After a number of Mudcat postings urging learning ABC notation, I acquired an iPad and got the ABC app "the Craic" which imports ABC files, plays the music in a breathy flute sound, and makes PDF print outs. I had previously tried working with Finale, but without some instruction, couldn't do the simpliest things. A couple of pages of ABC instructions, and I was on my way, accessing tunes, inserting chords, listening to tunes, playing along, learning, making clean versions of hand written tunes.

It has come in very handy when given a tune name for a dance that's not in the standard books. I've found, with ABC printouts, some of the same problems as notation done with more sophisticated programs. In ABC I can fix some of them. I also find ABC a grand way to take down notation as "shorthand" to be gussied up & sorted later when acquiring a new melody. OTOH I am NOT a sophisticated musician, and perhaps the shortcomings of ABC don't bother me because I don't need the things missing?

To answer Sandman - if you have a recording of music, why would you need an actual performance? It's a tool. Having an ABC version that shows in standard notation is a process. As the looooooooong file above shows, it's a nice SHORT process with ABC!

Joanne in Cleveland (who takes about an hour or three to put a tune from hand written to ABC)