Guide to writing abc for abc2midi --------------------------------- The defining document for abc is the abc version 1.6 specification which can be found at http://www.gre.ac.uk/~c.walshaw/abc2mtex/abc.txt . This document is a description of abc as interpreted by abc2midi. An abc tune consists of a header followed by a body. Each line in the header is a different field starting with a letter immediately followed by : and then the text of the field. The body of the tune contains lines of music, though it may also contain certain fields. The end of the tune is marked by a blank line (so blank lines cannot appear within the tune header or body). Comments are allowed in both the header and the body. A comment starts with a % sign and continues to the end of the line. A comment may be on a line of its own or at the end of a line of abc. The header should look something like this : X:1 T:The Rose Tree M:4/4 L:1/8 Q:1/4=120 K:G X: is the reference number (each tune in a file should have a unique reference number). T: is the title of the tune, M: is the time signature, L: is the unit note length and K: is the key signature. Q: is the tempo field. In the above example the tempo is given as 120 quarter-notes per minute. X: must be the first field and K: must be the last field in the header. It is advisable to write the fields M:, L: and Q: in that order. The reason for this is that M: can set up a unit note length which L: over-rides and the tempo field Q: can be written in other forms that depend on unit note length. This order makes the meaning clear and unambiguous. The original abc specification gives a rule for computing a default value for the unit note length from the M: field. abc2midi only uses this rule for choosing a unit note length in the header if the L: field has been omitted. Other fields may also appear in the header. Common ones are C: composer of the tune, D: discography, H: history of the tune, S: source, N: notes, Z: transcription note, A: area from which the tune comes, B: book and R: rhythm. Key Signature: The K: is made up of a base note A-G possibly followed by b for flat or # for sharp. This specifies a major key. A minor key can be specified by adding an m while Mixolydian and Dorian modes can be specified by adding Mix and Dor respectively e.g. K:Eb K:EDor K:EbDor The following table relates the number of sharps or flats you see on the stave to what is in the K: field : 7 sharps: C# A#m G#Mix D#Dor 6 sharps: F# D#m C#Mix G#Dor 5 sharps: B G#m F#Mix C#Dor 4 sharps: E C#m BMix F#Dor 3 sharps: A F#m EMix BDor 2 sharps: D Bm AMix EDor HP Hp 1 sharp : G Em DMix ADor 0 sharps: C Am GMix DDor 1 flat : F Dm CMix GDor 2 flats : Bb Gm FMix CDor 3 flats : Eb Cm BbMix FDor 4 flats : Ab Fm EbMix BbDor 5 flats : Db Bbm AbMix EbDor 6 flats : Gb Ebm DbMix AbDor 7 flats : Cb Abm GbMix DbDor As an extension, abc2midi also recognizes "Maj" for Major "Min" for Minor, "Phr" for Phrygian, "Lyd" for Lydian, "Aeo" for Aeolian and "Loc" for Locrian. Thus CMaj, EPhr, FLyd, AAeo and BLoc will all generate a stave with no sharps or flats. If you use one of these modes in the key signature, it is recommended that you add a comment giving the number of sharps or flats for the benefit of other people who may not be familiar with modes. e.g. K: DLoc % 3 flats The key signature may be followed by modifiers. A modifier consists of ^^, ^ =, _ or __ followed by a-g. As an example, ^a means every a should be played sharp unless otherwise marked in the music. This over-rides whatever has been set by the key signature. e.g. K: C ^a Another extension of the K: field is that it can include a clef specifier an octave specifier and a transpose specifier e.g. K:G clef=soprano octave=-1 transpose=-1 The clef is recognized by typesetting programs such as yaps and abc2mps and in some situations it will cause abc2midi to transpose the notes up or down by an octave. Recognized clefs are treble, bass, baritone, tenor, alto, mezzo and soprano. There are also variants of these clefs; treble-8, tenor-8, treble+8 covering ranges which are an octave below and an octave above the normal treble clef. Other variants are not recognized at this time. No transposition is assumed for the bass clef since many abc files enter the notes with all the commas. The octave specifier is a convenience to make entering music easier. It allows the user to avoid repeatedly entering commas or apostrophes when entering a sequence of low or high notes. Both