Font Design of Psaltic (Byzantine) Notation for Greek Musical Repertoires

Abstract

The possibility of rendering scores of Greek Chant repertoires from the 3rd to the 21st century A.D. with the use of the computer opens new horizons in musicological research. In this poster a synoptic overview concerning the historical development of notational types used for Greek chants is given. This is followed by a record of various fonts and software for Byzantine neumes created since 1989. The goal of the poster is to present a new font for psaltic notations of the first and second Christian millennium, displaying the great variety of signs, neume families and neume combinations which are encountered in musical manuscripts and theoretical treatises of the Psaltic Art. These by far exceed the Byzantine neumes found today in the unicode system. The future development of suitable software can facilitate interdisciplinary studies with other traditions and contribute to the communication between musicologists and musicians belonging to different areas of expertise.