Font Forum

I am trying to make a music notation font. It will use the Musical Symbols block in Unicode (1D100-1D1FF), but, since that block has a bad rep for not being very complete, I added some extra characters in the unmapped positions of that block (e.g. U+1D127 inverts the stem of the previous note, U+1D1E9 is a ledger line, U+1D1EA is the "TAB" clef, U+1D1F0-U+1D1FC position the note along the staff, etc.) I've had no problem so far, but now I need to do beamed notes. The Unicode block has control characters for beginning and ending a series of beamed notes (U+1D173 and U+1D174, respectively), but I'm not really sure how to add beams to the notes while keeping the pitch intact. I know I'll obviously need OpenType for this. Slanted beams would be preferred, but straight beams are acceptable. It will need to support beams added on for longer notes. Can someone help me with this?

I have no idea how one would do this. The best I can suggest is to open an existing Music font and see how others do it.

Bhikkhu Pesala wrote:I have no idea how one would do this. The best I can suggest is to open an existing Music font and see how others do it.

I can't seem to find any that work the way I'm looking for. Could I have some suggestions, please?

> Could I have some suggestions, please?

You could perhaps try the following.

http://www.unicode.org/

Then General Information cascade-menu to Mail Lists

http://www.unicode.org/consortium/distlist.html

Choose unicode@unicode.org though not here as it comes out as trying to start an email yet on that web page it is actually a link to another web page.

http://www.unicode.org/consortium/distlist-unicode.html

Then apply to join the list on the following web page.

http://www.unicode.org/mailman/listinfo/unicode

If successful, and there is no reason to think that you will not be successful, then post your enquiry to the list.

There are many members on the list and you may get some helpful responses.

It may well help to mention that you are a new member to the list.

I hope that this helps.

William Overington

Friday 28 April 2017

William wrote:Choose unicode@unicode.org though not here as it comes out as trying to start an email

Not if you link it to the target web page (instead of leaving this forum's software to interpret it as an email address as its format suggests): unicode@unicode.org

Thank you Alfred.

My suggestion has worked out well. Michael has posted to the Unicode mailing list and there are some replies.

One has a very helpful link.

Here is a link to that reply.

http://www.unicode.org/mail-arch/unicod ... /0011.html

The post provides a link to the http://www.smufl.org webspace.

The whole thread is to be found on the following web page.

http://www.unicode.org/mail-arch/unicode-ml/y2017-m05/

The http://www.smufl.org webspace has a specification that uses the Private Use Area.

To Michael: I do not know how far you have got with making fonts and understanding Unicode. I have some knowledge of both but I am not expert in either, but one thing that I can help you with is the Private Use Area because I have used it a lot for some of my own research. As I say, I do not know what is your present knowledge, but if you need help with the Private Use Area I can help (free).

William Overington

Tuesday 2 May 2017