On Oct 20, 2006, at 11:30 PM, John Roberts wrote:
Just an aside question on this general topic. What is considered to be
a
reasonable point size for vocal text, say, in Times? (I don't
especially
prefer Times, but it is relatively narrow).
Times is a decent type face if you take the trouble to buy a well-built
font. But of course hardly anyone does, and the ubiquitous Times New
Roman that comes free with almost everything is junk. You get what you
pay for.
For lyrics, I consider 10-point Times (actual size) to be normal. I've
seen smaller, of course, but I don't like it. Occasionally I'll go
even larger than that (for choruses, mostly), but I think I'm atypical
in that.
My favorite template for my own work (ie, where I'm not following
anyone else's style sheet) used 14-pt non-fixed against a 75% page
reduction, which is to say 10.5 actual size. Later I concluded that
non-fixed size lyrics was problematic (on cadenzas, or anything else
with reduced notes), so I switched to fixed-size. I would have kept
10.5-point if possible, but Finale didn't allow half-sizes for lyrics,
so I went down to 10 rather than go up to 11.
Lately I've switched to Minion Condensed (really more like a
semi-condensed) for lyrics in my own work (though that's largely
theoretical, since I've done hardly any Finale work in more than a year
now).
I represent my own opinions only, and not any authoritative standard.
I'll curious to hear what others say on the question.
mdl
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