Making Music with ABC 2

I’ve written a guide that explains easy methods to write music utilizing ABC 2.
It focuses on utilizing abcm2ps, abc2svg,
abcmidi, and the ABC/MusicXML translators, however a lot of the
info it comprises will be utilized (a minimum of to some extent) to
all ABC functions. Many because of Norman Schmidt who helped me
translate components of the guide.

I launch this guide below the GNU Free Documentation License 1.3.
This mainly signifies that it is free and that you may freely modify it,
so long as you make your modifications publicly obtainable.

Learn the guide right here or obtain the
newest launch (please report errors and omissions!):

• 
  
  abcplus_en-2019-12-20.zip
  
  New launch, overlaying abcm2ps-8.14.6, abc2svg 1.20.6, and
  abcMIDI-2019.12.09. The archive comprises the PDF guide and sound information.

• 
  abcplus_en-2019-12-20.tar.gz
  
  LaTeX sources.

Earlier variations:

• 
  abcplus_it-1.0.4.zip ,
  Italian model

• 
  abcplus_fr-1.0.4.zip,
  French model, kindly offered by Amaury Forgeot d’Arc

I depend on your suggestions to repair errors and omissions, and on the whole to
make this guide extra helpful. Please be happy to make translations!

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Some ABC 2 choral music

As an indication of the capabilities of ABC 2, I’ve ready a
few examples of choral sheet music. They’re free to make use of and share.
Please report bugs, do you have to discover any.

All scores embrace this choral.abc
file. MusicXML information have been created with Wim Vree’s abc2xml model
79. The sources are appropriate with each abcm2ps and abc2svg.

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An ABC bundle for LaTeX

Prof. Enrico Gregorio (College of Verona, Italy) has written a
LaTeX bundle for together with ABC/ABC Plus music in LaTeX paperwork.
Thanks so much!

The bundle is out there from all CTAN mirrors, e.g.
http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/abc/. Here is
a neighborhood copy.

• abc.zip. Model 2.0b. Documentation is
  included.

• 
  tunebook-sample.pdf Pattern tunebook
  written in LaTeX and abc.sty.

• tunebook-sample.tex LaTeX supply.

ABC command line instruments bundles

The next archives include the newest abcm2ps,
abcmidi, beep.exe, abcpp, and
abc2prt binaries for ARM Android, Home windows, and macOS:

• 
  abctools-arm-android-20210524.zip
• 
  abctools-win32-20210524.zip
• 
  abctools-osx-20210524.zip

Putting in on Android is feasible even on non-rooted units; please
confer with the included INSTALL.txt file.

Solely SVG output is usable, since Ghostscript is just not (but) obtainable on
Android; so you will need to typeset your ABC music utilizing a command
like:

$ abcm2ps -X -O= music.abc

and show the ensuing music.xhtml file with Firefox or
different browsers.

Moveable abc2svg

The nice ABC scorewriter abc2svg can be utilized
in 3 ways:

• as an internet webapp, utilizing Jean-François Moine’s
  on-line editor;

• within the command line, putting in it as an
  npm bundle;

• as an offline webapp, saving the web editor and the
  essential parts.

The latter is sort of helpful: it turns abc2svg to a transportable app
that may be run from, say, a pendrive. All you want is an online browser,
and there you’re: ABC music on the go!

The newest model of moveable abc2svg is right here:

abc2svg-1.21.0.zip

To run the abc2svg editor, unzip the archive then click on on
abc2svg.xhtml.

abc2svg Scripts

The best and most moveable solution to set up abc2svg is the
Node Bundle Supervisor NPM, which gives the
abc2svg, abc2odt, and abctopdf scripts.
Different scripts that use completely different JavaScript engines can be found,
although; for example, abcqjs is a really quick script that makes use of
QuickJS.

These GNU/Linux packages present the instructions abcjsc,
abcjs60, abcjs24, abcjs52,
abcnode, abcqjs, abcv8, and
abctopdf. A JavaScript engine should be put in; QuickJS
GNU/Linux and macOS packages are offered on your comfort.
Home windows binaries can be found

right here.

