Hey folks. Let me respond to several points raised here regarding my impending development of JazzSymbol. First, although my main development is in Unicode, I have templates for c ross-platform TrueType fonts usable with Finale until MakeMusic can make Finale Unicode-compliant. So I will also develop what I hope will be the ideal Finale TrueType jazz chord fonts simultaneously with the Unicode JazzSymbol. Partly with your help, all these fonts should be on sale by the end of March. Second, I agree with the comments about "handwritten" fonts. I understand why they would be preferred in informal contexts, yet I've always felt that jazz arrangers ought to be able to benefit from modern typography like everyone else. I certainly recognize the need for a less formal-looking sans serif jazz symbol font, so that's what I'm producing first. If enough people insist on having a handwritten font to match, I'll do that too. And all these fonts will be mapped identically (in both Unicode and TrueType formats), so they can be globally changed from one to another readily if a different look is wanted. Third, a Unicode font has huge advantages over old-fashioned fonts. Unicode is, for all intents and purposes, infinitely extensible. Whereas ChordSymbol 1 had 256 characters, ChordSymbol 2 has 2200; and ChordSymbol 3 will have more like 3000. One wouldn't want to get much larger than that, but 3000 characters should suffice for every chord symbol anyone in the Western tradition would ever need, whether for traditional or commercial music. And I mean globally, from South America to Timbuktu (partly because that's what Unicode is, an accommodation of all the world's scripts). Relative to Finale, once Finale embraces Unicode, jazz symbol entry (as with figured bass and so on) will get a whole lot easier. That's because my Unicode fonts will amount to a totally comprehensive library of all possible combinations. In fact, with the Unicode JazzSymbol, virtually every conceivable chord suffix and tension can be entered in one click. And for those exceptional cases not available preassembled in the font, they can be readily assembled from scratch using the custom suffix range. So Finale users should encourage MM to make that big Unicode leap. It's in their own best interest, since chord symbol entry in Sibelius using my fonts gives their users enormous advantages right now. And I don't think MM would want us to change our current Finale-orientation for our forthcoming multimedia textbooks, in which music students will use our fonts in conjunction with student versions of Finale in completing assignments. But we'll promote Sibelius this way instead if we have to. (Finale's advantage would be all the more compelling if they engineer their Unicode chord symbol-entry functionality around my fonts, but that may be too much to hope for.) Fourth, npcimaging is actually an etailer for ChordSymbol 2--Nick is already selling my initial Unicode ChordSymbol font, with the TrueType subfonts available for free from me once the Unicode font has been purchased. He will no doubt be selling JazzSymbol, in both its Unicode and TrueType formats, by the end of March. But of course all these fonts can also be obtained directly from me, with fast service and paying by PayPal. Finally, let me encourage all of you to have whatever level of input on JazzSymbol you want. My intention is to create the most useful fonts package possible for chord symbol entry in all idioms, in Finale and any other application. So I will send out, to any requestor, a PDF listing ChordSymbol 2's commercial range, which will be the starting point for JazzSymbol albeit based for now on Times New Roman, whereas JazzSymbol will be rebuilt from scratch using Arial Narrow. I would also be more than happy to let any Finale user review my initial JazzSymbol Unicode prototype and the test versions of its Finale TrueType subfonts. For those who contribute very substantively to this development effort, I'll supply the font to you cost-free, as a small token of my gratitude for your help in making this font package the very best it can be. So please by all means help me get this right--I've already had numerous thoughtful suggestions, and believe me, the fonts will be far better because of such helpful input. Thanks much, and cheers, jrc
Dr. John R. Clevenger, Manager The Virtual Conservatory 50 S. Patterson Ave., #203 Santa Barbara, CA 93111 Phone and fax: (805) 964-7988 (for fax, ignore answering machine) Email: [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) Web site: _www.virtualconservatory.com_ (http://www.virtualconservatory.com/) _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
