Fonts

This page contains information about SMuFL-compliant music fonts.

Bravura

bravura-fibich

The first SMuFL-compliant music font family is Bravura, designed by Daniel Spreadbury at Steinberg for Dorico, its next-generation music notation application.

Bravura draws on the heritage of the finest European music engraving of the 19th and early 20th centuries, with a bolder and more substantial look than most other music fonts: thin strokes are slightly thicker than in other fonts, improving the overall “blackness” of the font and its legibility when read at a distance.

Bravura is currently at version 1.392, which implements SMuFL 1.4.

The Bravura font family consists of two fonts: Bravura, which is intended for use in scoring applications; and Bravura Text, which is intended for use in text-based applications.

The Bravura font family is available as an OpenType font with PostScript outlines, in SVG font format and in Web Open Font Format (WOFF), implementing all of the glyphs in SMuFL version 1.4, and also implementing all of the glyphs in the Unicode Musical Symbols range (U+1D100–U+1D1DD), of which SMuFL is a superset.

The Bravura font family is made available under the SIL Open Font License, which means that the fonts are free to download, use, embed, redistribute with other software (including commercial software) or to create derivative versions. The only restrictions on its use are that they cannot be sold on their own, any derivative versions cannot use the reserved font name “Bravura”, and any derivative versions must likewise also be licensed under the SIL Open Font License. For more information about the SIL Open Font License, read the answers to these Frequently Asked Questions.

If you make any improvements or additions to Bravura, you are invited to submit those improvements via GitHub for consideration for inclusion in the font. Please consider allowing others in the community to benefit from any improvements you make by allowing Steinberg to improve the core font, rather than choosing to create a derivative font.

Download Bravura at GitHub

November 2.0

M3

The first commercial SMuFL-compliant font is November 2.0, by composer, pianist, software developer and font designer Robert Piéchaud, is available for sale from Klemm Music.

November was one of the first digital music typefaces to mimic the slightly weathered look of traditional music engraving, with its slightly rounded terminals producing a warmer image through its carefully reproduced imperfections, just as the metal punches used in engraving would wear away slightly after years of repeated use. November 2.0 adds hundreds of new symbols, and is now fully SMuFL-compliant.

November 2.0 is available as an OpenType font with PostScript outlines. Note that November 2.0 is sold under a commercial license, with options for single users and multi-user organisations (such as schools). The font may not be freely redistributed, or used to create derivative versions without the express permission of the designer and copyright holder.

More information

Petaluma

Petaluma

Petaluma is a font family with a handwritten appearance, in the style of the hand copyists for Sher Publishing’s Real Book series, Ernie Mansfield and Ann Krinitsky. The font family consists of three fonts: Petaluma itself, a SMuFL-compliant music font with around 1350 glyphs; Petaluma Text, a version of Petaluma designed for mixing with regular text fonts in contexts like dynamics, metronome marks, and so on; and Petaluma Script, a regular alphanumeric script font.

Like Bravura, the Petaluma font family is made available under the SIL Open Font License, which means that the fonts are free to download, use, embed, redistribute with other software (including commercial software) or to create derivative versions. The only restrictions on its use are that they cannot be sold on their own, any derivative versions cannot use the reserved font name “Bravura”, and any derivative versions must likewise also be licensed under the SIL Open Font License. For more information about the SIL Open Font License, read the answers to these Frequently Asked Questions.

Petaluma is included with Dorico Pro and Dorico Elements: to obtain a copy, download the trial version.

Leland

Leland is a font family modeled after the appearance of the symbols produced by the venerable SCORE music publishing application, and named after its creator, Leland Smith, who sadly passed away in 2013. The font was designed by Martin Keary and Simon Smith, and is made available under the SIL Open Font License.

Leland is the default music font in MuseScore 3.6 and later: to obtain a copy, either download and install MuseScore, or visit the font’s GitHub page.

Sebastian

Sebastian is a font family released under the SIL Open Font License that not only provides the font software itself but also the source files in Unified Font Object (UFO) format. Developed by Florian Kretlow and expanded upon by Ben Byram-Wigfield, it provides more than 1200 glyphs.

To obtain a copy of Sebastian, visit the font’s GitHub page.

Finale font families

With the release of the SMuFL-compliant Finale v27, MakeMusic made the following SMuFL fonts available:

  • Finale Ash - A SMuFL version of the legendary and long-unavailable AshMusic handwritten font.
  • Finale Maestro - The SMuFL version of Finale’s Maestro font family, expanded to over 2,700 glyphs
  • Finale Broadway - The SMuFL version of Finale’s Broadway Copyist font family
  • Finale Engraver - The SMuFL version of Finale’s Engraver font family
  • Finale Jazz - The SMuFL version of Finale’s Jazz font family
  • Finale Legacy - The SMuFL version of Finale’s Petrucci and Tamburo fonts

All fonts are licensed under the SIL Open Font license. The fonts can be downloaded from MakeMusic’s web site here.

Norfonts

Norfonts, from font designer Nor Eddine Bahha, offers a range of commercial SMuFL fonts, at the time of writing including the families:

Leipzig

Leipzig is a font developed by Laurent Pugin and is the default font used by Verovio, an open source library for the rendering and manipulation of music in the Music Encoding Initiative (MEI) format. The font is made available under the SIL Open Font License.

To obtain a copy, visit the Verovio GitHub page.