ABC versus Standard Notation

Subject: RE: ABC versus Standard Notation
From: Jack Campin
Date: 19 Jun 18 - 11:10 AM

Another angle on the relationship between ABC and staff notation: there are many different dialects of staff notation, and you can use ABC as a common underlying coding for all of them.

Changing clef is a matter of a line or two in the header.

Changing between different conventions for bagpipe music (no key signature or two-sharps-and-a-natural; stem directions as in standard notation or as in pipe tune books) is even easier.

A bit further out, and Barfly can generate Gregorian chant notation from the same notes as it uses for conventional staff notation (though to take full advantage of that you will want to use Phil's added syntax for the special symbols in chant).

Generating non-staff notations like Curwen solfa or Byzantine chant notation is harder, but could be done if a sufficiently determined programmer took an interest. There are packages for some of these using TeX, and ABC to TeX was the original ABC implementation, so some TeX-head could surely do it.

Subject: RE: ABC versus Standard Notation
From: Stanron
Date: 19 Jun 18 - 01:43 PM

Hi GUEST,Jon

That Lilypond file is interesting. Do you actually write the files in text form as you can do for ABC?. I can see a bit of how it works but the beaming is not what I would expect to see for 6/8 time. Although I can see notes, chord symbols abd bar lines I can't see how the beaming is done. Is there Lilypond tutorial stuff like the ABC tutorials?

I had it installed on a computer once but never figured out how to use it. All I knew was it was a Command Line program.

Subject: RE: ABC versus Standard Notation
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 19 Jun 18 - 01:54 PM

Hi Stanron.

My only sort of experience if you can call it that comes from times at folkinfo. I did go through times of wondering what other systems may offer as well as, eg. wondering whether our choice of abcm2ps for abc conversions was right, etc.

As such (and as a non sight reader) my only encounters have been to try to get a brief understanding as to where and for who it might be useful...

That lilypond file was a straight conversion from abc using the command line abc2ly program. From there, this time, I used frescobaldi which along with lilypond should be available on your (I can't remember which one but I'm pretty sure you are a linux user) distribution. That will allow you to preview and edit (although mine was straight copy/paste) as well as produce a pdf output without using the command line.

Hope that helps a touch.

Subject: RE: ABC versus Standard Notation
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 19 Jun 18 - 02:27 PM

Oh and yes,it is plain text input.

Subject: RE: ABC versus Standard Notation
From: Stanron
Date: 19 Jun 18 - 02:46 PM

Jon

In the interval I have downloaded Lilypond and found a tutorial .pdf file. I have now downloaded frescobaldi as well and I can see I will have some experimenting to do.

Cheers

Stan

Subject: RE: ABC versus Standard Notation
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 19 Jun 18 - 02:49 PM

Good luck. Let us know how you find it.

Subject: RE: ABC versus Standard Notation
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 19 Jun 18 - 03:34 PM

LilyPond is an old music typesetting utility and its input language. Nowadays it competes against other inexpensive methods of input, often found easier to use, and a file format MusicXML that is much more sophisticated (being relieved of the burden of easy editability by a human user).

ABC, in contrast, was designed as a music definition language. Typesetting is considered secondary, thus (last time I checked) it does not cater for many details of layout. It is well suited for sharing tunes and simple arrangements on Mudcat. When I want perfect sheet music from an existing ABC source, I import it to my wysiwyg software via abc2xml for a "final" touch.

Subject: RE: ABC versus Standard Notation
From: Stanron
Date: 19 Jun 18 - 03:42 PM

Hi GUEST,Jon

I've just noticed that the Lilypond version of the Kesh is not the same as the ABC. The Lilypond version is displaying some notes an octave low. I was trying to reset the beaming but ran into problems that might be due to the chord symbols. I'll come back to it all tomorrow.

Stan

Subject: RE: ABC versus Standard Notation
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 19 Jun 18 - 04:03 PM

Hi Stan, I guess that just highlights difficulties a non sight reader like me can have with these things. I just took it as right...

For a comparison, I've placed an abcm2ps to pdf conversion of the abc at http://www.jonbanjo.com/temp/kesh1.pdf.

I'd think the problems lie with abc2ly.

Subject: RE: ABC versus Standard Notation
From: Stanron
Date: 19 Jun 18 - 04:14 PM

Just to correct my last post, your pdf of the Kesh is fine but when I put the .ly file into frescobaldi the octave errors showed. Beaming in a jig usually shows two triplet beats. Ideally that should be corrected.

Grishka

I find ABC much simpler to use for accessing the great collections of folk tunes on line. I will experiment with Lilypond out of curiosity. For serious scoring, like notation plus guitar tab, I use Musescore.

Cheers

Stan.

Subject: RE: ABC versus Standard Notation
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 19 Jun 18 - 04:26 PM

Stan, it doesn't look as if abc2ly is maintained and it may be dropped.

