Renaissance Music Font

I've created a font for renaissance music, inspired by the one in Arbeau's Orchesographie.

It's still a work in progress but I hope to adapt it for abc to postscript tools soon.

This font is at the moment only usable with Abc2Win because I didn't managed yet how to replace my font into the postscript font used in the abcm2ps application, or in Yaps. I've used PfaEdit to create this font and it can convert whatever font format. But there is still some problems because I can't import the font used in abcm2ps (seems to be pure postscript) which is rather different than type 1 fonts (Pfa, Pfb etc.). It was easier with ttf font, because I had only to remplace the default font in abc2win with my font, adapting it to the same size, same emplacement etc.

         You can download all of this in this file : renaiss_music_font.zip (131 ko)

An example of use :

I've transcribed in the abc format this tune : http://memory.loc.gov/musdi/219/0154.gif

X:32
T:Air du branle couppé appellé Charlotte.
R:
C:Trad.
S:Thoinot Arbeau
N:0154.gif
B:Orchesographie (1589)
O:France
Z:http://anamnese.fr.st
M:8/2
L:1/2
Q:1/2=200
K:F
GGBB ccd2 | gz dz | cABc d2 G2 :: Gddd cdB2 | dz cz |
GABc AG   | dz cz | GABc AG | dz ez | dcBB AA G2 ||

The original one looks such :

And my transcription, generated by abc2win and my font, becomes :

My aim is to generate electronic documents (ps or pdf for example) which could look quite the same as the original but without the disavantage of only being an image [here is some samples of such document : tunes from Arbeau and tunes from Playford]. And I've also some personal compositions I'd like to print in the same way they could have been before ! :)

The same abc-file in abc2win but with the default font gives in modern transcription :

And processed with abcm2ps :

Known problems :

At the moment :

• Some symbols still miss : I've only made the most important ones [and some were not used in renaissance music, like trills, mordents,... , so we can forget them]
• Some symbols I've made won't display in Abc2Win : bass key, ut key because only treble key is supported. And the sharp notation refuses to be converted in ttf with PfaEdit. It's maybe the emplacement that causes problem (I can't get again the original flat either), or a bug in PfaEdit. (corrected now)
• Placement of some notes (8th notes), dot of dotted notes...
• Extra lines are not displayed properly. (corrected now, but it's not in the true type, so I can't do better)
• And so are eighth notes which are binded together (so write A/ A/ instead A/A/, and use L:1/2 instead of higher ratio)
• There is no multivoice support with Abc2Win (but there was not either in the partitions of the Renaissance Era)

For the future :

• The lines for the staves in renaissance music were printed behind each note : it's obvious on the original Arbeau's manusript. I was surprised to discover that it was quite the same with Abc2Win : even if it's not for each note, it's for a small range of the staff, unlike Abcm2ps which draw lines independently of the notes. So if it's still look a bit artificial on the ttf font I created, because there is not a small 5lines-staff behind each note but a staff for more or less 2 notes, there is no possibility to make it better with Abcm2ps because it doesn't draw lines that way. Maybe with Yaps...
• Abcm2ps displays notes intelligently : there is more space for a half note than for a quarter for example and it wasn't like that on renaissance partitions. Abc2Win is more basic and it looks perfect for renaissance music !