Notation software / handwriting

Anterux · Post by **Anterux** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 10:24 am

Do you know any software where we can do stems and beams in a way that it looks handwriting?

Is it possible to imitate handwriting with a notation software?

(I'm not talking about just changing the font. It has to do with the way the software deals with steming and beaming also).

Thank you!

P.S. (off topic) I composed a new piece for guitar solo. The title in portuguese is "Alta TensÃ£o" something like "High Tension" or "High Voltage". What could be a nice title in English for "Alta TensÃ£o"? Can you help me?

Thank you!

Antero

Anterux · Post by **Anterux** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 12:45 pm

I use Finale.

Jazz is a fine music font for what it is.

But now I would like to go a step forward. Let me try to explain. My English doesn't help...

Jazz or Swing are fine fonts. And if they weren't fine I could modify them in the way I want. The problem is that when I handwrite music the stems and beams are not strait! they are always slightly curved randomly.

With todays technology this feature would be easy to implement in a software, I think.

It would perhaps be possible to imitate Bach or brahms or whoever handwriting.

I know this maybe not an important feature for a notation software. But I find it very interesting...

Do you happen to know a trick in Finale (or any other) to make non strait stems and beams?

Thank you!

Anterux · Post by **Anterux** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 12:49 pm

knuxie wrote:I like foreign language titles. I'd keep the original Portuguese. Alta Tensao is good, or just Tensao. Is the sound on your website?

Ken F.

It is not yet in the website. It is being "tested" by a pro guitarrist. He will help me with guitarristic simbology.

Thank you! I might keep it in Portuguese.

Anterux · Post by **Anterux** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 1:32 pm

It is not a silly question.

Because many musitians are satisfied with the standard appearence of a software engraved score.

I know I have much to learn on that chapter before I even think about imitating handwriting with software. Never the less, I wish I could Humanize more the "press type" appearence of a score produced in a notation software.

With a "handwriting" font like Swing of Jazz I can do a bit of that. But not as much as I think it would be interesting, beautiful, fluid, "musicaly-looking" sheet of music.

I dont know if I'm making any sence in English

In fact I dont think I'm making much sense...

Maybe this is a silly answer, but I think, if it would be possible to implement these features in a software I would use them to produce more appealing scores. More Humanized. More fluid.

What do you think?

Antero

Chuck(G) · Post by **Chuck(G)** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 2:07 pm

You make a lot of sense.

In fact, there's nothing quite like a good handwritten (or hand-engraved) score. No notation package that I'm aware of can come close. And I find the Jazz font irritating to read--it reminds me of something an untalented graffitti spray-painter might devise.

It's much the same case with calligraphy--yes, a computer software package can produce nice-looking very regular text in any font you can conceive of, but a calligrapher adds a certain grace that a computer can't quite match.

Do look at MusicTeX; it's not something that I'd want to use every day, but you do have a level of control that's hard to beat.

ThomasDodd · Post by **ThomasDodd** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 3:13 pm

the elephant wrote: (Lilly Pond uses an odd, clumsy note entry method, just like Finale. It has a fairly steep learning curve. I am not impressed with the MuTopia examples at all. They look just like other computer-engraved music despite all of Lilly Pond's hype.)

I'd be curious which samples you've compared. Also, have you compared teh default results of Lillypond to the defaults in Finale? That's lillyponds big claim, that the defaults are better. With enough tweaking you can get most to look good.

Send me a part/score, exported to MusicXML, and I'll send you the results from lillypond for comparison. I know the defaults in NotePad 2005 are ugly, and some of the stuff from the Generals was too (Like the print you have of the Fanfare and SSF, in the small font)

winston · Post by **winston** » Thu Jul 28, 2005 10:50 pm

Phil Dawson · Post by **Phil Dawson** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 4:16 pm

All you need to get curved lines and the like is to get an older printer that no longer feeds evenly. This way you can have plenty of irregular stems and lines.
Phil

Anterux · Post by **Anterux** » Fri Jul 29, 2005 8:32 pm

Phil Dawson wrote:All you need to get curved lines and the like is to get an older printer that no longer feeds evenly. This way you can have plenty of irregular stems and lines.
Phil

Yes. But it prints irregular pentagrams too.

I will try to extract a GIF of only the caracteres without the pentagrams. And then I will try to photoshop it. And then insert the pentagrams... he he!

It will be a lot of fun...