Has anyone got Grey Larsen’s ITM font to work with any inexpensive notation software. I have the font loaded into my Mac’s font catalogue but where do I go from here? So far I’ve been using abc notation software to transcribe tunes but it doesn’t match Larsen’s system for notating cuts, taps, rolls etc.
Possibly a blessing in disguise.
What’s a Mac? Does it keep you dry when it rains? 
David Armstrong is a member here. You might want to ask him. He hasn’t posted anything since 2004. Not a good sign.
You could also look through this old post where he announced the font to see if you can find any hints. His website seems to be defunct. Also not a good sign.
Maybe you could ask Larsen. He seems to be up on all the latest technology.
Oh, and there is a readme file in the zip for the font. You did read that, right?
Feadoggie
Contacting David Armstrong might be worth a try. Grey Larsen was helpful but said he only had experience of using it in Finale. But that maybe “you could use the font to insert symbols in the same way that you would insert song lyrics.” I did read the readme file. I’ll have to check into the song lyrics idea but it doesn’t sound ideal. Maybe David Armstong can help.
I use an ABC program for my Mac called Ernie. It’s crude as far as applications go, but it converts ABC tunes to PDF sheet music and MIDI files. I didn’t need the Larsen font.
If you really want to emulate Larsen’s notation, there’s a plethora of predefined ABC decorations which go mostly unused in basic trad whistle transcriptions, and which can be repurposed however you want. No need for external symbol fonts. You can also double up or stack decorations as desired.
This is how I handle my own personal close transcriptions, though my system is not the same as Larsen’s. The turns, mordents, and various string instrument symbols are especially useful.
I suppose (?) that any font which can be converted to Postscript could also be defined in the ABC header and used for text annotation. Or you could write a short Postscript %deco function to print the font character, then reference it via either !! notation or a U: field definition.
I have a great abc program called EasyABC which is a Mac program on which I’ve been transcribing stuff, playing it back as Midi and printing it off as PDF. Fine but it doesn’t allow for Larsen’s ornament symbols and I getting used to them seeing them, for example not only in Larsen’s transcriptions and his book but also in transcriptions by Blayne Chastain. Which is why, MTGuru, I don’t want to use other symbols in their place. My computer abilities are getting more limited by the year and I have to say I don’t really understand a word of your last paragraph!! If you could make it plainer for me or even attempt to do what you’re saying yourself, I would be very interested to see you getting his fonts to work in abc. The fonts are available from http://www.greylarsen.com/recommend/resources.php.
In the meantime I’ve been investigating MuseScore a free opensource program which looks good, a bit more complicated than EasyABC, but which imports abc files and has midi. On their forum, I posted the same question and it looks as though Larsen’s fonts may be a possibility. Watch this space . . .
Maybe I’ll try that.
Meanwhile, looking through the Larsen symbols, you already have in ABC:
trill = T or !trill!
single trill = !+! or !plus!
strike = u or !upbow! or “^v”
cut = !wedge! or “^'”
breath = !breath!
shake = ~ or !turn! or “^~”
long crann = “^C”
short crann = “^¢”
long roll = !roll!
rising slide = J or !slide!
Which leaves the short roll, double cut rolls, and falling slide. For the first you could substitute H = !fermata! or something else. And the rest are rare.
Not ideal, perhaps. But neither is Larsen’s notation. And this should more or less work in any program which conforms to the ABC 2.1 standard.
Good job, MTGuru. It is close I’ll grant you. There were more similarities than I thought, though I’d like to see the symbol for the long roll on top, like most of the rest, instead of underneath. What is the c with the vertical line through it you’ve used for short crann? I’ve nothing like that on my keyboard!
Regarding MuseScore 1.2 which is free, Larsen’s fonts can currently be written in just as he invented them by choosing it as the text style for the stave, after downloading the font from http://www.greylarsen.com/recommend/resources.php and installing that in your computer. A bit fiddly but workable. When MuseScore 2.0 comes out the fonts can be imported once converted to .png files and it will be just a matter of clicking on the symbol to have it entered. Once that happens I think MuseScore will be much quicker than abc for writing out ornamented transcriptions. Until 2.0 comes out I will experiment with both methods but I think abc will have the edge for now. I have all my tunes on .abc but they can be imported straight into MuseScore.
Thanks for the help.