yaps and abc2midi will transpose the notes by the specified number of octaves during the parsing stage. e.g. the passage B,,, C,, D,, E,, F,, could be written more compactly as I:octave=-2 B, C D E F I:octave=0 Some instruments such as the Bb clarinet automatically transpose the written music. For example in the case of the clarinet, the music is written in the key of C but the instrument plays it in the key of Bb. For multivoiced tunes, the %%MIDI transpose indication is not that useful since it transposes all the voices by the specified amount. The transpose=n subcommand in the K: field tells abc2midi to transpose a particular voice by n semitones without affecting how it appears in the printed score. For example for the tune, X:1 T:tranposing M:1/8 L:2/4 K:C V:1 K:C transpose=-1 CDEF|GABc| V:2 K:C CDEF|GABc V:1 CDEF|GABc| V:2 CDEF|GABc Voice 1 will be played one semitone lower than indicated. Voice indication: Many multivoiced abc files now use the V: indication to specify additional information such as the clef, name of the voice (to appear in the score). Furthermore, the V: indication may occur in the header (i.e. before the first K: indication), for the sole purpose of specifying such information. Abc2midi, yaps and abc2abc now recognizes the subfields octave=, clef= and transpose= in the V: field and treats them in the same manner as if they occurred in a K: field (as discussed above). Thus the V: field may appear as V: 1 clef=treble+8 or [V: 3 transpose=3] The V: field is also recognized in both the body and header of the abc file. Note that not all abc applications may recognize these extensions, so you use them at the risk that they may not be treated as expected in some cases. Also in the event that there is a conflicting indication in either the voice or key signature field, eg. [V: 1 clef=transpose+8 octave=-1] the clef indication predominates. The Body of the Tune -------------------- Following the header is the tune. This is a textual notation for the things you might see on a stave : Notes: A note consists of a pitch specifier followed by a length. Available pitch specifiers are : C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C D E F G A B c d e f g a b c' d' e' f' g' a' b' This covers 4 octaves. abc2midi allows lower octaves to be reached by adding extra , characters and higher octaves to be reached by adding extra ' characters. However, this is not standard abc and may not be supported by other abc utilities. You can raise or lower the pitch specifier a semitone by preceding it with ^ or _ respectively. The key signature and preceding sharps, flats and barlines modify the default pitch in the same way as on a stave. Preceding a note with = generates natural pitch and ^^ and __ can be used for double sharp and double flat respectively. The length is in general specified by a fraction following the pitch specifier. However, the notation is made more concise by allowing much of the fraction to be omitted. C - selects a note of 1 unit note length. C2 - selects a note of 2 unit note lengths. C/2 - selects a note of 1/2 unit note length. C3/4 - selects a note of 3/4 unit note length. C/ is allowed as an abbreviation of C/2. C// is allowed as an abbreviation of C/4. However, this is not standard notation and is not allowed by all abc programs. No space is allowed within a note, but space may be used to separate notes in the tune. Rests are written by using 'z' as the pitch specifier. z3 - a rest of 3 unit note lengths. Multiple bar rests can be created using 'Zn' where n is the number of bars rest required. This is an extension to the standard syntax. Placing a dot before a note causes it to be played staccato. (.e) Placing a M before a note indicates legato. (Me) Placing a H before a note indicates a fermata. (He) Placing a T before a note indicates that this note is trilled. (Te) Placing a R before a note indicates that this note is rolled. (Re) Alternatively you may put !fermata! or !trill! before the note. Other decorations have not been implemented in this manner. Combining notes Three notes of the same length can be turned into a triplet by prefixing them with (3. This has the effect of multiplying the note lengths by 2/3. A chord can be represented by bracketting the notes together within [ and ] e.g. [a2e2]. An older notation which is also supported is to use + symbols e.g. +a2e2+. The - symbol can be used to tie together notes of the same pitch e.g. a2-a; this is