Dear Jef,
I used to have something called "Ash" font that Iperferred to Rich
Sigler's fonts, but i can't find it now, and a quick Google search
did not turn it up.
My response to the look of the Jazz font agrees with Christopher's,
though I may feel more strongly about it than he. I just find it
ugly - personal opinion, of course. Of all the symbols in the font,
the quarter and eight rests are the most distracting to me. The
quarter rests look like my students' incompetent attempts to draw
them in their hand written assignments - like badly written 3s, and I
admit to an irrational emotional reaction to that. I have had
experience with beautifully done hand copying in New York, and I
developed a deep appreciation for the elegance and legibility of a
well copied part or score. Arnold Arnstein (sp?) used to do work for
many well know composers, and Bill Rowen did fine work for the
National Jazz Ensemble. Finale's jazz font simply looks to me like a
bad hand copying job, and the idea of a machine attempting to imitate
hand work is just silly. All the beautiful nuances and
inconsistencies, purposeful and accidental, are missing, so
everything looks false to my eye, and I find that distracting in some
subliminal way.
I also disagree with Christopher's assessment of the way musicians
play parts written in Engraver or Maestro fonts. I manage to read
Shakespeare written in modern typeface, and if my understanding of
the meaning of a passage depended on seeing it as it would have been
written in Elizabethan England....well, you get the point.
I think clarity is more important than "jazzy" style - spacing,
proportion, layout, all the things we work on improving all the time.
If you are required to do this in a jazz font, I'd try to find the
Ash Font to at least take a look.
Good luck,
Chuck
On Oct 19, 2006, at 4:47 AM, shirling & neueweise wrote:
i'm possibly going to be involved in a project where the choice of
"jazz" fonts or not won't be up to me. i haven't used jazz fonts
at all, and the last time i compared any of them was around 5 years
ago. i remember seeing 3 or 4 designed by someone whose name i
can't remember (les somebody?) that i found quite elegant.
what don't you guys like about Jazz (comes with finale)?
is there a list of available jazz fonts somewhere?
From: Eric Dannewitz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
I'd second this. Bill's articulations font (plus all his other great
fonts, like rehearsal and enclosure) and Maestro font make for clear,
professional looking charts.
Chuck Israels wrote:
> I use Maestro combined with Bill Duncan's chord font (that I
find to
be beautiful, clear, and relatively compact in relation to its
readability) and a few of his other special fonts for rehearsal
letters and articulations. While there are some who like the
Finale
> Jazz font, I find it unpleasant (I'm speaking in my courteous web
--
shirling & neueweise ... new music publishers
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] :.../ http://newmusicnotation.com
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Chuck Israels
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phone (360) 671-3402
fax (360) 676-6055
www.chuckisraels.com
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