Re: Font Design for Ancient Greek Aulos notation

Hello everyone,

Further to Austin's email, a few clarifications.

I have released a beta-version font with symbols for an aulos tablature
aimed at learners and composers:
https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13064126

For a sample of usage, see the PDF released together with the font at the
same link (Figures 4 and 5). This font develops an earlier tablature system
that Austin and I trialled producing scores for aulos between June 2019 and
October 2020. After a month of testing this beta release, my suggestions
for the next release of the font are below and comments are invited.

Various experiments between 2016 and 2019 established that the Ancient
Greek Musical Notation Unicode block does not meet the needs of
practitioners (aulos players and composers). This block was introduced in
2002, since when the aulos revival has found its feet and research has
advanced significantly. Ancient Greek notation evolved considerably over an
800-year period and a much smaller set of symbols (reconstructing an
invisible tablature stage, c. 500 BCE) is more appropriate for practical
purposes in the present, particularly beyond academia.

The proposed tablature is a child-friendly supplement to staff notation
designed to help the aulos revival flourish in the broadest spectrum of
situations. Like guitar tab or piano fingering, it reveals to the learner
how to execute the pitches on the staff. This is different for every type
of aulos (there are many). The instrument's predisposition to pitch-bending
also means that there are multiple ways of producing the same pitch. A
tablature system is, therefore, indispensable to the revival, producing
materials for beginners, collaborating with composers, and bringing a
practitioner perspective to bear on research.

The tablature symbols adapt the first six letters of Imperial Aramaic and
numerals 1-9 (a quadruplet of symbols for each). These are designed to go
above the staff, but could also be used above letters of the Greek alphabet
(24-EDO pitches) for reconstructions of fifth-century BCE Greek notation.
The repertoire of WiggleVibrato segments at
https://w3c.github.io/smufl/gitbook/tables/multi-segment-lines.html meet
every conceivable need for aulos vibrato: congratulations to whoever
developed them!

Below is a proposal for the next release of this font, with ideas on
keyboard input that would make it universally accessible. If anyone with
the font-making skills we lack would like to collaborate, we would be
delighted to hear from you.

The aulos revival has a website www.doublepipes.info and a biweekly Zoom
meeting, which I host, typically with 4-7 attendees. We are currently
testing out this tablature. Our 36th meeting will be this Sunday at 19:00
GMT and is open to anyone interested.

Best wishes,
Barnaby

*Proposed font name: AulosTab  *

*Principles (from calligraphic and typographic perspectives)*

*oxy-* forms face *left*: normal direction for Imperial Aramaic script
(writing from right to left)
*meso-* forms face *up*: papyrus turned 90 degrees anticlockwise (oxy-
glyph rotated clockwise)
*bary- *forms face *right*: the oxy- form reflected in the vertical axis
(writing from left to right)
*hypobary- *forms face *down*: papyrus turned 90 degrees clockwise (oxy-
glyph rotated anticlockwise)

*Intuitive layout on USA standard QWERTY keyboard (Basic Latin range)*

This keyboard layout would be for aulos learners and teachers who have
never installed a font before and might want to use Greek letters for
absolute pitch in 24-EDO, rather than staff notation. A pro music font
could place the symbols in an available area for compatibility with SMuFL.
I suggest it is still too early to propose a new range to SMuFL – there is
a lesson to learn from the Unicode block Ancient Greek Musical Symbols,
which no longer meets people's needs within or beyond academia.

*Set 1. Quadruplet forms of Aramaic letters alap-waw*
For triplet forms, see https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13064126, PDF,
Figure 4.

1qaz — oxy-alap, meso-alap, bary-alap, hypobary-alap
2wsx — oxy-beth, meso-beth, bary-beth, hypobary-beth
3edc — oxy-gamal, meso-gamal, bary-gamal, hypobary-gamal
4rfv — oxy-dalath, meso-dalath, bary-dalath, hypobary-dalath
5tgb — oxy-he, meso-he, bary-he, hypobary-he
6yhn — oxy-waw, meso-waw, bary-waw, hypobary-waw
/ — forward-slash with zero-width side-bearings for notating timbral
oscillations

NOTES. The backslash character should match a classic body text font in
normal weight (e.g. Arial). The space either side of the glyphs should be
based on pairs separated by a forward-slash (at least the pairs in the
Timbral Transitions column in Figure 5). I overlooked font metrics in the
'beta' version of this font and in Figure 5 had to fix character spacing
using Word's Font dialogue box. This beta version also suffers from a
winding issue on alap and he.