equivalent to a3. From version 1.4 of abc2midi, the support of tuples and chords is extended to include general tuple notation (p:q:r , [ and ] for chords and a more flexible system of interpreting chords. (p:q:r means play the next r notes at q/p of their notated value. Thus (3:2:3 is equivalent to an ordinary triplet (3 . It is possible in abc to write notes of different lengths within a chord e.g. [ab2] . In this case, abc2midi takes the length of the first note (or rest) in a chord is taken as the time before the next note is played. However, if the music is to be typeset, this notation should be avoided because the output will be ambiguous. Instead, the same effect can be achieved using tied notes e.g. [ab2] c is equivalent to [ab-] [bc]. A tie sign is always assumed to belong to the immediately previous note. A run of 2 or more different notes may be grouped together in a slur. This usually means that the notes are to be played together as smoothly as possible. In typeset music, a slur looks very similar to a tie, but in abc, ( marks the start of a slur and ) marks the end. e.g. (ABc) . abc2midi recognizes slurs, but they have no effect on the MIDI generated. Barlines : | is an ordinary barline || is a double barline :| is "repeat last section". |: is "repeat next section". :: is "repeat last and next sections". |1 or |[1 or | [1 is "first repeat ending". :|2 or :|[2 or :| [2 is "second repeat ending". |] and [| are variants of ||. A tune with different ending for the first and second repeats has the general form: |: common body of tune |1 first ending :|2 second ending || The notation :: is short for :| followed by |: . Printed music commonly misses out a start repeat at the beginning of a tune. abc2midi will try to fix up things if you miss out a start repeat in single voice music. Where a tune starts with an anacrusis, abc2midi will always fix a repeat to start at the anacrusis rather than the first barline. It is recommended that you use matching start and end repeats rather than rely on this behaviour. Missing start repeats are not supported in multiple voice music. Also, abc2midi does not allow nested repeats. However, you can use the more versatile part notation to achieve multiple repeats. It is not unusual to see music where a repeat does not co-incide with the end of a bar and the number of beats is not quite correct if the piece is played exactly as written. A human player usually knows enough to correct the mistake themselves, but abc2midi will play exactly what is written, so care needs to be taken that this is corrected when the piece is transcribed to abc. Variant Endings --------------- abc2midi has been extended so that it understands variant endings if you use the P: part notation to repeat a section. For example, if the header of the tune contains P:A4B4 then parts A and B will each be played 4 times. To play a different ending each time, you could write P:A | [1 || [2 || [3 || [4 || The Nth ending starts with [N and ends with one of || :| |] or [|. You can also mark a section as being used for more than one ending e.g. [1,3 || plays on the 1st and 3rd endings and [1-3 || plays on endings 1, 2 and 3. In general, [ can be followed by any list of numbers and ranges as long as it contains no spaces e.g. [1,3,5-7 || [2,4,8 || Rhythm field and Broken Rhythm Notation --------------------------------------- R:hornpipe causes notes written in straight time to be played in dotted time. The symbol > can be used to achieve a similar effect. a>b is notated as a3/2b/2 but played as a4/3b2/3. The symbols < >> << >>> <<< have similar meanings: a>b is notated and played as a7/4b/4. a<>>b is notated and played as a15/8b/8. a<< using the %%MIDI ratio command described later. Beware that attempting "advanced" use of these symbols may mean your abc is not portable between different abc programs. If the notes on either side of the symbol are different lengths, this is reported as an error. If a and b are not simple notes, or if there are other complications, then it is safer to write the note lengths directly. Guitar chords : Anything in quotes is a guitar chord e.g. "A" "Gm" "B7" "Bm7" "D#aug" "Bbdim7" Guitar chords must use upper case A-G followed by optional # or b, then the name of a chord type e.g. "m", "aug", "7". abc2midi currently recognizes the following chord names : m, 7, m7, maj7, M7, 6, m6, aug, +, aug7, dim, dim7, 9, m9, maj9, M9, 11, dim9, sus, sus9, 7sus4, 7sus9, 5 You can also