The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #122194   Message #2680644
Posted By: Geoff the Duck
15-Jul-09 - 08:22 AM
Thread Name: Tech: convert ABC to MusicXML?
Subject: RE: BBC Radio 4 features abc
Just a slight technical sidetrack.
One of the biggest advantages of ABC is that it can be fairly easily looked at and the content understood following a relatively small learning curve.
That said, I have just started playing with a couple of free score editing programmes, which give greater flexibility of layout than the ABC converting tools at concertina.net. The two programmes are Muse Score, which is cross-platform, and NoteEdit which is a Linux programme, although I discovered that I could run it when in Windows by installing it via Portable_Ubuntu_for_Windows.
NoteEdit will EXPORT files in ABC format, but will not import ABC (this may possibly change in future versions, but perhaps not). On the other hand, both NoteEdit and Muse Score (and other commercial programmes) import and export MusicXML which, as previously noted, althouh very versatile, is NOT easy to look at and "visualise" what the music would sound like. It is however more portable between different programmes than ABC.
Does anyone know of any method to convert ABC to MusicXML? Both are text based, but I cannot see any sensible way that I could convert sections of text from simple ABC to long lists of MusicXML. I could do it long-hand e.g. making an HTML table with sets of MusicXML note descriptions displayed alongside the ABC equivalent, and then copy and paste the appropriate choice into a notepad style document, but something like that would probably be more effort than visiting concertina.net and converting the ABC to a PDF of the dots, and then manually re-writing the notes into the score programme.
I would do it myself, but I am not a computer programmer and haven't really had much dealings with the idea since Sinclair Basic on my ZX81 and Spectrum. I don't understand the terminology, or how modern programming is organised, so wouldn't know where to start, and couldn't ask a programmer because I do not have the technical vocabulary to understand a reply in "Geekspeak".
Any thoughts folks?
Quack!
GtD.