MusAnalysis

[Dan Kreider]

I'm happy to announce MusAnalysis is now available on Notation Central! MusAnalysis is a text font that allows you to type Roman numeral and functional analysis into the score. It uses glyphs from Academico and Bravura and is designed to be legible at small point sizes. It works in Dorico, Finale, Sibelius, Musescore... as well as Word, Libre Office, and any program that supports OpenType features (ligatures, kerning, and contextual alternates).



You can type in all the standard Roman numerals:



...as well as a variety of lines and such.

Below is a brief overview video. MusAnalysis is ready for release, but I do plan to continue refining it, so I welcome your feedback. Thanks!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBF5bJUPLK4

[John Ruggero]

The first link in your post above doesn't work (for me, at least), nor does the site mentioned below your YouTube video (which does work).

[Dan Kreider]

Hmm... should be https://www.notationcentral.com/product/musanalysis/.

[Dan Kreider]

I’m also working on a solution for aligning voice resolutions lines to the beat:

[John Ruggero]

How do I type a normal equal sign in MusAnalysis?

[Dan Kreider]

Embarrassingly, at the moment that's not possible. I hijacked the equals sign for something else.

But that's easily fixed. Could you describe the sort of scenario where you'd use it? Anything particular, or just a pretty common character you'd need?

If it's easier, please feel free to email me at dan (dot) kreider (at) gmail (dot) com. I can reply more quickly there.

[John Ruggero]

Schenker Graph.jpeg (101.21 KiB) Viewed 4970 times

Dan here are the issues I have run into in engraving the Schenker example I gave several posts up. I offer this as a help, not a criticism, because I think your tool can be a great contribution. I used the lyrics tool in Finale 25.5. Each problem area is in red, starting from the top. Comparison with the original example may clarify some of this. (I know, the slurs need work. Sorry.)

1. I need a period after m, the English abbreviation for measure.

2. The scale degrees don't stay together as one glyph after one leaves the editing area. They pop apart as seen.

3. I need a ! point. (I had to change the font to insert it.)

4. At the red rectangular area, I need a equal sign, and the parentheses do not center nicely around the numbers (=8-7-6-5-) I had to change font for the = and do the parentheses as a separate line and move it into position.

5. I couldn't make the 5 3 stack correctly. It doesn't know the difference between a 5 and a 3 The problem seems to be in putting the accidental in front of a number. So I had to use two lines to create that and shift the 5's because they didn't line up over the 3's below because of the accidentals in front of the 3 and 3

6. I have already mentioned the equal sign. but the hyphens are down on the baseline and I need them centered.

7. I could not do an individual hyphen for after the a1 and b.

8. Using Shift-#-b is somewhat laborious for the sharped voice-leading numbers. You might rethink that particular command.

Despite these issues, I would be able to make it work perfectly using workarounds (changing fonts etc.)

[Dan Kreider]

Thanks John, those are all helpful points of feedback. Yes, I do intend to continue refining this font to eliminate most if not all of the awkwardness you’re encountering.

Please email me at the link above and I will reply with a beta version that address is some of these things. Thanks.

[John Ruggero]

I will do that, Dan.

Sorry, I got myself confused at no. 8 above. I meant having to shift for the sharp sign is less convenient and doesn't really fit with the single key commands for natural and flat. And perhaps it would be better to avoid using any of the musical letters a-g for accidentals. Ideally, three neighboring keys that could be worked by one hand while the other hand works the numbers.

I had one more suggestion. It would be good to have a medium size set of numbers that lie between the two present sizes.

Thanks again for all of your hard work, Dan.

[Dan Kreider]

Ok, I believe the next build fixes all these things. My comments below.

1. I need a period after m, the English abbreviation for measure.

Fixed; the period is now a period.

2. The scale degrees don't stay together as one glyph after one leaves the editing area. They pop apart as seen.

I have no idea what this behavior is, and I'm not able to replicate it in this current build. Those scale degrees should each be unique ligatures. It might be fixed now.

3. I need a ! point. (I had to change the font to insert it.)

Added

4. At the red rectangular area, I need a equal sign, and the parentheses do not center nicely around the numbers (=8-7-6-5-) I had to change font for the = and do the parentheses as a separate line and move it into position.

Numbers by themselves are superscript, since I thought this would be the most common use case. For baseline numbers, put a period before each numeral. That should fix the other alignment issues as well. If you want this string to be superscript, I can work that out.

5. I couldn't make the 5 3 stack correctly. It doesn't know the difference between a 5 and a 3 The problem seems to be in putting the accidental in front of a number. So I had to use two lines to create that and shift the 5's because they didn't line up over the 3's below because of the accidentals in front of the 3 and 3

Try entering the natural as sn (the "s" is a "space" above, placing the natural in the lower position). Then enter the 53, and it should be correct.

6. I have already mentioned the equal sign. but the hyphens are down on the baseline and I need them centered.

I think these are fixed now.

7. I could not do an individual hyphen for after the a1 and b.

Also fixed, I think.

8. Using Shift-3 for # is somewhat laborious for the sharped voice-leading numbers. You might rethink that particular command.

I see your point but am hesitant to change this mapping.

Most recent version is here, including some comments about changes to 1.1 beta.