Question about ABC

[RedHouse Arts]

OK, I'm going to show my ignorance here. What is ABC notation? I grew up reading music, and I have no clue how to decipher ABC. Yet it seems like much h-g music is posted that way. Help (please and thank you).

Chris

[paulsherwood6]

Hi - or should that be Howdy - and welcome.

ABC is a way to represent conventional (5-line stave) notation but in a simple text file that can easily be emailed around and takes almost no space to store.
Have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abc_notation and abcnotation.com
One tool to see the notation from an ABC is here: http://www.concertina.net/tunes_convert.html

Paul

[RedHouse Arts]

Thanks, Paul. That's a very useful code for those of us who want to convert it to music notation. I wouldn't want to be the one writing all those ABCs though!!!

[WaterPig Master]

Hi there

Writing ABC is far easier than it seems, so long as you don't make it difficult for yourself! Decide a best way of doing things, and stick to it! For example, my standard ABC file looks a bit like this:

X:1
T:Title
C:Composer
M:time sig
L:Default length
N:notes
then the abc - which I won't explain my techniques for.

Every now and again I add a Q: header, to regulate the speed, but it's far easier than it looks!

Thanks,
Barnaby

[Pugwash]

Have a google search and there are quite a few ABC notation converters and players, many freeware. I'm just about to try one, having been used to the 'dots' all of my life so far I think I might find it easier this way - converting to dots that is

Peter