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Subject: abc notation From: The Sandman Date: 07 Jul 26 - 04:33 AM ABC notation is a simple way to write music using computer text. Its main flaws are a steep text-reading curve, poor support for complex details, and lack of visual flow. It is best for simple melodies, not full orchestras.Here are the main disadvantages of ABC notation:Hard to read quickly: Standard sheet music is like an analog clock; you see the note's height instantly. ABC uses letters (like C, D, E). You have to read the text and decode it to know the pitch or duration.Lacks complex details: ABC struggles with intricate classical elements. It is hard to write complex tuplets (groups of notes played in an unusual rhythm) or specific grace note placements.Bad for large groups: It is made for single melodies. It does not handle full orchestra parts, multiple key signatures at the same time, or overlapping voice parts very well.No automatic layout: Traditional notation software auto-formats pages. In ABC, you have to type commands to space out notes, add barlines, or control accidentals (sharps and flats). This can cause errors.Software required: You cannot just hand a piece of ABC text to most musicians. You need to use a site or app (like abcjs or ABC Explorer. |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: Long Firm Freddie Date: 07 Jul 26 - 04:47 AM Michael Eskin's ABC Transcription Tools has moved things on a lot. From the introduction: ABC Transcription Tools is a free, web-based, open-source platform for anyone who works with traditional music—players, teachers, arrangers, and tune collectors. It transforms ABC, MusicXML, BWW, and MIDI files into beautiful standard notation and tablature for many different instruments, right in your browser. ABC Transcription Tools LFF |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: The Sandman Date: 07 Jul 26 - 04:58 AM ABC notation is a simple, text-based way to write music using normal letters and symbols on your keyboard. Its main advantages are that it is very easy to share via email, takes up almost no space on your computer, and can instantly turn into standard sheet music. But you have to have a computer, So if you are giving lessons n in the real woprld it is just as quick to write out in sheet music with pencil and paper or to teach by ear. personally i do not want pupils bringing smartphones to lessons, they are a distraction |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: Johnny J Date: 07 Jul 26 - 05:04 AM Yes, "ABC" is just really a short hand way of passing on tunes etc. Some people can read and play it without converting same but that's not really its purpose. The idea is to convert it to standard notation either manually or by a program designed for this purpose. I find it very useful myself and it is a very cheap way of compiling sheet music without the need for expensive programs. Even the basic converter on The Session.org is fine for most simple tunes but, as LFF says, there are even more sophisticated options. There is also much which can be done with "ABC" and you can actually do much more with it as regards more complicated arrangements although I like to keep things fairly simple. However, it's best to think of it as a "Tool" as opposed to a substitute for the real thing. i.e. either as a means of constructing standard notation or condensing it into a format so that it can be easily passed on. When the program was first designed, it was mainly passed on by e-mail etc. However, similar and less sophisticated forms existed even before that and it was basically just like a form of "short hand" between musicians. |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: GUEST,Grishka Date: 07 Jul 26 - 10:56 AM According to the inventor, ABC was originally meant to be used with pencil and paper, in a very long tradition of text-based notation models. These have always been "digital", thus less error-prone than graphic notation, and taking up less paper and time to write. Many famous composers would have profited. Nowadays, however, we often travel without pencil and paper, so we have to use our smartphones. |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: Jack Campin Date: 07 Jul 26 - 11:47 AM Translation: look at me, Mum. |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: GUEST,Howard Jones Date: 07 Jul 26 - 04:47 PM Its advantages are that you can share tunes online as text, without having to scan pages or attach files, and in a format anyone can use without needing specific software. It is easy to transpose, and you can play it back. Tune collections can easily be searched. There are free programs as well as Michael Eskin's excellent online resource to convert it to standard notation. It is capable of representing anything in standard notation (including rhythm, although perhaps in the other thread you were referring to the different system used in Ireland for teaching). I agree it is not well-suited to complex classical music (although the late Flos Headford transcribed "The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba" into ABC, just to show it could be done). However for folk