I was talking about barlines and staff lines (well, mostly barlines that print out way too thin by default at some smaller score sizes in Finale). Such thin lines are certainly for squinting. And those only get worse when you photocopy, so to start in the middle of a piece for a rehearsal, say, a musician might have to actually count up the beats in one or two measures to see where the barline _ought_ to be, then squint to ensure there is some semblance of a line there.
I didn't know about the thin lines on some font families like "modern." I'll have to check that out, thanks. -Jonathan --- On Thu, 4/22/10, David Kastrup <d...@gnu.org> wrote: From: David Kastrup <d...@gnu.org> Subject: Re: New Essay:nitpicking To: bug-lilypond@gnu.org Date: Thursday, April 22, 2010, 9:37 AM Jonathan Wilkes <jancs...@yahoo.com> writes: > Hi Alexander, On your point about technical restrictions: I would > just say that by the time a musician becomes a professional he/she has > read thousands of scores with rounded notes, non-pointy angles, heavy > dynamics font, etc. [...] > playing music, which I obviously love, and less time doing what > amounts to bookkeeping-- clearing up ambiguities/misprints, adjusting > my eyes to a weird font, trying not to be distracted by stems that are > too heave/light, squinting at hair-thin lines, etc." Hair-thin lines are not for squinting. They are used, for example, in the "modern" font families for producing closed letter aesthetics with an "open lead" of the serif line. The idea of a vertical hair line is exactly to _not_ disturb the base line of lead fortified by serifs. You need good printing resolution to bring that intent to fruition. One reason to make music fonts low-res friendly is that scores, much more than most other materials, are likely to be photocopied. They are a musician's work material. Also, you often have just an angle of your sight to spare for them. The conductor will thank the typesetters if the score does not require the full focus of the musicians. -- David Kastrup _______________________________________________ bug-lilypond mailing list bug-lilypond@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-lilypond _______________________________________________ bug-lilypond mailing list bug-lilypond@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-lilypond
