Re: Double clef (canon)

[Jayaratna]

Hi Harm,

I don't really have a personal setup for mensural music. Recently I begun a
project that involves a lot of mensural notation, therefore I am still
learning and noticing . Usually I adjust flaws when they occur, just within
the notation rather than on the layout level, but I guess this is a flaw
inherent on my way of working with Lilypond, as I have never learnt it in a
theoretical and comprehensive way, adjusting my learning to specific needs
as per occurrence.

So far I think mensural and neomensural notation fonts to be a little
unbalanced. The diamond shaped noteheads are too small, in my opinion, while
the square shaped noteheads are generally good. I usually increase noteheads
size, but not as much as I would, as the risk is getting breves and longae
noteheads too big. I think there should be a way to selectively increase
noteheads sizes, but I still have to sort out the problem. Actually, before
consolidating my opinion I should try see more of it in print: so far I am
just in the phase of making drafts. I also usually increase stems thickness,
but, again, I should evaluate this on paper rather than on screen. Longae
stems are too short, generally speaking (why are they built in the glyph???
Not that I dislike it, actually it solved so many issues I had!). The real
pain comes with ligatures: I have to revert the noteheads size to default
whenever I want to type ligatures, with the unnerving result that ligatures
look smallish, especially compared to squared noteshapes. On the other side,
if I don't revert noteheads to their normal sizes, spacing within ligatures
is completely scattered. Obtaining black or half coloured ligatures is also
quite painful, but I still have to study the problem a little bit closer, as
I guess changing the font to black mensural should partly overcome the
issue. 

Again, as for the font balance, I have sometimes to mix mensural and
neomensural or petrucci shapes, especially for clefs and time signature
symbols. Probably this is due to the fact that it is impossible to have a
consistent classification of these glyphs, because I think printers of
various times and locations used a variety of mixed shapes. But, again, a
bass mensural clef is really too small, compared, say, to a petrucci C clef.
Overall, I feel the mensural part of our feta font works better in giving
the idea of a handwritten score rather than of a printed one. You also
noticed dots are generally too big, and some of the alteration symbols are
too small. 

Finally, the available repertoire of time signature symbols is not complete.
I had to type a piece with many proportional changes and I finally decided
to include in my scores a separate file with 20 custom time signature
commands, some of them being already implemented, others being made by
adding fractions to existing glyphs. Thankfully I haven't yet found a score
with a double crossed time signature symbol (like a O with an X above it),
but I feel this kind of symbol could be easily added to the font. In typing
proportional music I prefer to use a standard 2/1 time, my custom time
signature symbols and \scaleDurations accordingly. So far it has been the
easiest way: still I remind myself that I have never planned one of these
projects globally from scratch, but I am guilty of always working on problem
by problem occurrence solutions.

These are some of the features I am introducing so far in my mensural
typewriting, warning that they still have to be fine tuned when proofed on
paper (and printed at different sizes too):

\override Stem.neutral-direction = #up
\override NoteHead #'font-size = #2 
\override Dots #'font-size = #-2  
\override Stem.thickness = #2.0

I'd also like to hear from yours and others opinion on the topic.

Andrea



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