tunes it is ideal. Once you have got the hang of it it is no more difficult to use than other score writers, and easier than many. |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: The Sandman Date: 08 Jul 26 - 01:21 AM i often teavel with paper and pencil, in case i have an idea for a song or to do a cross word or soduku, anything that relies upon a computer for it to work at its best is flawed |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: GUEST,.gargoyle Date: 08 Jul 26 - 01:46 AM Mr Howard Jones - I agree with you...100%. Awkward part part is harmony. Mr Sandman ... I am shocked, that YOU of all people should initiate these series of threads. Sincerely, GARGOYLE Only within the last twelve months do I see your situation. |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: The Sandman Date: 08 Jul 26 - 02:02 AM Ewan MacColl achieved much with pencil and paper, no smartphones for him |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: Johnny J Date: 08 Jul 26 - 03:27 AM You can use "ABC" with pen and paper though. That's how it first started. It's just a case of being able to translate from one format to the other and you can do that by hand quite easily too if you have the time and patience. Yes, you can could just as easily compile the standard notation from scratch but that takes up more space and you have draw to lines, bars and all sorts. If you've got time, that's OK. The "ABC" is more transportable too and a reason it caught on in the early days of home computing was that it could be easily sent by e-mail and so on. The tech wasn't there to compile sheet music to send by e-mail back then . It was all very basic. As I said, I know people who use "ABC" as they do sheet music i.e. "sight read" from the code. Personally, I wouldn't do that as it's so simple just to convert it back to standard notation. Either manually or with a program. You don't need a computer to do this and it can just as easily be done by hand as long as you know the theory. |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: Nick Dow Date: 08 Jul 26 - 04:22 AM Just caught up with this thread. Looking forward to trying out the link above, |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: Jack Campin Date: 08 Jul 26 - 05:13 AM You don't need anything as posh as paper. I've demonstrated ABC using a slate. |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: DaveRo Date: 08 Jul 26 - 06:09 AM A related thread from April 24 Tech: New standard needed for posting melodies which also includes discussion of other systems and ABC software. |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: The Sandman Date: 08 Jul 26 - 07:01 AM lear to read music it is not difficult, and learn to develop your ear. ABC IS CRAP UNLESS YOU HAVE A COMPUTER THERFORE IT IS INFERIOR |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: The Sandman Date: 08 Jul 26 - 07:04 AM ABC is worse than guitar tab guitar tab tells you where to put your fingers, abc without a computer is even less informative, noe of those tells you how to interpret, that requires listening |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: Manitas_at_home Date: 08 Jul 26 - 07:35 AM ABC works perfectly well without a computer because it's text based, not digital. You don't need a computer to write or read text so you don't need one to write or read ABC. There are computer tools to help you convert ABC to other formats or to read or write ABC but these are analogous to dictation and reading tools. They don't tie ABC to computers. |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: Mick Pearce (MCP) Date: 08 Jul 26 - 07:41 AM Horses for courses Dick. I play classical guitar. If I play a Bach lute suite, I play from a standard score, not abc (though if I had the will, and no life, I could convert the score to abc!) And I have played tunes directly from the abc - it's not really that hard. When I post a song to Mudcat, a text-based forum, I post the melody as abc. It's the best option - you can put the melody right there in the post. Alternatives would involve Mudcat uploading and storing a pdf or image/music file of the tune. More work for everybody, more space usage for Mudcat. The one really useful thing to have would be if Mudcat could convert, or pass to a converter, selected abc code in a post so you could see it as a score. But Max has enough on his plate keeping this place going without adding to his load; I can copy and paste to external converters or run abcm2ps on my own machine. On a topic in your original post, despite your assertion about tuplets, abc can handle any tuplets just fine. In another thread ,a long time ago, after some discussion with Jack on these matters, I posted - only as an example, I wouldn't recommend it at all in general - the abc for the first 2 bars of Ferneyhough's Bone Alphabet, which had a 7 line staff, 2 voices, and nested tuplets (4s inside 6s), all doable: BBC Radio 4 features abc |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: Jack Campin Date: 08 Jul 26 - 09:15 AM I wrote this tune down in the white space of a Slovak paper railway ticket while noodling on an electronic bagpipe at a station.
