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How I Designed a Free Music Font for 5 Million Musicians (MuseScore 3.6)

Tantacrul · explainer · Watch on YouTube

Graphic design & typographyMusic theory, synthesis & productionLinux & open-source ecosystems

What it is

Tantacrul explains how he and engraver Simon Smith designed the free music notation font for MuseScore 3.6. It draws on the history of the SCORE notation application by Leland Smith.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN recommends it as an entertaining look at how hard notation fonts are to make, and it comes up in threads on music engraving and open source.

  • 5 people recommended it
  • 5 different months
  • 2 strong recommendations
  • first 2021, last 2024

What HN commenters said

  1. “one of the strongest moral arguments for open source licensing”

    Story of software obsolescence and a strong moral case for open source.

    jameshart, 2021-01 · Strong recommendation · in “MuseScore 3.6”

  2. “He does a good job at making the topic of music notation come to life”

    Brings notation typeface making to life with history of Score.

    Slow_Hand, 2023-03 · Strong recommendation · in “Olympia Musicwriter”

  3. “here are Tantacrul's entertaining videos on MuseScore and designing MuseScore's new font”

    Entertaining video on designing MuseScore's new font.

    meowface, 2021-05 · Recommendation · in “Audacity Aquired by Muse Group”

  4. “Tantacrul made a really interesting video about how incredibly difficult it is to make a notation font that might be a good watch”

    Shows how difficult it is to make a notation font.

    jedimastert, 2022-05 · Recommendation · in “Clairnote: An alternative music notation system”

  5. “there are great videos by Tantacrul on his experience redesigning the notation font for MuseScore”

    Experience redesigning MuseScore's notation font.

    amiga386, 2024-05 · Recommendation · in “Printing Music with CSS Grid”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: musescore, music engraving, font design, score software, open source

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