Hi Andrew, 1. This doesn't bother me, because we use the "a" for minor in our classical theory classes. In jazz, it would bother me. I agree that it should be available.
2. Well, really the bars across the top and bottom are shorthand for putting serifs on the capital letters, to distinguish them from lower case that don't have the serifs. If the font already has serifs on the capital letters, that should do it. On lined paper, of course, the height of the I and the V are the giveaways (that's why we don't NEED serifs in computer type) but writing freehand on unlined paper we need a way to tell them apart. Just tell your students to use the bars when writing manuscript, like every other theory teacher has to say. Maybe a font with extra-Roman serifs would help, but I'm okay with things as they are. When I hand out examples of analysis, I usually write in all the analysis with a fine black felt pen to REALLY distinguish it from the actual provided music. Putting in engraved analysis I find confuses them as to what they need to provide, because they can't distinguish it from the music. Christopher On 1-Jul-12, at 1-Jul-12 5:40 PM, Andrew Levin wrote: > Hi, all, > > I was about to write about all of my problems with the Finale > Numerics font when, lo and behold, the 2012b update seems to have > fixed them. But I still have two issues with the font that I wanted > to share, to see if anyone else has the same issues I have. I plan > to submit them as a feature request. > > Note that these are requests of a music theory teacher. You may not > need these changes. > > 1) There is no lower case "m" in the new font. This is important > when doing a roman numeral analysis. The first thing to do is to > note the key, followed by the roman numerals. For minor keys I > strongly prefer "Am" to "a" for A minor. You can't do this in the > Finale Numerics font. You have to either do the key as an > expression, or do it as a lyric, but by changing the font. A pain. > And I don't see that MakeMusic will change it, as all slots for the > letter "M" are now taken. > > 2) The capital I and V are not as they appear when writing by hand. > Imagine yourself writing by hand a IV chord: you do the capital I > and the capital V, then draw a horizontal line at the top and > bottom of this figure. That helps it stand out in comparison with > the lower case numbers. But it's also problematic in another way: > students see the IV in print (in my exercises) and then write it > that way, without the top and bottom bars. Oh, sure, I'll tell them > to make sure to put in the bars, but I'm not providing a very good > example for them. > > Anyone else bothered by these? > > Andrew Levin > _______________________________________________ > Finale mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
