The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #53233   Message #1389929
Posted By: GUEST
26-Jan-05 - 11:35 PM
Thread Name: Tech: ABC to sheetmusic/midi
Subject: RE: Tech: ABC to sheetmusic/midi
Bev and Jerry, copy the ABC text - commencing with the X: line and paste it into Notepad, or similar. Save the file as TEXT and name your file with an ABC extension, eg Girl With Purple Hair.abc.

Just make sure that the X: line is the very first line and that there are NO blank lines in your text file. The ABC convention is that a blank line denotes the end of a file.

In the downloadable version of the DT you can easily save an ABC version of the song as an ABC file. Why not just import a MIDI into NWC you ask? 'Cos with the ABC version you'll get aligned lyrics - for the first verse and/or chorus anyway. You then have a large number of choices about how to manipulate the tune, be it ABC programs or NWC.

Here's an example of a random song from the DT:

X:1
T:Broom O'er the Cowdenknowes
C:
M:2/2
L:1/8
Q:160
K:G
D6 E2 |D6 D2 |D C3 B, A,3 |G,6 D2 |
w: Oh, the broom, the bon-ny bon-ny broom, The
G6 G A |(B2 A2) (G2 F2) |(E8 |F8) |
w: broom o'er the Cow-_ den-_ knowes!_
G4 G A3 |B4 B2 A2 |G6 C2 |D8 |C4 C2 C2 |
w: Fain would I be in the North Coun-try, Herd-ing her
D4 (C B,3) |A,8 |
w: fath-ers_ ewes.

Regards, John