Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
Standard Music Font Layout
Music Encoding Conference23 May 2013
Daniel Spreadbury
A brief history of music fonts
• First commercial music font was Sonata from Adobe in 1985
• Features 176 glyphs
• Organised mnemonically on a Latin keyboard (e.g. q = quarter note)
• Became de facto standard for mapping of music fonts
• Most music fonts since have used largely Sonata-compatible layouts, e.g. Petrucci (Finale, 1988), Opus (Sibelius, 1993)
A brief history of music fonts
• Perry Roland proposed range of musical symbols for Unicode in 1998
• Range was approved, with 220 glyphs
• To date, no font has completely implemented the range
• Only commercial font with a partial implementation is Adobe Sonata Std, OpenType update to original Sonata font
Problems to be solved
• Sonata’s 170 glyphs are insufficient for the breadth of symbols used in CMN
• No agreement on how to expand beyond Sonata’s initial set, hence rapid divergence…
Sonata: a standard?
Sonata
Sonata: a standard?
Petrucci
Sonata: a standard?
Opus
Sonata: a standard?
Sonata, compared with Opus and Petrucci (all agree; S & P agree; O & P agree)
Problems to be solved
• Existing Unicode Musical Symbols range is also insufficiently broad
• Some scoring applications cannot in any case access code points beyond Unicode Plane 0
• Lack of a real standard makes sharing music fonts between applications difficult
So… what is SMuFL?
• A standard way of mapping musical symbols to the Private Use Area of the Basic Multilingual Plane in Unicode
• A set of technical guidelines for how music fonts should be built
Goals
• ExtensibleProvide a framework that makes it convenient for additional characters to be added
• Build a communityDraw on scholarly expertise to minimise errors and omissions
Goals
• Open licenseRemove any impediments to font developers and application vendors adopting SMuFL
• Practical and usefulDesigned with real-world use in mind
Non-goals
• Not currently targeting ratification by the Unicode Consortium– What to do with the existing Musical Symbols range?
– Some characters are duplicated from other ranges for convenience; unlikely to be accepted by the Consortium
• Not targeting use in text-based applications– Although many characters could be usefully used,
it’s impractical for end users to type characters from the PUA anyway
What’s included
• 59 discrete sub-ranges of symbols
• 808 symbols and counting!
• Includes all 220 glyphs from the Unicode Musical Symbols range
• Room for expansion by leaving empty code points between ranges
What’s included
Methodology
• Started with Unicode Musical Symbols range
• Reviewed existing fonts (Sonata, Opus, Petrucci, Emmentaler, etc.) and categorised additional sub-ranges and symbols
• Reviewed the standard music notation texts (Gould, Read, Stone, etc.)
• Reviewed specialist literature (e.g. Ghent conference for percussion, Salzedo for harp, handbells, accordion, function symbols, etc.)
• Shared proposals with small group of expert music engravers and editors
Open license
• Released under MIT license
• Steinberg retains copyright, but free for anybody to use, modify, create derivative versions, sell, etc.
• ...but we hope to build a community focused around contributing to development of SMuFL rather than to see efforts splinter
Next steps
• Establish a governance model to manage proposed changes and additions
• Fill any identified gaps
• Define mappings for common music fonts to SMuFL to determine coverage in existing fonts
• Encourage the development of further SMuFL-compliant fonts
Bravura
Bravura
• The first SMuFL-compliant font
• Includes all SMuFL characters, and (almost) all Unicode Musical Symbols characters
• Released under the SIL Open Font License– Free to use, bundle, embed, create derivative
versions, etc.
– Only licensing restrictions are that the font cannot be sold on its own; derivative versions cannot use the same name; and derivative versions must be released under the same licensing terms
More information
www.smufl.org
More information
• Please join the mailing lists!
• Pre-release version of Bravura can be downloaded from www.smufl.org/fonts
