Glyph count has today almost reached the halfway point to my initial goal of ~500, and at 236 glyphs the font is starting to become quite usable at least for tonal music. It’s rather hard to find a glyphs from that 1890-1910 Paris/Fromont publishing time period I haven’t yet included, so lately I’ve been focusing on modeling more “anachronistic” ones like slash noteheads.
If anyone is interested in trying the font out, the latest build is on Github and I’d be very interested in hearing if you can spot any obvious oversights or bugs, or visual choices you stongly disagree with. I got the Musescore related problems sorted (for both 3.7 Evolution and 4.7), and dropped the fallback glyphs since they add unnecessary clutter in the files.
Just released a rather big update (+100 glyphs and some modifications) and decided to jump to version number 0.600 to signify that the project is already rather close to my inital target of 500 glyphs.
Current glyph count is 371. As I’ve listed on the Github page, this includes:
Most frequently used basic noteheads All slash noteheads Three of the most frequently used clefs with ottava variants All time signature glyphs All basic flags All standard accidentals All rests All bar repeat signs All common ornaments All Precomposed trills and mordents All tuplet numbers All Articulations
Basic macOS and Windows installers are also included for less tech-savvy users. I’m planning to create a small website at mikkopatama.com/eugenefont (not there yet) as an alternative to the rather technical looking Github repo.
I also updated the font comparison between Eugene, Bravura and Leland, correcting the French typo kindly pointed out by @MarcLarcher . A former piano student of mine contributed by creating a Github workflow that creates a Windows installer program each time I publish a new release.
I achieved my initial goal this week and decided to call it Eugene 1.0 now.
A project like this is never truly ready, and I’m quite sure that after a while I’ll adjust some of the current glyphs if they seem distracting in use.
In future updates I may add some more playing technique glyphs and maybe a handful of more noteheads, but not in the same pace as I’ve so far been expanding. Better focus on what’s there already since I think Eugene is quite usable in its current form. If potential users find and report some distracting mistakes or critical omissions I’ll certainly listen and take a look.
So all kinds of comments and Github Pull requests welcome
The simple website is also online, hopefully friendlier looking than a Github repo:
I found that the windows installer put the JSON file in user\appdata\local\smufl\fonts folder. Somehow Dorico could not find the font. I put the JSON file to c:\program files\common files\smufl\fonts\Eugene folder than I can finally use it.
A very elegant font! Thank you for creating this beautiful font!
Thank you for the info!
I had personally only tested the Win installer on my Rog Ally console which only had MuseScore installed and it looks up the metadata from a user level folder . I just updated the installer and it should now copy the .json to the correct local path mentioned on the smufl specification site. Hopefully easier for future downloaders.
Installing on Mac (Tahoe), it does not open, Apple message, could not verify…
Open System Settings > Privacy and Security > Security section, click Open anyway.
When I was learning Dorico I engraved the first page of Debussy’s Brouillards as an exercise (based on Durand edition). I found it again and applied Eugene: it’s very nice, congratulations!
I had to do the same steps as @rogerhuang after installing it so that Dorico would find the font, so it seems it’s not fixed yet.
Also, the clef changes (here the two bass clefs at the end of bar 3) were displaying the Bravura glyps. I had to manually replace F clef (small) symbol with your F clef‑change glyph.
I created the (3/8) and (3/4) as Playing Techniques using Eugene (also for the offset staccato dots in the 3d system). As for the text font, what would you recommend? Splentino here, but there are others that would match better, I think?
This seems to be the case with all music fonts in Dorico at the moment, the clef change glyphs will always default to Bravura no matter what font you choose. I tried tweaking the metadata in various ways before noticing this.
I like the look of Nepomuk and Old Music Standard, both look nice with Eugene.
On the sample scores for Eugene I used Nepomuk for music text and Fontin for titles.
Yep, Apple certainly doesn’t make it too intuitive to install anything from unverified sources. Maybe I’ll add a short disclaimer and tutorial on the website, like on Norfonts site.
As for the Windows installer, I’ll try to figure it out ASAP. Yesterday I just tweaked the Inno Setup script that had been pushed on Github by a friendly contributor, I’ll see if I can make a bit more sense of it all with Inno Script Studio.
Creating installers is one of the quite many new skills I’ve been trying to learn recently related to this font project, and all sorts of tips are warmly welcome.
Just a Readme in the folder would be fine, it’s where anyone would expect information about installing would be. I looked for one. Perhaps a FAQ on your website if you want to also.
And I THINK I might have finally succeeded in building a working Windows installer that will copy the metadata in the right place for Dorico. Works nicely at least on my system, if anyone has time to test and confirm that’d be very helpful.
(And there is also a README.txt inside the EugeneFont.zip with instructions if the installer still doesn’t work correctly).
I also found an old Scriabin score I’d made a couple of years ago as an exercise and made a new version with Eugene. This is a nice demonstration of how the font looks with significantly smaller staff size.
Take a look: Eugene_Sample_Scriabin_Op_16_No_1.pdf (81.8 KB)
It worked on Windows 11. Dorico asked permission to change something and after that instelling was possible. Little bit uncommon but I think everything works ok.
Eugene v. 1.2 with 38 improved glyphs and a bold variant
I just uploaded another new version on the website and Github.
I’ve been revising many of the “older” glyphs and improving especially all the letters in dynamics and ottava signs. They should now be more consistent in size, thickness and overall drawing quality.
I also wanted to experiment with a bold variant of the font. Many of the sheets I create are read by other musicians from tablet screens, sometimes 9"-10" in size, and Bravura has been my go-to font for maximising legibility. Eugene is quite a bit more “petite” than Bravura or Leland, which is of course part of the character and charm, but at least for my personal use a slightly stronger variant might come in handy.
Most frequently used basic noteheads
