Looks pretty good. For those unfamiliar with it, Tom Brodhead has some great SCORE examples on his site here:
https://bmt-systems.com/score/samples.htm
Late '90s I mostly just did SCORE inputting/proofreading and the woman I worked for did the finer formatting, but we definitely used Tom’s BEAM and VJ subroutines a lot.
I haven’t downloaded it yet and would love to see some music that uses it. Are there any online scores that use Leland?
Probably not, since it’s still in beta and has a limited set of characters at this point. I’m sure some users here would be willing to give it a go…
Thanks Todd. Sure not a big difference. The naturals are pretty whispy, but even the clefs (sometimes the most obvious character of a font) aren’t much different.
Thank you. I am an amateur musician and composer and probably through lack of experience, have a difficult time recognizing the subtle differences. However, for those that do, I am happy to see another available SmuFL font.
Clefs seem a bit more compressed, which is nice for horizontal spacing, but the treble extends a bit too far for me. Noteheads seem pretty close, but flags are more open. I like the more open counters of the natural, but I agree, the lines of the accidentals do seem whispy. I hate the angle of the sharp as it’s too close to horizontal. Gliss line has more texture to it, which I think I like. Dynamics seem lighter and a bit more elegant. Accents aren’t as open and are definitely heavier. Not sure how I feel about those. Tenuto seems a touch too short to me.
Is this a modified MTF Scorlatti, or is it a totally new font?
Paolo
It’s a completely new font, designed by your man Tantacrul himself. It’s intended to be inspired by Score, but not identical, and “as balanced as possible – the ‘Helvetica’ of notation fonts”.
I was fiddling around with it so here’s one more comparison for anyone interested.
Bravura/Academico
Leland/Edwin
It’s hardly worth the effort! To my mind, there’s a need for a ‘heavier, thicker’ font, and a ‘lighter, cleaner’ font.
Personally, I favour eighth note down flags that are a bit more pregnant, and leave a slight gap before the notehead. That’s one of the reasons I use MTF-Cadence.
I’ve been neglecting my work on SMuFL-Sebastian, which I ought to get back to. So many glyphs, so little time…
Honestly, I don’t think I could tell the difference except for a close up, side-by-side comparison. Maybe I don’t have a sharp enough eye.
Now Opus and Maestro… those are much more distinct.
That’s probably because I was a dummy and accidentally saved over the wrong file when I tried to upload a higher res version. Should be correct now.
Well, if the Score font was the Helvetica, Bravura is the Helvetica Neue: the old principles, but stronger, bolder, and more in line with the modern times.
I see myself using the Score font (MTF Scorlatti, and/or this new one), but for idiomatic scores heavily recalling the 60s/70s.
Paolo
It’s like when I ask my sound guy to turn up the monitor, and he pretends to fiddle with the faders but doesn’t touch anything, and I say, “That’s it, much better!”…
I’m not seeing any difference at all between the Academico and Edwin chord symbols. Are they actually both Academico?
As a conductor, in common with much that I have seen printed by SCORE, I
do not find the result in Charles Ives Symphony 4 very attractive or
practical. There are acres of white space between staves (only 21 staves per
11" x 15" page) and the music font does not make the notes leap off the
page.
OK, so it’s Charles Ives; but I still think: Advantage Dorico.
David
Not sure about the pregnant bit, but I certainly prefer a gap.
David