add your own; see the %%MIDI chordname command below. abc2midi automatically generates an accompaniment from the guitar chords. There are a number of default chord/fundamental rhythms for common time signatures which this uses, or you can set up your own. Lower case a-g followed by optional # or b will generate a single note, the fundamental, only. The chord notation also allows chords such as "G/B" or "G/b". The note following the / is interpreted in one of two ways: If the note following / does not exist as part of the given chord, it is added to the chord below the root note of the chord (G in the above example). If the note following / does exist in the chord, then the notes of the chord are re-arranged so that it becomes the lowest pitch note of the chord. This is known as an inversion of the chord. It does not matter whether the note following the / is upper or lower case. They are both treated the same. This notation has been extended so that finger numbers "1" "2" "3", "4" or "5" are allowed. abc2midi ignores these, but a typesetting program might support them. You may find some abc tunes that abuse this notation and use quotes for things that are not guitar chords. Usually these are tunes which have been typeset but never played by a computer. If you don't want to just delete things in quotes, you can insert one of the characters _, ^, @, < or > after the first quote e.g. "_Chorus" "_Very Loud". This causes abc2midi to ignore the following text. However, typesetting programs should recognize the first character as telling them where to print the following text. Another extension is to allow musical instructions to appear in exclamation marks e.g. !pizzicato! abc2midi currently supports the following : !ppp! !pp! !p! !mp! !mf! !f! !ff! !fff! Default volume is equivalent to !f!. In both the " " and ! ! fields, abc2midi allows multiple terms separated by semi-colons e.g. "Am;1". A line of music may contain any number of notes, barlines and guitar chords. Spaces may be used to separate these. Some abc fields may appear within the body of the abc tune : K: - change key L: - change unit note length M: - change meter Q: - change tempo P: - part label V: - voice label w: - words to be matched syllable by syllable to notes Each field must be on a line by itself. Part Notation ------------- A part label must be a single character in the range A - Z. e.g. P:A A parts specifier in the header can be used to define the MIDI output as some combination of the specified parts e.g. P:ABACABA You can use ( ) to repeat a part a specified number of times e.g. P:A(AB)6 is equivalent to P:AABABABABABAB. If there are no brackets, just the last part is repeated, so P:AAB3 is equicalent to P:AABBB. Dots may be inserted into the part specifier to make it easier to read e.g P:A.AB.AC If there is no parts specifier, the output is simply the parts (or just the unlabelled music) in the order in which it appears in the tune body. You may if you wish have multiple voices sounding concurrently within each part. These are indicated with V:N to indicate voice number N. e.g. V:1 V:2 and so on. A part label implicitly starts with V:1, as does the K: field which starts the tune body, so you are not allowed to place a part label within a voice. The duration of each of the voice parts must be the same for them to synchronize correctly; abc2midi will warn you if they are not! From version 1.7 onwards, abc2midi allows any voice apart from voice 1 to be completely omitted from a part. If no V: field appears after the first K:, whatever follows is assumed to belong to voice 1 (the default voice). The V: field is an extension to abc 1.5. The lines between one V:N field and the next V: field define a region belonging to voice N. Within a part, you may have more than one such region for each voice. The music for voice N within a part is all the voice N regions taken in sequence. The M:, L: and K: fields in the header apply to all voices. After the header, these fields apply only to the voice in which they appear. In previous versions of abc2midi, an L:, for example, would affect everything after it appeared up until the next L:, regardless of what voice changes there were. The Q: tempo field should only appear in voice 1 and applies to all voices. Adding Lyrics to a Tune ----------------------- The W: field (upper case W) can be used for lyrics to be typeset separately if the abc is printed out. The w: field (lower case w) in the