Model 1.21.0:

• 
  abc2svg-1.21.0-1.noarch.rpm – examined on Fedora 31

• 
  abc2svg-1.21.0-1.src.rpm
• 
  abc2svg_1.21.0-1_all.deb – examined on Ubuntu 18.04

• 
  quickjs-2021.03.27-1.x86_64.rpm – examined on Fedora 31

• 
  quickjs-2021.03.27-1.src.rpm
• 
  quickjs_2021.03.27-1_amd64.deb – examined on Ubuntu 18.04

• 
  quickjs-2021-03-27-osx.tar.gz

abcm2ps binaries

Among the finest implementations of ABC is definitely Jean-François
Moine’s abcm2ps, an
adaptation of Michael Methfessel’s abc2ps that may deal with
a number of voices per employees and lots of different extensions. For my part,
abcm2ps is ABC executed proper – along with folks music, it might
do numerous classical music fairly effectively! It is wonderful to see how this
little program could make professional-looking scores.

abcm2ps‘ writer gives the software program in source-only kind.
Right here you possibly can obtain binaries for Home windows, Linux, and macOS. Some
binaries have Pango help,
which gives full UTF-8 textual content rendering. Binaries with out Pango have
built-in partial UTF-8 help.

Binaries for Solar Solaris can be found
right here.

abcm2ps can embrace graphics within the rating, however solely in EPS
format (the %%EPS command). A superb program for turning
JPG, PNG and different bitmaps into compact EPS information is bmeps. For
comfort, the static Home windows command-line executable is right here: bmeps.exe

toadflax binaries

From the Toadflax
house web page:

Toadflax is a graphical software constructed utilizing GTK. It permits the person to
load in abc music notation information and work on every one independently.
The music is displayed on-screen, making it a light-weight notation
viewer. The supply will be hand-edited or reworked in varied methods
utilizing an adaptation of the abc2abc program.

Preliminary binaries can be found right here, for GNU/Linux solely on the
second. Binaries for Home windows and macOS will comply with.

Model 20210213:

• 
  toadflax-20210213-1.x86_64.rpm – examined on Fedora 31

• 
  toadflax-20210213-1.src.rpm
• 
  toadflax_20210213-1_amd64.deb – examined on Ubuntu 18.04

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abcm2ps/abc2svg extensions

An thrilling characteristic of abcm2ps and abc2svg is the
risk of writing extensions as PostScript or SVG code. A few of
the ABC information included within the abcm2ps distribution embrace
some examples of such extensions.

I’ve gathered some code and written a number of .fmt information. I
remind you that to make use of the code in exterior .fmt information one
has to put in writing this command line:

abcm2ps file.abc -F formatfile

the place formatfile refers back to the file formatfile.fmt.
Along with format information, one may additionally write so-called header
information (extension .abh) that may be included in ABC
sources utilizing %%abc-include. Optimally, they could possibly be utilized by
each abcm2ps and abc2svg.

There you’re a checklist of my .fmt information, which is able to develop as I
end writing and testing them.

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abcmidi binaries

I present win32, Linux, and macOS binaries for this essential
piece of software program, whose authentic house web page is
http://abc.sourceforge.net/abcMIDI/. The newest model is
obtainable as supply from
http://ifdo.ca/~seymour/runabc/top.html.

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EasyABC

EasyABC loading an ABC assortment. Click on to enlarge.

EasyABC is an open supply ABC editor for Home windows, macOS and Linux. It
makes use of abcm2ps and abc2midi, and it has a wealthy characteristic checklist. Most
notably, it might import MusicXML information and export tunes in SVG format.

Kudos to Nils Liberg, authentic writer, and to Seymour Shlien, present
maintainer!

EasyABC sources and binaries for Home windows and macOS will be downloaded
from this web page:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/easyabc/files/

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JedABC

	A.okay.a. ABC mode for Jed. Click on to enlarge.
	JedABC in index mode. Click on to enlarge.

JedABC is an extension to the
Jed editor
that turns it into a strong and straightforward to make use of IDE (Built-in Growth
Setting) for ABC information, with full integration with preprocessors,
converters, gamers and previewers. It is comparable in idea to BarFly or runabc,
with a number of benefits.

