THE LASSUS MUSIC FONT for Calamus 
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    Finally, Calamus users who were futilely waiting for the
"much-rumoured but eventually cancelled" Music Module for SL, can dig
up their dusty and forsaken musical scores, and go to work in
their favorite program!  This is made possible by the conversion
of a musical symbol font called Lassus to the Calamus Font format.  
    
    I found this font on one of our local Atari boards(in its
already-converted state), but could not make any sense of the way it
was mapped to the keyboard.  So with the help of Genus(which I highly
recommend, even to beginners like myself), I remapped the font in a
more logical format.  Now all the eighth notes are on the upper row,
then the quarter notes on the row below, then the half notes, and
finally the whole notes on the bottom row of the keyboard.  Also, the
notes are arranged from left to right, beginning with low G.  From
there they go up 7 notes as follows:  G,A,B,C,D,E,F.  Then the next
octave is done by repeating the same seven keys, only now holding the
SHIFT key down as well.  The last 4 notes that continue above the
second octave are accessed by continuing across the keyboard with the
SHIFT key still held.  So, for example, say we want to do the whole
range of eighth notes from low G to high C.  This is what we would
type, using the upper row on the keyboard:  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ! @ # $ % ^
& * ( ) _ .  A careful look at the enclosed chart should help you see
what I mean.  Another neat thing about mapping the keyboard this way
is that the same note in its four different forms of eighth, quarter,
half and whole, can easily be located in a diagonal row.  To make it
clearer, let's use middle C as an example.  As an eighth note, it is
found on the 4 key; as a quarter note on the R key; as a half note on
the F key; and as a whole note on the V key.  Now look at those 4
keys:  they form a diagonal row down the keyboard.  If we want to go
an octave higher on any of these notes, we can just hold down the
SHIFT key.

    So much for the good news!  Here are some problems you will
encounter:
        1. Much is missing.  Although the most common notes, sharps, 
flats, rests, etc. are included in the font, such things as Time 
Signatures, Slurs, Beamings, Double-Staves(for Piano), 16th & 32nd 
Notes, are wholly absent.  Some of these can be manufactured.
    Time Signatures - can be done by creating a text frame on top of
the staff, just after the Clef.  You will need to add some staff
space(8,9, or 0), and find an appropriate font from your collection, 
then just size the numbers until they fit properly.  If you do both 
numbers in one text frame, you'll have to adjust the line spacing also.
    Slurs - if you have the Vector Graphic Module, or Line Art, you
should be able to manufacture some slurs right on your page.  I
haven't tried this, so I'm not sure how hard it will be, but don't 
see any reason for difficulty.
    Beamings - these can also be manufactured as vector graphics, or
you can draw a diagonal line frame, then adjust the line thickness 
and size of the frame to get it to fit properly.  
    
    As for the rest of the missing stuff, if anyone wants to get out 
their font editor and build a set of sixteenth notes, and other
sundry items, I'll be glad to hear of it!  Oh yes, one other problem:
it appears that the middle line of the staff is a little thicker than
the rest of the lines.  This seems to be a problem with practically
every note and object in the font.  This can be corrected with a good
font editor, but it would take some time.  Anyone up to it?  This
problem may not be too noticable depending on the resolution your are
printing in and more importantly, the size of the music.  The larger
you scale it, the less noticable this difference should be.  At 300
dpi, using a 60 point size for Lassus, the difference is just enough
to make the other lines one pixel wide, and the middle one two
pixels!  That makes it quite noticable, but I have had better success
scaling the font at larger sizes(try 90 points or more).

    I have also come across one other music font which seems to be
composed of various symbols, time signatures and so forth.  Some
of these items are missing in Lassus, and so this will make a good 
companion font for it.  It's not quite ready to upload yet, so I 
won't trouble you with it, but should be ready soon.  

    I have enclosed a CDK(for Calamus SL), that maps out every
character in the font, for easy reference.  Also included is a 300 dpi
IMG of the same page(via the Bridge Module), for those who don't have SL, 
or might not have the TIMES 50 font I used.  

    If anyone has further comments or questions, I can be reached on
GEnie at F.ZIMMERMAN3, or phone me at (604)263-6295.

Frank Zimmerman
April 13, 1994.
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