Cavatina is a font family for quickly writing musical notation. It focuses on speed of input and portability and is primarly suited for quick drafting of ideas or music teaching. The fonts can be used in any text editor that supports advanced font features or included as a webfont in a browser.
The idea behind Cavatina is that you don’t necessarily need a heavy-weight music notation program to draft musical ideas. Instead, music is typed in as normal text based on a specific keyboard scheme.
The Cavatina project is open source and free under the MIT license. You can grab a copy of the fonts and related tools from the GitHub releases page.
Note
|
Cavatina works with the latest versions of Firefox, Chrome and Opera, so make sure to use one of those browsers to read this documentation. |
Learning Cavatina
For learning how to write music with Cavatina you have a few options, although it is strongly recommended that you do read the sections The Basics and The Musical Note beforehand. You can
-
do the tutorial,
-
read on through this documentation, or
-
look at the keyboard mapping itself.
The Basics
The order in which you type in music in Cavatina matters. You write sequentially from left to right, as in written language. But music is similar to written language in many other ways: chords are like words, bar-lines are like punctuation marks, accidentals are like diacritical marks and the staff lines are the space character. That is exactly how you should think when writing with Cavatina.
There are only three basic rules to keep in mind when writing with Cavatina:
-
Hitting space extends the staff for starting a new note or chord.
-
Notes within a chord are typed in from low to high.
-
Note modifiers are written directly after the corresponding note.
The rest of learning Cavatina is really only memorizing the location on the keyboard of each musical symbol.
The Musical Note
The location of each note on the keyboard is motivated by the fact that the lowest row of characters just above the space bar has exactly seven letters: the seven pitches of a diatonic scale.
It is easy to learn where this seven notes are due to their physical location on the keyboard.
Most musicians aren’t happy with just seven notes. Following the idea above, we get a new octave for each of the four rows of the keyboard above the space bar, with the top row having three additional notes, like this:
Note
|
Each column of keyboard keys maps to the same note in different octaves. |
If you have used other notation software, you are probably used to look
for the C
key if you want to write a C, and so on. This is not very
efficient, because sadly these letters aren’t ordered in a
row. When writing notes with Cavatina, once you get your fingers placed
in the right position, you don’t need to look back down at the keyboard.
Note length
So far we have 31 notes (covering a bit more than four octaves). Each of these characters has its lowercase and uppercase variant, which correspond to the note in 8th and 4th length accordingly. Switching to the bold weight of Cavatina, you get 16th-notes in the lowercase and 8th-notes in the uppercase characters.
Tip
|
Use a keyboard shortcut to switch to the bold weight (on an interface in English use Ctrl/Cmd+B). |
Sample Input | Note length | |
---|---|---|
Regular style |
|
8th |
|
4th |
|
Bold style |
|
16th |
|
8th |
Input | Output |
---|---|
|
, a A a~ A~, |
Appart from that, Cavatina has a special key that serves as a modifier
key: the `
/~
key. We are going to call `
the inverter and ~
the
time character, the latter of which, among other things, extends the
duration of notes. Every time you hit the time character after a note, the
note’s length doubles. You can do this up to a maximum of twice per
note, i.e. for a whole note you would need to type a 4th-note followed
by two times ~
.
Input | Output |
---|---|
|
, f F f~ f~~ F~ F~~, |
For dotted notes you use <
after the note.
To draw a tie after a note append an L
.
Note orientation
The stem of a note can be inverted. This is done with the inverter `
. A
note can only be inverted once (which doesn’t stop you from
un-inverting).
To invert the stem of a chord you invert the first note of the chord. If the next note in the chord would collide in its default orientation, then it is automatically inverted. Otherwise keep inverting until you obtain the desired result. This is useful for separating voices within one chord.
Input | Output |
---|---|
|
, f f` j j`, afj a`fj a`f`j a`f`j`, |
Rests
Rests are accessed via the ]
/}
key. Their duration is changed the
same way as for notes. Optionally, you can write the same rest twice and
the length will increase accordingly.
Input | Output |
---|---|
|
, ] } ]] }} ]~ ]~~ }~ }~~, |
Note beams
To beam two 8th or 16th notes, write two dots ..
after the second
note. Both notes need to have the same orientation before they can be
beamed. Only pairs of notes can be beamed together.
Input | Output |
---|---|
|
, dh sj.. d`h` s`..j d`h s`..j`.., |
Staff and Barlines
When you hit the spacebar you draw a new staff block. Before any note or chord, you have to draw a new staff block to make room for a note or a chord.
