Write Your Own Erhu Scores with MS Word

[tj]

Hi Everyone. Just found this forum so I'm very new.

I'm an amateur Erhu player and right now I teach myself to play pieces "new" to me, through recordings I can find.

One of the biggest problems I face is to match the music scores I can find with the recordings I have. 90% of the time I found myself scoring the music myself from the recordings. I do this on paper with a pencil first and then make it into electronic forms with Word, so I always have them. Any change/edit can be easily done thereafter.

In order to do that, true type fonts are needed. I found a set of free JianPu fonts (the Chinese numbered notation) called SimpMusic Base.ttf and SimpMusic Accent.ttf, they sort of work but they were designed for simple songs and lack all the Erhu symbols.

I saw a pinned post from paulv in which he mentioned fonts he made/used and really wanted them. It appears though he is not active on this site anymore. Just wonder who else got the fonts he mentioned.

If anyone wants the fonts I mentioned, let me know.

Thanks,

TJ

P.S. I tried to show a sample of the score in Word (screenshot), but the insert image tool did not work. How do I attach a picture in the post?

[davidmdahl]

You are very welcome to our forum, TJ! It is always a pleasure to meet another erhu player. I checked out your website, and enjoyed reading the blog entries.

In order to post an image, the file needs to be publicly accessable on a website. Once that is accomplished, include the URL of the image between HTML tags as below:

www.yourimage.jpg [\IMG]

Just be sure that there are no spaces after the tag and after the [\IMG] tag.

Regarding the jianpu editor, I have used S-Music:

www.a1soft.com/smusic/

It is still pretty tedious and limited, but it does handle much of what is usually needed.

Best wishes,

David

[calden]

tj:

Nice to have yet another player on board. I used an erhu font for a while, and realized that it's incredibly more efficient to simply write it out by hand, even if I have to slow way down for legibility's sake. A trick I got from a Chinese friend was to use very lightly lined graph paper which helps me keep bars and notes lined up.

Carlos

[davidmdahl]

My erhu teacher was initially very interested in using a computer-based jianpu editor but, like Carlos, reverted to writing by hand.

Best wishes,

David

[dsouthwood]

My software of choice for creating jianpu sheet music is PowerPoint. I have created a slide which has rows of numbers with every combination of dots and lines along with other symbols. All I have to do is copy, paste, drag and drop to create a new score. It is much easier to manipulate text boxes and graphic elements in PowerPoint than Word.

[tj]

Thanks for the replies, guys.

I do agree that it is much easier to use a pencil, but how easy is it if you want to share your score with your friends? I thought that making the music sheets into a "universal" and "editable" format like MS Word would be very helpful for the "free exchange" purposes. Most computer literate people uses Word already anyway so why paying for another software that only generates non-editable graphic output?

Also in Word, VB codes can be written to ease note input and to automate many complicated tasks, such as changing keys of the entire score and even transforming the Chinese numbered notation to the western staff notation (through font switching via codes). I have done all that with a word template file and found it to be very useful, except that the free fonts I had were not meant for Erhu scores and that's a pain sometimes.

If you love free stuff and are willing to try it out and also help me to improve it, send me a PM.

[song]

Hi tj,

If you ever need help in identifying a piece of music, feel free to post a short excerpt of the music and we can help you put a name to it. Getting the score after that shouldn't be too difficult.

Thanks,
Sung Wah

[calden]

tj said:

Thanks for the replies, guys.

I do agree that it is much easier to use a pencil, but how easy is it if you want to share your score with your friends? I thought that making the music sheets into a "universal" and "editable" format like MS Word would be very helpful for the "free exchange" purposes.

If you love free stuff and are willing to try it out and also help me to improve it, send me a PM.

tj:

That's a good point. I guess I just haven't made it a priority to use what I've got to have made it efficient. I just write them out by hand and scan them. I've then got a PDF I can put up on a website or send to someone. However, I like your idea of shared, editable scores.

Carlos

[tj]

Just to let interested folks know that I have received paulv's ErhuAccent.ttf font.

THANK YOU, Paul!!!

[paulv]

tj said:

Just to let interested folks know that I have received paulv's ErhuAccent.ttf font.

