ABCs

ABC is a method of encoding music in simple text files to allow them to be shared. There is a deal of software available, mostly freeware, to allow tunes thus encoded to be played via your computers midi or to be printed as manuscript if you are clever enough to sight read.

The following artical was written by me and Alison Scott for melodeon.net .

Follow this link for my abc file .

And this link for information on finding tunes .

And this link for information on abc tools .

An Introduction to ABC Notation

Speed the Plough, written as ABC:

X: 1
T:Speed The Plough
M:4/4
L:1/8
K:G
GABc dedB | dedB dedB | c2ec B2dB | A2A2 A2 BA|
GABc dedB | dedB dedB | c2ec B2dB | A2A2 G4 ::
g2g2 g4 | g2fe dBGB | c2ec B2dB | A2A2 A4 |
g2g2 g4 | g2fe dBGB | c2ec B2dB | A2A2 G4 :|

Those who have met me will know I am a great advocate of ABC for finding and learning tunes. There are thousands of tunes available on the net and by loading mostly free software on you PC you can display the tunes as manuscript for clever people, or get your PC to play the tune for ear players.

Rather than reinvent wheels I have added links to the ABC resources I have used to hopefully help newcomers

What is ABC

ABC notation is a simple but powerful ASCII musical notation format. Devised by Chris Walshaw, ABC is widely used for the notating and distribution of tunes, particularly on the internet.

Chris’ ABC pages can be found here

One of the best resources for explaining ABC and how it works is Steve Mansfield’s LeSession ABC Tutorial.

You should also visit Frank Nordberg’s site .

What software should I use

As a Windows user my personal preference is for ABC Navigator 2 . It has the following advantages:

• It’s FREE
• It has a Windows XP look whereas many of the older packages show their DOS heritage
• It can cope with multiple directories of tunes
• It has good printing capabilities for tune books
• Its tune player allows looping of the tune and variable speed for play along
• The tune set tool is useful for trying out tune combinations

Unfortunately ABC Navigator has one downside for ABC beginners in that it has no help files or instruction manual.

Alison Scott a Mac user reports:
Barfly is probably the best abc reader for the Mac. It plays abc, displays it quite nicely as dots, and allows you to edit it in real time while watching the dots (which is essential for someone like me who has read dots for a lot longer than they've read abc). It will run on pretty much any Mac, though for those still running Classic the program is no longer maintained.

It's particularly good for creating song books, and it gives you plenty of options for fiddling to make your tunes sound 'just right'. I tend not to use any of this. I appreciate the split screen view and the comprehensive support documentation, and I like the way that it can play abc tunes inserted into the middle of text files.

Barfly is shareware; if you use it for free there is a reminder that you haven't paid for it, and the ability to print multiple tunes on one sheet is disabled; otherwise it's fully functional.

Barfly also comes with a free Concertina sound font -- free reed midi sounds are a bit thin on the ground. That's available to anyone on the website.

Where do I get the tunes

The main site I use for Tune Finding is the aptly named JC’s Tune Finder .
John Chambers has written a web crawler that seeks out ABC files and a search engine to take you to the results. Once a tune is found it will be presented as either text (to copy into ABC Nav), MIDI to play on your PC or as manuscript.

Those of you into Irish music could also try The Session which has a vast store of ITM (mind you JC’s searches The Session as one of its resorces)

ABC Convert-A-Matic

If you can’t be doing with all this technology and stuff but would like to print out an ABC tune or just listen to it, the best tool can be found at our cousins site Concertina.Net’s ABC Convert-A-Matic. Just cut the ABC from where you find it and paste it into the Convert-A-Matic and it will either play it or create manuscript.

Lester's All the Tunes abc file

As a starter for 10 here is my current ABC file, this is my live file so changes regularly,

and there is also the MASSIVE melodeon.net tune book MASSIVE melodeon.net tune book.

How to find tunes.

Collection of the knowledge on MelNet on how to find tunes. Each source list the format available at the site.

Tune Collections

• JCs Tune Finder ABC - Manuscript - MIDI
  John Chamber’s Tune Finder is probably the biggest ABC tune site on the web.
  LINK
• The Session ABC - Manuscript - MIDI
  The Session is a major source for Irish tunes
  LINK
• Henrik Norbeck's Abc Tunes ABC
  A collection of Irish and Swedish tunes
  LINK
• Concertina.net ABC - Manuscript - MIDI
  Eclectic collection of tunes
  LINK
• Lewes Favourites ABC - Noteworthy
  Collection of mostly English Tunes
  LINK
• Celtic Tunes ABC - Manuscript
  Collection of mostly Celtic Tunes
  LINK
• Nigel Gatherer’s Collection ABC
  Tunes from Scotland, Ireland, Shetland, America
  LINK
• Lionel Bacon’s Handbook of Morris Dancing ABC
  The Morris Ring’s tune bible
  LINK
• Lester’s Morris Tunes mp3
  Some 50 odd morris tunes by yours truly
  LINK
• The Contemplator MIDI
  Lesley Nelson-Burns Tunes and Songs from Scotland, Ireland, Shetland, America
  LINK
• Mudcat MIDIs MIDI
  Various MIDIs from the Mudcat Cafe
  LINK
• A Traditional Music Library Manuscript - Midi
  Large and eclectic collection of tunes and songs
  LINK
• Village Music Project Manuscript
  Transcribed versions of old manuscripts
  LINK
• Diatonia.net Manuscript – Midi - TablEdit
  Italian site where the tunes are arranged by type (Bourree, Couranta etc)
  LINK
• The Fiddler's Companion ABC
  The Fiddler's Companion but many tunes are not in melodeon friendly keys
  LINK
• Google Images Manuscript
  Lucky Dip for finding images of tunes, enter the tune name and hope
  LINK

Tune Tools

• Convert-a-matic
  On-line ABC converter outputs in MIDI and manuscript (pdf)
  LINK
• Chords Out
  Really useful tool to remove chords from ABC
  LINK
• Key Changer
  On-line key changing programme – paste in the ABC and set number of semitone to go up or down and press Submit. Also has handy little calculator to tell you how many semitones there are between Eb and C#
  LINK
• MIDI to ABC
  Tool to convert MIDIs to ABC
  LINK

Updated - 24th May 2012