Getting started in ABC

[hoodsmom]

Someone PM'd me asking about getting started in ABC, so I thought I'd post this:

Learning ABC

• ABCnotation.com <http://abcnotation.com/> - repository for abc files, ABC instructions
• Steve Mansfield's ABC primer - <http://www.lesession.co.uk/abc/abc_notation.htm>

ABC standard - once I had something of a grip on the basics, I bookmarked the standard and now I just look stuff up when I need to <http://abcnotation.com/wiki/abc:standard:v2.0>

Online converters - Even though I have EasyABC, I use the online converters extensively for generating sheets and for help with transposition

• Montreal Session Tunebook <http://music.gordfisch.net/montrealsession/editor.php>  Total newbies can also look at my 30-sec YouTube vid that shows how this and other converters work <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccsyGIaUdes>.  Turn on the captioning b/c it goes by very fast and isn't very useful w/o the captions.
• Mandolintab (the old Folkinfo) <http://http://mandolintab.net/abcconverter.php> Generates MO tabs! - see this thread <http://www.ocarinaboard.com/bb/index.php?topic=1875.0>
• Jens Wollschläger's ABC-Transposer <http://www.8ung.at/abctransposer/>- changes the key automatically as you step up and down. Unfortunately, transposes incidentals inaccurately. However, when I was just getting started with transposition for G-oc, I'd paste my nontransposing music here and click until a "C" changed to a "G" and take note of the new key.  Then I'd paste the nontransposing music back into the Montreal Session Tunebook, open the "Advanced" options and have the site transpose the music accurately into the new key.

A couple standalone converters

• EasyABC <www.nilsliberg.se/ksp/easyabc/>free, cross-platform, works in Mac OS 10.5 and developer says should work up to 10.7; doesn't work in 10.4 on my older Mac
• Barfly <http://www.barfly.dial.pipex.com/> shareware for Mac, works in 10.4
• see http://abcnotation.com/software for more

Free for your Android device!

• Zap's ABC - available at Google Play <https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=se.petersson.abc&hl=en> It works brilliantly on my 1st generation Kindle Fire. I e-mailed the generous developer to get the .apk because Amazon blocks Google Play on the Fire. The Google Play page links to the online instruction page at the developer's website.

Other software

• Extensive list at <http://abcnotation.com/software>
• For those of us who refuse to trade in our Palms for iPads and iPod Touches: Palm ABC <http://www.palmabc.ganderband.com/> - I tried several and this one actually works w/o crashing my Tungsten TX
• MuseScore <http://musescore.org/>- Only "sorta" ABC-related.  Free, open source, cross-platform WYSIWYG music notation program.  Uses a plugin (under the plugins menu) to import ABC files. IIRC, I did not have to do anything special to install the plugin on the latest version, but your file has to have the extension .abc to work with the plugin. A little buggy, but can import and export midi files, so it's a good way to convert midi backing tracks designed for nontransposing instruments into a backing track that'll work with your Mountain G ocarina. If all you want is sheets from an .abc file, one of the online or stand alone Abc converters is a lot less trouble.

[angiessa]

Thank you for this! I know just enough about ABC to get myself in trouble. These links are very helpful.

[kypfer]

If you're using a PC, I heartily recommend ABCExplorer http://abc.stalikez.info/abcex.php as a genuinely good piece of FreeWare.

It'll transpose for you and generate pdf files, both of individual tunes and whole tunebooks.

For instance, load Jack Campin's "Nine Note Tunebook" http://www.campin.me.uk/Music/Chalumeau.abc (now up to 388 tunes), select File | Export File | PDF and bingo! you've got a printable copy of the whole tunebook. Print it out double-sided, put it in a ring-binder, go away and practice ... for several months 

[angiessa]

Ooh, fantastic tip. Thank you!

[draynham]

If you're using a PC, I heartily recommend ABCExplorer http://abc.stalikez.info/abcex.php as a genuinely good piece of FreeWare.

It'll transpose for you and generate pdf files, both of individual tunes and whole tunebooks.

For instance, load Jack Campin's "Nine Note Tunebook" http://www.campin.me.uk/Music/Chalumeau.abc (now up to 388 tunes), select File | Export File | PDF and bingo! you've got a printable copy of the whole tunebook. Print it out double-sided, put it in a ring-binder, go away and practice ... for several months 

WOW, WOW!

Thank you so much for sharing this.  I downloaded ABC Explorer and imported Campin's tunebook, as you suggested.  It's amazing to see all that sheet music to appear, to be able to transpose music easily, and even to hear it in a variety intrument styles!  And it's all legal and legit.  I love it.  What a great combination!

Thanks again, and thanks to OP for summarizing all the ABC stuff, which was (is) still new to me.

[kypfer]

Thank you so much for sharing this.  I downloaded ABC Explorer and imported Campin's tunebook, as you suggested.

... you're very welcome 

For anyone else browsing, Jack's tunebook now has over 400 tunes in it ... and if you've missed my previous postings, John Tose's tunebook (200 mostly Welsh-orientated tunes) can be found here http://www.mochpryderi.com/Tose.html , now in pdf format.

[R-Jay]

I am a great fan of abc notation.  The archives of folk music that are available in abc notation are vast. 

I have an unusual question.  Is there a program that will take a simple melody line that was saved as a MIDI file, and make an abc file out of it?  I know there are many utilities and web sites that will take an abc file and make a MIDI file out of it, I was wondering about utilities that go the other direction.

Thanks. 

[kypfer]

ABC Explorer http://abc.stalikez.info/abcex.php (for the PC) will import a MIDI and convert it to ABC

[R-Jay]

Thanks a lot!  i don't have a PC, but my better half does.  But I guess I shouldn't be so lazy, abc format does not seem so hard to learn, particularly for simple objectives (documenting the melody lines of folk tunes).  Thanks again.

RJ

[Traeak]

Awesome links.  I've used songbird's composer recently to make tabs but got in trouble trying to turn them into sheet music.  Tried a couple of software packages (a couple on tablets as well) which IMHO are not very intuitive.  I was thinking to go with chinese notation which I was exposed to the first time a couple of years ago (had to learn how to sight read and improvise chords in short order).  Looks like this ABC notation is mostly okay and I'm more than happy with a text editor.  I'm not too pleased with the first class measures (sucks for composition) but I can probably write some utilities to introduce those.

Any way to make this topic "sticky"?

[hoodsmom]

I updated the first post in this thread to include a link to Zap's ABC, a free converter for Android devices.  (I won a 1st gen Kindle Fire earlier this year  and while it's definitely no iPad, free is free!)  If copying your text from a mobile browser into Zap's ABC, you will need to use Opera Mobile rather than Dolphin - or Silk on the Fire - because Opera Mobile preserves the line breaks properly, whereas the other browsers do not. 

It's easy to "sideload" (load apps from other than Amazon) apps onto a Fire.  Just make sure to get your .apk's (app files) from reliable sources. <http://www.ubergizmo.com/2011/11/kindle-fire-sideload/>

[Nephiel]

There's an app called Tunepal for Android that also supports ABC. It's not free though.