body of a tune supplies a line of lyrics to be matched syllable by syllable to the last line of notes. These are usually printed below the notes if the abc is typeset. abc2midi uses these to generate karaoke MIDI files. A karaoke MIDI file can only contain one set of lyrics; abc2midi will generate a warning if the abc file contains multiple voices with lyrics in. When the karaoke MIDI file is played using an appropriate player program, the lyrics appear on the screen with the current syllable highlighted. Within the lyrics, the following symbols may be used : break between words - break between syllables within a word | advance to next bar _ indicates last syllable is to be held for another note * indicates a one note rest for the singer. ~ appears as a space but connects syllables each side into one. \- appears as - in the output \ continuation character. Next w: field is part of the same line. A rest is not matched by any lyrics. A tied note e.g. d2-d2 is treated as 2 notes (or however many parts it is written as), despite the fact that it only plays as a single note. abc2midi ignores space characters if they occur either (a) between the end of a word/syllable and a hyphen or underscore or (b) between a hyphen or underscore and the beginning of a word/syllable. However, some software incorrectly treats a hyphen as a separate word if there is a space between it and the previous syllable, so, for example, you should write go-ing and not go - ing to ensure that your abc is portable between programs. The following example illustrates most of these : gf|e2dc B2A2|B2G2 E2D2|.G2.G2 GABc|d4 B2 w: Sa-ys my au-l' wan to your aul' wan\ w: Will~ye come to the Wa-x-ies dar-gle? Note that the continuation character is used in a rather strange manner. One w: field and all continuations will match one line of music, whether or not the line of music ends with a continuation character. You can think of the \ in a music line dividing that line into sections and \ in a w: field further dividing these section into sub-sections. It is possible for a music line to be followed by several w: fields. This can be used together with the part notation to create verses. The first w: field is used the first time that part is played, then the second and so on. If the tune uses repeats, these must be placed at the end of a line of music in order to make sure that the start of a w: field matches up with the repeat. abc2midi-specific commands (%%MIDI) ------------------------------------ abc2midi supports a number of commands of the form %%MIDI command Each of these should appear on a line by itself. All of them are allowed within the abc tune body. By using these in combination with the part notation, one can, for example, play a part transposed or in a different key. The idea behind this syntax is that other programs will treat it as a comment and ignore it. %%MIDI channel n selects melody channel n (in the range 1-16). %%MIDI program [c] n selects program n (in the range 1-128) on channel c. If c is not given, the program is selected on the current melody channel. Most modern tone generators follow the General MIDI standard which defines the instrument type for each program number. These instrument types are listed at the end of this document. %%MIDI beat a b c n controls the way note velocities are selected. The first note in a bar has velocity a. Other "strong" notes have velocity b and all the rest have velocity c. a, b and c must be in the range 0-128. The parameter n determines which notes are "strong". If the time signature is x/y, then each note is given a position number k = 0, 1, 2 .. x-1 within each bar. Note that the units for n are not the unit note length. If k is a multiple of n, then the note is "strong". The volume specifiers !ppp! to !fff! are equivalent to the following : !ppp! = %%MIDI beat 30 20 10 1 !pp! = %%MIDI beat 45 35 20 1 !p! = %%MIDI beat 60 50 35 1 !mp! = %%MIDI beat 75 65 50 1 !mf! = %%MIDI beat 90 80 65 1 !f! = %%MIDI beat 105 95 80 1 !ff! = %%MIDI beat 120 110 95 1 !fff! = %%MIDI beat 127 125 110 1 %%MIDI beatstring This provides an alternative way of specifying where the strong and weak stresses fall within a bar. 