How should longa look?
Inspired by the redesign of MuseScore, I wanted to ask how longa should look.
What prompted me is the position of the stem - it looks different between MuseScore and LilyPond.
The attached MSCZ was produced in 1.3. The LilyPond PDF was produced using a MusicXML exported from 2.0 and musicxml2ly.
Using MuseScore 2.0 Nightly Build (92852b7) and LilyPond 2.16.1 - Mac 10.7.5.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Longa.mscz | 1.38 KB |
| Longa [MuseScore].png | 52.54 KB |
| Longa [LilyPond].pdf | 21.63 KB |
![Longa [MuseScore].png](https://musescore.org/sites/musescore.org/files/Longa%20%5BMuseScore%5D.png){kind=link}
Comments
MuseScore 'round' and 'squared' longa need tuning in the font .xml file. I have some improvements in stock and I'll post a pull request sooner or later. However:
1) The MS longa uses the breve note head (which includes the two side 'stemlets') and adds another stem: only if the stem width matches the 'stemlet' width, the result is going to fit.
2) The 'round' longa is a curious artifact from (I think) late XIX century: nobody uses the longa any longer, except in early music. And the majority of early music players, editors, etc. favor the 'squared' shape. It is an unfortunate accident that the 'round' shape happens to be the default in most notation programmes.
2) cannot be helped, but 1) could only by solved by replacing the whole "breve + stem" group with the existing ready-made longa symbol(s).
M.