THANK YOU, Paul!!!

You're welcome TJ.

Hi everyone -- hope things are well.

Regards,

paul....

[song]

Dear all,

I'm trying to do some jianpu editing at the moment. Anyone has any software or word fonts that would be useful to me please email me at [e-mail]. TJ are you still around?

Thanks!
Sung Wah

[davidmdahl]

Karl in the Ezfolk erhu forum mentioned the following editor:

www.zuoqu.com/yinyuezizo.htm

I have not checked it out yet and so do not have an opinion about its value. At least the price is right.

Best wishes,

David

[tj]

song said:

Dear all,

I'm trying to do some jianpu editing at the moment. Anyone has any software or word fonts that would be useful to me please email me at [e-mail]. TJ are you still around?

Thanks!
Sung Wah

Sung - I'm still working on my own free font. I'll email a copy to you when I'm done (or anyone interested). Still need to add some more symbols and finish the user guide.

[tj]

davidmdahl said:

Karl in the Ezfolk erhu forum mentioned the following editor:

www.zuoqu.com/yinyuezizo.htm

I have not checked it out yet and so do not have an opinion about its value. At least the price is right.

Best wishes,

David

Thanks, David. I noticed the software before when I googled JianPu but did not try it. Well I am cheap so only like freebies :-)

I heard that there were some flood in the Portland area. In 1996 I lived in Tualatin and almost got it. I also remeber the freezing rains, oh my. Guess you are fine since you are online posting!

[davidmdahl]

I would be interested in your erhu font, TJ. Please hook me up when it is ready.

There have so far not been any problems in my area (Hillsboro). The big storm in mid-December really devastated other areas though, especially Vernonia. The Tillamook rail line to the coast was washed out in places and may not be rebuilt. We are very thankful to be spared.

Best wishes,

David

[karl8]

How are slurs handled in Word if you are just using a font? Other than just numbers/notes with underscores and dots representing octaves. How fancy does this get?

Concerning www.zuoqu.com/yinyuezizo.htm

This editor I believe has MIDI support. I don't have a midi device so I can't test it. It also has a nice audio playback which plays the note when you enter it. Also a play feature to hear your score after entering it in. There is support for a bazillion music marks including erhu fingering. The interface is a but klunky and I have not figured out how to remove a mark after you have placed it on the page. You can select the object and press delete and there is no delete tool.


As I mentioned in the other forum, the biggest drawbacks are instability (save often). And forcing you to change regional settings to get the Chinese interface to render properly. This is a pain since changing regional settings require a reboot and messes with the font for your other English applications.

[karl8]

I've seen PDFs of jian pu scores out there which are not image PDFs so they must be generated by some software package. Something is out there.

[tj]

karl8 said:

How are slurs handled in Word if you are just using a font? Other than just numbers/notes with underscores and dots representing octaves. How fancy does this get?

That totally depends on the design of the font, Karl.

Character width manipulation is the trick. I got the inspiration from a free font called MusiQwik.(http://www.icogitate.com/~ergosum/fonts/musicfonts.htm)

I started making on my own jianpu font after realizing that separating the base notes and accents into two fonts is a nightmare for Word to handle and a pain for a user. The font I made is a single font that has everything in it and it will suit 99.9% of the needs of everyone. The only "problem" is that it requires some coding to assist the input process in Word. Although it is possible to cut and paste characters from the Character Map, but I think everybody will agree that is not the way to go. I have been spending most of my times on the "Input Method" if you like. I'm almost done.

The software you mentioned is pretty cool in producing sounds but I find it not so intuitive to use and I did not see any Erhu symbols I wanted. It also makes sharing score impossible since everyone would have to buy that software. Well with a free font, it turns any music sheets into a "universal" and "editable" format (MS Word) and that should be good for the "free exchange" purpose I am after.

[tj]

Here is a link to a screenshot of Erhu score written with FREE font SimpErhu.ttf in MS Word:

picasaweb.google.com/SimpErhu/SimpErhu/photo#5155499601567704626



The Volta brackets looked odd on the screen but it printed out fine.

[song]

looks good tj! Can you send that to me?


sw

[jtangsw]

TJ, can you send the font to me as well? Would like to try it out...