Skip to main content ↑ ↓
Topic: Shaped Note Music (Read 2568 times) previous topic - next topic

Shaped Note Music

I am wondering if there is a font that can be loaded to make shaped note music as NWC does use a TTF font. I found this when looking in the font directory.  Thanks.. JW

Re: Shaped Note Music

Reply #1 –
It wouldn't be a straighforward operation by any means, since the program uses only one notehead character for any of the note positions.

One could of course change the shape of the notehead, but then all notes would have that new shape.

Re: Shaped Note Music

Reply #2 –
It occurs to me that one easy way to provide for x noteheads and shaped noteheads and so on would be to
have an option to make *noteheads only* invisible. Then the desired notehead shapes could be added as text, a pragmatic and NWC-style workaround. I suppose this has been mooted before, but I like the idea well enough
to add it to the wish list.

Re: Shaped Note Music

Reply #3 –
In the meantime, if any of the experienced NWC users (who also happen to have a font editor) would like to try this:

Create a font (let's say "NWfsl") that has the standard NWCV15 characters in the usual places. In otherwise-unused code locations, place the symbols for the desired FaSoLa noteheads, x-heads, or whatever. Install the font.

When your NWC composition is finished, use print preview to copy each page to a placeable Windows metafile. Open each metafile in the drawing program of Open Office (free) software. Select the drawing, Modify it to contour, then modify it to enter group.

Being careful not to select regular text (such as lyrics), select an area to be changed. After selecting, right-click, choose character, and change the font to "NWfsl" or whatever. If the font is correct, there will be no apparent change. But in fact, the notation is now in the alternative font.

Deselect, then select individual noteheads. Use the text editor to change the character to whichever character in the "NWfs1" font corresponds to what you want to see. Keep in mind that the bounding box of a character may not be where you think it is, so magnify the screen enough to see what you are doing.

Save the modified files in Open Office native format, and print the pages. You won't be able to bring the modifications back into NWC, though.

I don't have time to do the font for FaSoLa. Anyone else want to try it? This technique is already in use for strictly X-heads.