Warning: JedABC is supposed for geeks, that’s for people who find themselves
laptop proficient and are comfy enhancing information by hand.

To make use of JedABC, set up the Jed
editor first. Packages ought to exist on your platform or Linux
distribution. Home windows customers could use this binary
Jed bundle. Additionally, be sure to have GhostView and a MIDI participant
put in. Then obtain JedABC:

• abc.sl 1.18.5
• abc-latin1.sl
• abc-utf8.sl
• jedabc.html on-line documentation
• jedabc.txt assist file
• jedabc-it.txt Italian assist file
• beep.exe (for Home windows customers)
• beep.bas beep supply (compile with FreeBASIC)

Put abc.sl and jedabc.txt the place all the opposite
.sl information reside (often /usr/share/jed/lib), then edit
the system-wide jed.rc (/and so on/jed.d/05jed-common.sl on
Debian) or .jedrc in your house listing so as to add these traces:

variable abc_encoding="utf8";
% Italian customers solely
outline variable abc_language = "it";
autoload ("abc_mode", "abc");
add_mode_for_extension ("abc", "abc"); % plain ABC
add_mode_for_extension ("abc", "abp"); % ABC with abcpp macros

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abcpp

abcpp is a straightforward but highly effective preprocessor designed for, however
not restricted to, ABC music information. It gives conditional output,
macros, image renaming, and file inclusion. I wrote it for 2
causes: first, I needed to beat incompatibilities between ABC
packages; secondly, I needed to have the ability to write moveable and extra
readable ABC information.

Impressed by the C and S-Lang (
http://www.s-lang.org) preprocessor, abcpp helps some
directives that will let you play a number of tips. You write your ABC music
information with directives traces like #outline or #ifdef,
defining macros or excluding parts of textual content in line with particular
circumstances. Then you definately preprocess your file with abcpp, producing an output
file appropriate for every ABC utility or voice. Curiously,
abcpp is actively used with MusiXTeX-related packages.

In a nutshell, have your ABC cake and eat it too!

Obtain abcpp

• abcpp-1.4.5.tar.gz
  – supply.

• 
  abcpp-1.4.5-1.x86_64.rpm – binary RPM

• abcpp-1.4.5-1.src.rpm
  – supply RPM

• 
  abcpp_1.4.5-1_amd64.deb – binary for Debian

• 
  abcpp-1.4.5-win32.zip – binary for Home windows

• abcpp-1.4.5-osx.zip –
  binary + sources and documentation

The archive additionally comprises the documentation. Many because of the
builders who despatched me patches!

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abc2prt

abc2prt is a straightforward software to extract components from multivoice ABC
music information.

I wrote it as a result of it is typically fascinating to present singers their very own half
along with the entire rating. I do know that Perl scripts exist that
do the trick, and Unix customers will likely be pleased with them. Nonetheless,
putting in Perl on a Home windows machine just for working a script is
fairly an overkill.

abc2prt is a command line software. Utilization is

$ abc2prt -v voicename [inputfile] [outputfile]

If inputfile and outputfile should not specified,
abc2prt will use normal enter and normal output. An instance
is

$ abc2prt -v TII music.abc music-tii.abc

which is able to output the entire header and all of the traces that belong to
the voice outlined as V:TII, together with w: traces. At
most 5 -v fields are allowed.

If there’s sufficient request, I will write a graphical model. The
multivoice extensions have been written by Matthew Okay. Junker, junker at
alum dot mit dot edu. Many thanks, Matthew!

Obtain abc2prt

• 
  abc2prt-1.0.2.tar.gz – supply

• 
  abc2prt-1.0.2-1.x86_64.rpm – binary RPM

• 
  abc2prt-1.0.2-1.src.rpm – supply RPM

• 
  abc2prt_1.0.2-1_amd64.deb – binary for Debian

• 
  abc2prt-1.0.2-win32.zip
  – binary for Home windows

• 
  abc2prt-1.0.2-osx.zip – binary for macOS (because of
  Chuck Boody)

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My deeply felt sympathy to the Tibetan folks