The barlines are mapped as follows:
Musical symbol | Raw input |
---|---|
simple barline |
|
double barline |
|
final barline |
|
repeat barline (start) |
|
repeat barline (end) |
|
Cavatina is not made to do minor adjustments to the layout, but if you
consider it necessary, you can gain control over horizontal spacing by
using the half space /
and the quarter space //
.
Input | Output |
---|---|
|
, ,, . ; : |
Clefs
Cavatina supports three different clefs:
Musical symbol | Raw input |
---|---|
F-clef |
|
C-Clef |
|
G-Clef |
|
The input of the notes is invariant of the signature; it doesn’t depend on the current clef.
Input | Output |
---|---|
|
,+ f f,_ f f,+_ f f, |
Time Signatures
Time signatures have to be written after clefs (and key signatures) or
barlines. To start a time signature enter the time key ~
. After that
you just write the upper and lower numeral successively.
To write the common time or cut time symbols, enter c
or C
after
the time key.
A space is automatically attached after a time signature, so that you don’t have to open a new staff block yourself.
Input | Output |
---|---|
|
,~34 ,~1216 ,_---~34 ,~c , |
Accidentals and Key Signatures
Musical symbol | Raw input |
---|---|
flat |
|
sharp |
|
natural |
|
double flat |
|
double sharp |
|
To write a key signature you simply type in the sharps/flats successively after a clef.
Input | Output |
---|---|
|
_----- D G,_+== ADG |
Articulations
Musical symbol | Raw input |
---|---|
staccato |
|
tenuto |
|
staccatissimo |
|
fermata |
|
accent |
|
All articulations are written after the lowest note of a chord, except the fermata, which is written after the highest note.
Input | Output |
---|---|
|
A' A" A'' A"" A> |
Dynamics
Dynamics are aligned with respect to the note to which they are applied. Therefore, if you are writing a chord with some dynamics marking, you should write that marking just after the first (lowest) note of the chord.
Musical symbol | Raw input |
---|---|
pianississimo |
|
pianissimo |
|
piano |
|
mezzo piano |
|
mezzo forte |
|
forte |
|
fortissimo |
|
fortississimo |
|
sforzando |
|
forte-piano |
|
Musical symbol | Raw input |
---|---|
crescendo |
|
decrescendo |
|
Input | Output |
---|---|
|
d\fh h`||er M\\| Dl |
Ornaments
Musical symbol | Raw input |
---|---|
mordent |
|
inv. mordent |
|
trill |
|
turn |
|
inv. turn |
|
arpeggio |
|
Note that, intuitively enough, ornaments are inverted with the
inverter key `
.
To extend the trill or the arpeggio repeat that same character. The arpeggio is written at the end of a chord.
Input | Output |
---|---|
|
D[ D{ D[` D{` D[[ D[[[[ |
Repetition markings
Apart from the repeat barlines ;
/:
, you can use the following
repetition markings:
Musical symbol | Raw input |
---|---|
1st repetition |
|
2nd repetition |
|
end marking |
|
The end marking is necessary for the MusicXML/MIDI converter to detect the range of the repetition sections.
Musical symbol | Raw input |
---|---|
coda |
|
segno |
|
D.C. |
|
D.S. |
|
Writing coda or segno right after D.C. or D.S. will append the words “al Coda” and “al Fine” accordingly.
Input | Output |
---|---|
|
, D F G Do, D F D Go`:oo D S A }. |
Other Notation
Octave markings are used in a similar manner as repetition markings and always after the highest note in a chord.
Musical symbol | Raw input |
---|---|
8va |
|
8va (2) |
|
end 8va |
|
The triplet is written before the chord sequence. Use tight spacing to
fit the notes under the mark: enter three quarter-spaces ///
between
the notes.
Musical symbol | Raw input |
---|---|
triplet |
|
Pedal markings are lower markings and as such they have to be applied to the first note of a chord.
Musical symbol | Raw input |
---|---|
pedal |
|
release pedal |
|
Staff Systems
To create systems of multiple staves you can extend barlines to join
with the upper staff. To draw a grand staff, first enter a newline
followed by a single barline ,
to start a new staff. To draw the brace
connecting with the upper staff, type in \\
. Then continue with the
clef and key signature as you would normally do. To connect the
subsequent barlines, write a single \
after them.
Musical symbol | Raw input |
---|---|
brace |
|
long barlines |
|
Input | Output |
---|---|
|
,+--- DFJ DGJ J s d>.. ,\\_--- A D } MJ ,\ |