ABC Notation

[Raider rider]

I have searched and cant find an explanation for this ABC notation and how its played. Could someone help me as I have seen several songs posted that I would like to learn that are in the ABC format.

Thanks and apologize for my beginner question

[John Kelly]

Have a look at this site - it has all you should need. http://abcnotation.com/ The abc is simply a text-based code in which to write the tune, and then the related software (all free to download) turns this into standard notation and also allows you to play the tune as a midi file. I use either EasyABC 1.3.3 or ABCEdit ver 4.21 for my printing of the tunes. Once you get the hang of it it's a great system and there are thousands of tunes available in abc format.

[John Flynn]

A lot of people here use TablEdit software or its free version TefView. Both can convert ABC into both notation and mandolin tab. In addition to handling ABC, these programs can directly access a lot of bluegrass, old-time and Celtic mandolin arrangements posted on Mandozine in the TablEdit file format.

The only complaint I have about TablEdit is that in earlier versions of the software it used to have a really slick interface for handling ABC. In the more recent versions, they dropped that and you have to cut and paste the ABC text into Notepad and save the file as a ".abc" file. Then you can import it. It's just a minor extra step. It's great software, though.

[DougC]

This is the best resource.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABC_notation

[Jim Garber]

I use Barfly (on the Mac) to write and notate. For quick conversion of one tune at a time there is this online ABC converter. I usually save it as a pdf for better quality and also save the midi.

[Mandophyte]

See my signature. Enjoy,

[Raider rider]

Thanks everyone. I do have Tefview already. But I am going to look st the other sites mentioned as well. I have been taking songs that I want to learn and converting over to tab and writing out the sheet music by hand. Gives me a way to get familar with the tune and all before playing. Just need to figure out how to save it into the ".abc" file. I tried it with one song and it wouldn't let me.

[John Flynn]

Thanks everyone. I do have Tefview already. But I am going to look st the other sites mentioned as well. I have been taking songs that I want to learn and converting over to tab and writing out the sheet music by hand. Gives me a way to get familar with the tune and all before playing. Just need to figure out how to save it into the ".abc" file. I tried it with one song and it wouldn't let me.

These instructions are for Windows 7:
1. Open a Notepad window (or whatever simple text editor you have - I don't like to use a full word processor, sometimes things get messed up when I do)
2. Highlight, cut and paste the ABC text into Notepad
3. Choose "Save as." It will default you to filename.txt, but change that to filename.abc. If it does something funky, like making it a filename.txt.abc, go ahead and save it and then go into the folder and rename it to a plain *.abc.
4. If you have Tefview set up to be the default program for ABC's you can just double click on the filename and it should open in Tefview. If not, you can open Tefview first and choose File>Import>Import ABC. In the explorer window that opens, find your file and click on it.
5. The file will open in Tefview. Then you can use Tefview to save it as a .tef file.

This sounds complicated, but once you've done it couple times, it goes pretty quick. The advantage it that once you have it in .tef, there is a lot you can do with it.

[Raider rider]

Thanks John, I was saving it but was getting the text.abc. file and it wouldn't read it. Didn't think to rename it in the folder. I appreciate you explaining the steps. Now to go find the songs I was looking at before.

Happy New Years everyone!