What's the deal with the caret in lyric entry?

[dankreider]

I'm noticing that any ligatures that include the asciicurcum (^) break in lyrics. They look correct during entry, but break as soon as the lyrics advance:



Is this something particular to the way that lyrics parse the caret? I couldn't find anything by searching.

This works just fine using the text tool, by the way.

[miker]

I’ve used all kinds of diacritical marks in lyrics: tildes, umlauts, and all sorts of,things, and never had a problem. But I use the Mac long press method for these, not the old two-key way.

I wonder if it’s because the code isn’t written to allow that mark over a numeral?

[dankreider]

I wonder if it’s because the code isn’t written to allow that mark over a numeral?

The thing is, this is a dedicated ligature within the font. In this font, a caret followed by a number produces a scale degree number. All other ligatures display correctly, just not ones that use the caret.

[Peter Thomsen]

Can you attach a Finale document that shows the problem?

[dankreider]

Hi Peter, thanks for asking. Any project replicates it. You need this font (which is free, and you may find it useful anyways).

Once you have it installed, in any Finale project, type ^3, for example. It works in the text tool, but not in the lyric tool.

[Peter Thomsen]

Dan,

1) I already have the MusGlyphs font.

2) I can confirm the issue.

… this is a dedicated ligature within the font …

If I understand your words “dedicated ligature” correctly, you are talking about two font characters (^ and a number), displaying at the same horizontal positioning, so that they look like a single font character - right?

This is not the same as e. g. â in a font.
Even if you type two characters (^ and a), you get â as a single font character; the two characters (^ and a) automatically get replaced by the single character â.

As a test I also tried with a Unicode font.
Same (negative) result:
^1 ^2 ^3 ^4 ^5 ^6 ^7 ^8

It seems that you will have to add to the MusGlyphs font 8 single glyphs of {number with a caret above it} - similar to the single character â.

[dankreider]

Peter, the ^4 is a ligature, which is a substitution. It's not combining the number and caret, it's substituting that key combination for an entirely different glyph: one that looks like a number with a caret on top. These glyphs already exist within MusGlyphs, 1-8. Try it with the text tool, and you'll see what I mean. When you press ^ and then 4, the font performs a substitution, and displays the requested character instead. The most common example of a ligature is the "fi" - if a font includes this character, pressing f, then i results in displaying an entirely new character, one that looks like an f and i squished together.

The question is why the scale-degree ligature works correctly in the text tool, and initially works in the lyric tool but breaks when the caret is advanced.

[Peter Thomsen]

… the scale-degree ligature works correctly in the text tool, and initially works in the lyric tool but breaks when the caret is advanced …

I get it.

I was examining the font with Finale’s dialog box Symbol Selection, and the scale degree numbers do not show up there.

Now I have examined the font with a font utility, and I have found the scale degree numbers.

It seems that the numbers display correctly in the Lyrics window (I pasted them into the Lyrics window).
But as soon as you try to use Click Assignment to enter them in the layout, they break down into two characters.

I suggest that you contact the folks at MakeMusic.
They should be informed that
- the scale degree numbers do not show up in Symbol Selection
- the scale degree numbers display in text blocks and in the Lyrics window
- but not as Lyrics in the layout

[elbsound]

The caret symbol (^) is a "magic" symbol in Finale's text handling system.
Finale starts all font name, font size or font style changes internally with a caret symbol, so it might be confused here.
If you use JW Lua, you can examine this. You typically get something like this for a short text in Times New Roman/24/no text styles:
^font(Times New Roman)^size(24)^nfx(0)This is the actual text.
(More info here: http://jwmusic.nu/jwplugins/wiki/doku.p ... gmastrings )

So if you want to have ^ in the text, it is encoded as ^^ like this:
^font(Times New Roman)^size(24)^nfx(0)This is the caret symbol ^^.
JW Lua might also help in solving this issue.

I don't know if this has to do with your problem, but it's possible.
You could check it if you use another symbol: does this behaviour also occur when you combine two other symbols from your font? (i.e. other than ^)

Jan

[dankreider]

Aha, I wondered if that might be the case. Thanks Jan.

Indeed, other ligatures work just fine. Apparently the caret is somewhat “reserved” by Finale in lyrics, just like the hyphen...

Do you know of any other characters that might be off-limits? There are a finite number of characters to use, but I’d like to make this sort of thing work easily in Finale, and it would be nice to know a particular character isn’t problematic before I commit to it.

Thanks!

[Peter Thomsen]

As a test I tried with some other caret characters (from a Unicode font): â ê î ô û

They display correctly in Lyrics.

It seems that this issue is not simply a matter of the caret symbol.

[dankreider]

It’s because those characters are present in the font you tested, and Finale is helpfully joining the caret and the base character, since if assumes you want them joined. And I agree it’s helpful, just not in this case where that caret behavior breaks the ligature I’ve created.

[elbsound]

I would second Dan's comment: â ê etc are predefined symbols, while MusGlyphs creates a new symbol from two glyphs.
It is very likely that it has to do with the special treatment of the ^. And as ^ is no standard lyrics character the lyrics developer might not have thought of this special situation.

Dan, regarding other characters that might cause problems:
I had some problems (Finale crashes!) when using symbols from the SMuFl range that end on the slot numbers ..00. Especially on slot 0xe500 (one-bar repeat symbol) this was reproduceable and occured every time. But I don't know if this is only caused by plug-ins in Finale (it occured in my house style plug-in where I changed some characters) or if it can also occur when just playing with fonts in Finale. But if possible, I would recommend to not use symbols from the slots 0xE000, 0xE100, 0xE200, etc. ... or check them with care.

Jan

[dankreider]

Thanks to you both!

[motet]

Why would you need a numeral with a circumflex, (or a superscript?), in a lyric?

[dankreider]

It’s a scale degree. Common in all sorts of analysis. And easier to input as lyrics.

[motet]

I see.

[John Ruggero]

The careted numbers were invented by Heinrich Schenker and first used in his analysis of Haydn's Piano Sonata in E-flat (H.XVI:52) in his series of analytical essays called Der Tonwille. They show the basic notes of the upper melody in a tonal piece. They were required because of his realization that tonal melodies are organized in structural levels, and he needed a way to indicate the top level. This is a short snippet of the first example from that essay:

[dankreider]

Very interesting to know that these careted numbers originated with Schenker!

By the way John, I don’t know if you saw, but on the MusAnalysis forum I posted an update to solve this issue.