Re: Better support for Bravura in LilyPond

[Urs Liska]

Am Donnerstag, den 25.06.2020, 04:37 -0400 schrieb Daniel Benjamin
Miller:
> You're right, it does essentially replicate Dorico's style.
> 
> I don't think LilyPond should change what its default style is; 

I think what you suggested with this wasn't to change the defaults. But
I really like the idea of having choice. It is good that out-of-the-box 
scores are immediately recognizble (although I have the impression that
the *text* font is even more notable in this respect).

But people shouldn't be limited to that "personality" but have the
option to tweak the output to what they like. Generally speaking scores
shouldn't necessarily have the personality of the program but that of
the author/editor/publisher. Abraham Lee's efforts in making
alternative fonts properly available at all, and his collection of
fonts, was a huge step forware IMHO, and I really hope that Owen Lamb's
work of making LilyPond SMuFL-compliant will make that possibility of
choice even more fundmental.

Urs

> I don't 
> like the Emmentaler font myself (Simon Tatham put it best, though I 
> actually feel the same about Gonville: 
> https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/gonville/ - "I designed
> it 
> because Lilypond's standard font (Feta) was not to my taste: I found
> it 
> to be (variously) over-ornate, strangely proportioned, and subtly
> not 
> like the music I was used to reading. Music set in Feta looks to me
> like 
> strangely stylised music; music set in Gonville just looks to me
> like 
> music, so I can read it without being distracted so much.)
> 
> But I also think that we should not try to change the defaults. But
> I 
> also think that almost nobody actually cares much about music 
> typography, really: only LilyPond and Dorico have really put effort
> into 
> creating their default fonts and appearances; MuseScore borrows its 
> fonts from both, and Finale and Sibelius' fonts are really clearly
> not 
> that seriously taken.
> 
> LilyPond is not static, but it should not really change in terms of
> its 
> defaults either. Much like TeX, we should not change the default
> fonts, 
> in my opinion (though of course Emmentaler and Feta are being
> expanded 
> as new features are added to LilyPond, and slight tweaks and 
> improvements are all well and good).
> 
> On 6/25/20 3:06 AM, Martin Tarenskeen wrote:
> > 
> > On Thu, 25 Jun 2020, Daniel Benjamin Miller wrote:
> > 
> > > I'd like to share something: 
> > > https://github.com/dbenjaminmiller/bmusicfonts
> > > I personally prefer the Bravura design to Emmentaler/Feta, and 
> > > there'd been
> > 
> > Thanks for this, I am going to try it for sure. I like Dorico's 
> > output, and this will sort of give a similar result for LilyPond if
> > I 
> > understand correctly?
> > 
> > Which leads to a more philosophic question. Do we want LilyPond
> > scores 
> > to have an immediately recognizable "personality" or are we slowly 
> > moving to a situation where everyone, including LilyPond, is trying
> > to 
> > look the same (when using default settings), and it will be hard
> > to 
> > see if a score was typeset in LilyPond, MuseScore, Dorico, Finale,
> > or 
> > Sibelius?
> > 
> > I hope LilyPond will always try to keep a distinct personality in
> > the 
> > default output, which is not a static thing but can be discussed
> > in 
> > the Lilypond user and developers community, changed, and improved 
> > continuously. But let not all our efforts go to looking as much as 
> > possible like "the other ones".
> > 
> > I know LilyPond is (almost) flexible and tweakable enough to have
> > it 
> > all, but what I am talking about is the default output.
> >