Comment

Comment by Rand Moore on November 3, 2012 at 2:45pm

I tried it again with leading blank lines, and it worked. So, the problem is not leading blank lines. The Abc Converter just ignores them and when it finds more text lines, will try to process them. After it gets started, then a blank line tells the Abc Converter to stop.

-Rand.

Comment by Rand Moore on November 3, 2012 at 2:37pm

The lines which begin with "w:" are actually text lines. So, all the text following "w:" will appear in the output stream without much further processing. So, you will notice all the lyric lines begin with "w:", as do all the tab lines. The tabs are just numbers that correspond to the frets on a diatonic fretboard. If you want to adapt these diatonic tabs into chromatic tabs, just remap the diatonic fret numbers into chromatic fret numbers and update these lines of numbers. The same song with just the melody line (no lyrics, tabs, and comments or blank lines used to make the output prettier) and with only the first verse and chorus looks like this:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

X:1
T:Congo River
C:Old Sea Shanty
L:1/4
M:4/4
K:Gmaj
d | B B B/2G/2 G/2G/2 | A G E G | A2 B2 c3
e | d B c A | G D G A | B d A/2A/2 B | G3
d | B B B G | A G E G | A2 B2 c3
w:Chorus:
d | B B B G | A G E G | A2 B2 c3
e | d B c A | G/2G/2 D G A | B d A/2A/2 B | G3
d | B B B G | A G E G | A2 B2 c3
e | d B c A | G/2G/2 D G A/2A/2 | B d A/2A/2 B | G3
d | B B B G | A G E G | A2 B2 c3
e | d B c A/2A/2 | G D G A | B d A/2A/2 B | G3

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The challenge to learning the ABC music format are figuring out how standard music notation is

encoded in the lines. Middle C is indicated by a "C", and an octave up it is indicated by a lower-case "c". If C is followed by "2", then the notes default time value is doubled. If "C" is followed by "/2", then the time value is halved. So, if the default note time value is a quarter note, "C2" will yeild a half note and "C/2" will yield a quarter note. Similarly, "C4" would yeild a whole note, while "C/4" would yield a 1/16th note. A dotted note would be like "C3/2". Each "|" indicates a bar, so if you have 4/4 (common timing), and the default note value is 1/4 (quarter notes), then there should be like 4 quarter notes (or their timing equivalents) for each measure (as indicated by the vertical bars (|)).

Also, the leading (or header) information is:

X:1
T:Congo River
C:Old Sea Shanty
L:1/4
M:4/4
K:Gmaj

These lines tell the Abc Converter the name of the song, the type of song, the default time value of the notes (quarter notes, 16th notes, etc), the timing (4/4 is the same as common (C) timing), and the key of the song.

The "x:" command allows to have multiple songs listed in the same source file, and the value of x: is which song your are "searching" for. So, if you had a dozen songs in a source file, then to specify (index) the 4th song, you'd specify "x:4". But that's all too advanced. For now, just use "x:1".

There are other "commands" that could appear in the song's header.

Hopefully, this overview will help to get you started.

-Rand.

Comment by Rand Moore on November 3, 2012 at 2:08pm

Also, when copying over the song's ABC source into the line that reads "X:1" and end on the very last line that reads "w:~", and be sure not to include any leading blank lines. If, after you paste the song into the FolkInfo Abc Converter, you find any blank lines, edit them out (i.e. delete them) before clicking in the Submit button. A blank line in the Song source tells the Abc Converter to stop converting, and if that happens to be the first line, then the Abc Converter will stop before it had a chance to begin.

-Rand.

Comment by Rand Moore on November 3, 2012 at 1:41pm

Oops... I lost my link to the sourcefordge page. Here it is: Sourceforge ABC Page.

Comment by Rand Moore on November 3, 2012 at 5:19am

Hi Frank,

For starters, the tabs given here are already set up for any 1-5-8 tuning, including the popular D-A-D' and G-D-G' tunings. So, all you need to do is copy the entire ABC source and then go to the FolkInfo Abc Converter webpage and paste it into the big text box there. If you look below this big text box, you will see a lot of controls. IGNORE THEM! Find the submit button and submit the song. The Abc Converter will display a poor resolution .gif file showing the music, lyrics and tabs. Under this .gif file are three links, the middle one being "pdf". Click on this "pdf" link and it will generate a nice looking music image file in Adobe. If you print that, the music will be applicable to any 1-5-8 tuned diatonically fretted 3-stringer.

If you want to adapt the tabs for use with another non-1-5-8 tuning, then you are on your own. This means, it's up to you to learn the ABC music format, something that you can learn by using Google or some other search engine and use "ABC music format" as the search criteria. The link I use for reference is the Sourceforge pages. I also recall there were a couple ABC music format tutorial sites, which you can find by adding "tutorial" to your search criteria.

There is also JC ABC Tune Finder which you can use to find simple songs like Mary Had A Little Lamb. You can use that as a "starter" song to try to figure out how the ABC format works. I started with simple songs and experimented with the command documented on the websites mentioned in the previous paragraph, and with time developed the format that I'm using with these songs. I think you can do it, just pace yourself and adapt it to songs that you want to work on. It does require a bit of a self-starter personality. I can't hold everyone's hand through the learning process. What I like about the ABC format is that it is "low tech", portable, and the resulting code is text oriented, and easy enough to read that you can almost forgo the traditional music notation (with experience, of course) and read the music directly from the source. To me it's also simple because I used to work as a computer programmer. Maybe for your average Joe, it's not so simple.

-Rand.

Comment by frank tennyson on November 3, 2012 at 2:31am

OK now I looked at the FAQ on the site and it did not tell me how to read the ABC format,  so none of this makes any sense at all. Had a teacher who liked to say an ink pen was useless to a chimp since the chimp could not figure out how to "flick his Bick". Could you add link to a site that explains the ABC notations?  And If I am using a 3-string tuned GDG or a 4-string tined GDGb [etc.] what choices would I make as far as instuments given [etc.] would I make?