*Set 2. Quadruplet forms of numerals 1-9 **(input like Set 1 but with SHIFT
key)*
(for doublet forms, see https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13064126, PDF,
Figure 1.)

!QAZ — oxy-1, meso-1, bary-1, hypobary-1
@WSX — oxy-2, meso-2, bary-2, hypobary-2
#EDC — oxy-3, meso-3, bary-3, hypobary-3
$RFV — oxy-4, meso-4, bary-4, hypobary-4
%TGB — oxy-5, meso-5, bary-5, hypobary-5
^YHN — oxy-6, meso-6, bary-6, hypobary-6
&UJM —  oxy-7, meso-7, bary-7, hypobary-7
*IK< — oxy-8, meso-8, bary-8, hypobary-8 (these glyphs must be distinctive!)
(OL> — oxy-9, meso-9, bary-9, hypobary-9

For notating vibrato and 24-EDO quartertones, I would use the following
glyphs from a SMuFL font (https://www.smufl.org/fonts/):

   - "wiggleVibrato" segments U+EAB0, U+EAB01, and U+EACE–U+EAEF at
   https://w3c.github.io/smufl/gitbook/tables/multi-segment-lines.html
   - Stein-Zimmermann accidentals (U+E280–U+E28F) at
   https://w3c.github.io/smufl/gitbook/tables/stein-zimmermann-accidentals-24-edo.html


Barnaby Brown
25 November 2020

On Wed, 25 Nov 2020 at 05:22, Austin Oting Har <austinotinghar@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Dear Members of the Music Notation Community Group,
>
> I hope this enquiry finds you all well.
>
> I write to you from Sydney Conservatorium of Music, as a collaborator of
> Barnaby Brown (CC'd) from Cambridge University, regarding our search for a
> professional font designer for a new set of music notation symbols.
>
> We are looking for someone to help us develop the font for new techniques
> that we have been developing for the ancient Greek aulos, the instrument of
> Greek tragedy (~400-500 BCE). This font would be standardised and contain
> everything that a composer needs to notate different vibrato types and a
> timbral transition. These techniques are explained and demonstrated by
> Barnaby in the videos below:
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiH1FxR3Lb0
> <https://l.messenger.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DMiH1FxR3Lb0&h=AT1WPAxKuzDyf-Ve4e4_vFaFbaBPVbeHVs6P8bOdpCklS0suUl9AUcT-rJB6V9PhskfpGRzc48SJ3OkduygYf25ZQXB9JhKKMKkm79Apr1p6Utm0u-LUko7TBxuR5valrPODLE5m>
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFQrtazhX1A
> <https://l.messenger.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DFFQrtazhX1A&h=AT1WPAxKuzDyf-Ve4e4_vFaFbaBPVbeHVs6P8bOdpCklS0suUl9AUcT-rJB6V9PhskfpGRzc48SJ3OkduygYf25ZQXB9JhKKMKkm79Apr1p6Utm0u-LUko7TBxuR5valrPODLE5m>
>
> Would anyone in this community have advice for how to get the font into a
> strong shape, so that composers and researchers of all levels can use it? And
> would anyone happen to know of a skilled vector graphic designer or
> calligrapher who would be willing to help us in the development of this
> font?
>
> We have been experimenting with Glyphr but are not too familiar with that
> world. How glyphs are assigned lie outside our current skill-set: it would
> be great to assign the fully-developed set of glyphs to an unassigned
> range, so they could be included in future releases of fonts like Bravura..
>
> Complex techniques, namely accelerating/decelerating vibrato and
> increasing/decreasing presence will require a professional vector graphic
> designer, or calligrapher, to ensure that the different vibrato symbols are
> clearly part of one family.
>
> I look forward to hearing from you!
>
> Warm regards,
>
> Austin
>