I've tried a more roundabout route: abc2musicxml then musicxml2ly here:

\version "2.18.2"
  % automatically converted by musicxml2ly from kesh.xml
  
  \header {
      source = "John B. Walsh Session Tunes"
      encoder = "abc2xml version 84"
      encodingdate = "2018-06-19"
      title = "The Kesh Jig"
      }
  
  \layout {
      \context { \Score
          autoBeaming = ##f
          }
      }
  PartPOneVoiceOne =  \relative d' {
      \key g \major \time 6/8 | % 1
      \mark \markup { \box { A } } \repeat volta 2 {
          d8 s8*5 | % 2
          g4. g8 [ a8 b8 ] | % 3
          a8 [ b8 a8 ] a8 [ b8 d8 ] | % 4
          e8 [ d8 d8 ] g8 [ d8 d8 ] | % 5
          e8 [ d8 b8 ] d8 [ b8 a8 ] | % 6
          g4. g8 [ a8 b8 ] | % 7
          a8 [ b8 a8 ] a8 [ b8 d8 ] | % 8
          e8 [ d8 d8 ] g8 [ d8 b8 ] | % 9
          a8 [ g8 fis8 ] g4 }
      s8 | \barNumberCheck #10
      \mark \markup { \box { B } } \repeat volta 2 {
          | \barNumberCheck #10
          a8 s8*5 | % 11
          b4. d8 [ b8 d8 ] | % 12
          e8 [ g8 e8 ] d8 [ b8 g8 ] | % 13
          b4. d8 [ b8 g8 ] | % 14
          a8 [ b8 a8 ] a8 [ g8 a8 ] | % 15
          b8 [ a8 b8 ] d8 [ b8 d8 ] | % 16
          e8 [ g8 e8 ] d8 [ b8 d8 ] | % 17
          g8 [ fis8 g8 ] a8 [ g8 a8 ] | % 18
          b8 [ g8 fis8 ] g4 }
      }
  
  PartPOneVoiceOneChords =  \chordmode {
      \repeat volta 2 {
          \repeat volta 2 {
              | % 1
              s2. | % 2
              g4.:5 s8 s8 s8 | % 3
              d8:5 s8 s8 s8 s8 s8 | % 4
              g8:5 s8 s8 s8 s8 s8 | % 5
              g8:5 s8 s8 d8:5 s8 s8 | % 6
              g4.:5 s8 s8 s8 | % 7
              d8:5 s8 s8 s8 s8 s8 | % 8
              g8:5 s8 s8 s8 s8 s8 | % 9
              d8:5 s8 s8 g4:5 }
          s8 | \barNumberCheck #10
          s2. | % 11
          g4.:5 s8 s8 s8 | % 12
          c8:5 s8 s8 g8:5 s8 s8 | % 13
          g4.:5 s8 s8 s8 | % 14
          d8:5 s8 s8 s8 s8 s8 | % 15
          g8:5 s8 s8 s8 s8 s8 | % 16
          c8:5 s8 s8 g8:5 s8 s8 | % 17
          g8:5 s8 s8 d8:5 s8 s8 | % 18
          g8:5 s8 s8 s4 }
      }
  
  
  % The score definition
  \score {
      <<
          \context ChordNames = "PartPOneVoiceOneChords" \PartPOneVoiceOneChords
          \new Staff <<
              \context Staff << 
                  \context Voice = "PartPOneVoiceOne" { \PartPOneVoiceOne }
                  >>
              >>
          
          >>
      \layout {}
      % To create MIDI output, uncomment the following line:
      %  \midi {}
      }
  

It looks a bit different but...

Subject: RE: ABC versus Standard Notation
From: Stanron
Date: 19 Jun 18 - 04:40 PM

That works a lot better. The beaming is correct. There are some odd spaces, after both upbeats, and between the two repeat signs in the middle. I'll do a bit more reading tomorrow.

Stan

Subject: RE: ABC versus Standard Notation
From: Jack Campin
Date: 20 Jun 18 - 05:55 AM

I tried to find out about Lilypond recently (to work what chance there was it might work for modal microtonal music) but found my library blocks lilypond.org as a malware site. Midlothian Libraries use ForcePoint for filtering, which is a subsidiary of the war criminal company Raytheon. It seems to have a thing about sheet music sites in general.

Subject: RE: ABC versus Standard Notation
From: Will Fly
Date: 20 Jun 18 - 06:04 AM

My new Mac Book Pro also blocks Lilypond installation, as a program which has not been "approved", or is "suspect", or not from the Apple Store.

I got round that with the security settings on my Mac and took a look. Didn't really interest me, to be honest - I get excellent music printing results from the French program "Harmony Assistant", which reads and outputs ABC, midi and a whole host of other music formats.

Subject: RE: ABC versus Standard Notation
From: Jack Campin
Date: 20 Jun 18 - 08:23 AM

Midlothian Libraries don't just block installation, they block any access to the Lilypond site. I just wanted to look at their forum and ask a few questions.