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: The Sandman Date: 08 Jul 26 - 10:03 AM if a person can read and write music already why on earth would they use ABC THE TREBLE AND BASS CLEF in standard music notation is used in many countries, In traditional music theory, most countries in the world use the solfège naming convention Do–Re–Mi–Fa–Sol–La–Si, including for instance Italy, Portugal, Spain, France, Poland, Romania, most Latin American countries, Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey, Russia, and all the Arabic-speaking or Persian-speaking countries. abc is for people with money who can afford computers and for computer geeks |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: Manitas_at_home Date: 08 Jul 26 - 10:12 AM And for writing on Dusty Windowsills? |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: The Sandman Date: 08 Jul 26 - 10:43 AM the dusty window sill is a fine tune best learned by ear |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: Mick Pearce (MCP) Date: 08 Jul 26 - 10:49 AM In the interest of full openness, while I post song tunes to Mudcat in abc, I invariable notate them in staff notation in Musescore or Dorico first, and then I usually just write the abc from the score. (I find converters, usually via intermediate music xml, put in a lot of extraneous stuff. I find it simpler just to write the abc directly.) |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: gillymor Date: 08 Jul 26 - 11:00 AM If I can't get something by ear I'll take the std. notation to EasyABC convert it and get the tab at Eskin, in any key that suits me. I've used it often enough that I can write abc without the software if I'm away from the computer and using it has improved my sight reading skills as well. |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: Jack Campin Date: 08 Jul 26 - 11:42 AM As to why - Slovak train tickets don't come printed with music staves. |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: GUEST,Errr.. Date: 08 Jul 26 - 11:50 AM ... it's called 'Dusty Windowsills'! |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: Tattie Bogle Date: 08 Jul 26 - 01:09 PM I know it is widely used for sharing tunes on the session.org but this site now provides standard notation as well. (Of varying credibility! You get to know which transcribers to trust!) I’m also aware of the valuable work done by Michael Eskin, not just re notating tunes, but also his tutorials on playing the B/C buttonbox, especially the basses. But having said all that, I have never really found a need to get to grips with ABC, as I learned to read standard notation (treble and bass clef) at a very early age, and that is my first “go to”. On occasion, I have been at a song workshop, with no means of audio recording a song tune, (pre owning a smartphone!) so have either used my own very simple version of ABC, or if I have manuscript paper with me, I can write the tune down almost as quickly. |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: Jack Campin Date: 08 Jul 26 - 02:15 PM There is a very good chance that any "standard notation" you see here was created in ABC and generated directly from it with no goose quills being harmed in the process. |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: GUEST,Grishka Date: 08 Jul 26 - 02:30 PM @Manitas_at_home: Text, whether on paper or elsewhere, is "digital" in the sense that it relies on a (hopefully small) set of distinct characters. Graphical notation scribbled by hand can be ambiguous by the fact that it is sometimes impossible to decide whether a given dot is on the line or above it. Now you may argue that scribbled text can also be ambiguous, e.g. "g" confused with "9", but usually it is easy to avoid such cases. To sum up:
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: The Sandman Date: 08 Jul 26 - 04:38 PM Everyone should be allowed to express an opinion provided they remain polite. |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: Jack Campin Date: 08 Jul 26 - 04:38 PM Written ABC has a couple of annoyances like that. The worst is not telling a C from a c when you're writing in pencil (which I have done for hundreds of pages in libraries). The Roman character set doesn't do case distinctions right. |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: GUEST,The Sandman Date: 09 Jul 26 - 03:17 AM Because ABC appears to be the one that is best supported by software, that means it is only the best if you have a computer or the money to have a computer, it is not necessarily the best for those in the third world or those without the money for a computer, the cost of pencil and sheet music is far less. and imo learning by ear and developing musical ear is the number one skill for traditional musicians |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: GUEST,The Sandman Date: 09 Jul 26 - 03:38 AM The advantage of ABC notation even in its most basic form is that it can be written in musical phrases, yes, phrasing can be marked in sheet music too, but often on sites like the session it is not |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: GUEST,Howard Jones Date: 09 Jul 26 - 09:19 AM Those complaining that ABC needs a computer are missing the point. That's like complaining that a word processor or email requires a computer. ABC is a means of writing musical notation on a computer. It is like MuseScore or Sibelius, but (for simple folk tunes anyway, which is what it was intended for) it is often easier to use, and completely free. That it does so using normal text which can also be read without a computer or written on a piece of paper is a bonus. Some people can sight-read direct from ABC text, but most use it to generate conventional musical notation with a computer. It is not ABC versus notation, ABC is means of creating notation. It may perhaps be quicker to write out a tune in notation on a piece of paper, and of course if you have no access to a computer of any kind then paper is the only option. However a piece of paper has many limitations. You cannot play it back, you cannot transpose it without writing it out again, you cannot quickly and conveniently share it online, you cannot quickly search through a collection of tunes using different criteria. ABC generates a printed score which will nearly always be more legigble than a hand-written one. Even if you need to use paper, ABC offers a syntax for conveying full musical information in a form you can jot on the back of a beermat (without having to try to rule out staff lines) and then simply copy once you have access to a computer. Since this misunderstanding seems to crop up time and time again, I will repeat it: ABC is not an alternative to musical notation, it is a way of writing musical notation on a computer, which then allows you to process the information in various ways, play the tune and print it out as standard notation. |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: GUEST,The Sandman Date: 09 Jul 26 - 10:19 AM abc was originally used on paper before computers were being used, and is still used via paper as an alternative to sheet music. abc is a means of writing musical notation, i can remember it being used 35 years ago, you are incoorect if you are saying it is a way of writing musical notation on a computer, only. ABC was being used an alternative to musical notation,in the early 1990s on paper regrdless of computers |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: gillymor Date: 09 Jul 26 - 10:32 AM Here's an idea, The Sandman, if you don't like it don't use it. |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: GUEST,Howard Jones Date: 09 Jul 26 - 11:47 AM Systems for using text to represent music have indeed been around for a long time. I believe Chris Walshaw (who created the version of ABC we are discussing) originally developed it to write on paper but then adapted it for use with computers. Computers and pencil and paper serve different purposes. Which one is better than the other depends on the circumstances and your reasons for wanting to write down the tune. |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: GUEST Date: 09 Jul 26 - 12:05 PM gillymor, I have pOinted out advantages and disadvantages. Howard, computers and pencil and paper serve the same purpose communication Gillymor Here's an idea,Be respectful: Keep discussions friendly, on-topic, and civil |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: gillymor Date: 09 Jul 26 - 12:09 PM You've been repeating the same arguments over and down and doing a bit of uncivil yelling. |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: The Sandman Date: 09 Jul 26 - 01:30 PM Gillymor Here's an idea,Be respectful: Keep discussions friendly, on-topic, and civil, I do occasionally use ABC, But I prefer learning by ear and sheet music that is my privilege. I remember guitar tab and how even when it had been learned it was important to listen to the performer, stefan groosman tab of blues man John Hurt is an excellenr example of its inadequacies the same applies to ABC and sheet music |
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Subject: RE: abc notation From: gillymor Date: 09 Jul 26 - 02:04 PM Here is you from up the thread "ABC IS CRAP UNLESS YOU HAVE A COMPUTER THERFORE IT IS INFERIOR". So others need to be civil but you are exempt. |
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