'f' means velocity a (normally strong), 'm' means velocity b (medium velocity) and 'p' means velocity c (soft velocity). For example, if the time signature is 7/8 with stresses on the first, fourth and sixth notes in the bar, we could use the following %%MIDI beatstring fppmpmp %%MIDI transpose n transposes the output by the specified number of semitones. n may be positive or negative. %%MIDI rtranspose n Relative transpose by the specified number of semitones. i.e. %%MIDI transpose a followed by %%MIDI rtranspose b results in a transposition of a+b. %%MIDI transpose b will result in a transposition of b semitones, regardless of any previous transposition. %%MIDI c n specifies the MIDI pitch which corresponds to c. The default is 60. This number should normally be a multiple of 12. %%MIDI grace a/b sets the fraction of the next note that grace notes will take up. a must be between 1 and b-1. %%MIDI chordname name n1 n2 n3 n4 n5 n6 Defines how to play a guitar chord called "name". n1 is usually 0 and n2, n3 to n6 give the pitches of the other notes in semitones relative to the root note. There may be fewer than 6 notes in the chord, but not more.If "name" is already defined, this command re-defines it. Unlike most other commands, chordname definitions stay in effect from where they are defined to the end of the abc file. The following illustrates how m, 7, m7 and maj7 could be set up if they were not already defined. %%MIDI chordname m 0 3 7 %%MIDI chordname 7 0 4 7 10 %%MIDI chordname m7 0 3 7 10 %%MIDI chordname maj7 0 4 7 11 %%MIDI gchord string sets up how guitar chords are generated. The string is a sequence made of of z's, c's and f's for rests, chords and fundamental notes respectively. This specifies how each bar is to be played. An optional length is allowed to follow the z's, c's and f's e.g. czf2zf3. If the abc contains guitar chords, then abc2midi automatically adds chords and fundamentals after encountering the first guitar chord. It keeps using that chord until a new chord is specified in the abc. Whenever the M: field is encountered in the abc, an appropriate default string is set : For 2/4 or 4/4 time default is equivalent to : %%MIDI gchord fzczfzcz For 3/4 time default is equivalent to : %%MIDI gchord fzczcz For 6/8 time default is equivalent to : %%MIDI gchord fzcfzc For 9/8 time default is equivalent to : %%MIDI gchord fzcfzcfzc Please note, that the default gchord string is reissued any time a time signature change is specified in the body of the music. This means if one of the bars has an extra beat you included a M: declaration before and after the measure, the gchord string would be reset to the default string for that time signature and not the one that you had declared. It is necessary for you to send another %%MIDI gchord declaration after the the time signature in order to set this back the way you want it. This is one of the changes introduced into abc2midi so that the accompaniment track always follows the meter of the music for the regular time signatures. %%MIDI chordprog n Sets the MIDI instrument for the chords to be n. %%MIDI bassprog n Sets the MIDI instrument for the bass notes to be n. %%MIDI chordvol n Sets the volume (velocity) of the chord notes at n. %%MIDI bassvol n Sets the volume (velocity) of the bass notes at n. There is no corresponding melodyvol command since there are 3 velocity values for melody, set using the beat command. %%MIDI gchordon Turns on guitar chords (they are turned on by default at the start of a tune). %%MIDI gchordoff Turns off guitar chords. %%MIDI drum string [drum programs] [drum velocities] This sets up a drum pattern. The string determines when there is a drum beat and the drum program values determine what each drum strike sounds like. e.g. %%MIDI drum d2zdd 35 38 38 100 50 50 The string may contain 'd' for a drum strike or 'z' for a rest. By default a voice starts with no drum pattern and !drum! is needed to enable the drumming. The drum pattern is repeated during each bar until !nodrum! is encountered. The %%MIDI drum command may be used within a tune to change the drum pattern. This command places the drum sounds on channel 10 and assumes your tone generator complies with the General Midi standard - if it does not, then you may hear tones instead of drum sounds. In both the gchord and drum commands, the standard note length of a single note f,c,z or d is not set by the L: command. Instead it is adjusted so that the entire gchord string or drum string fits exactly into one bar. In other words the duration of each note is divided by the total duration of the string. This means that, for example, the drum string "dd" is equivalent to drum string "d4d4". You cannot currently specify fractions directly (eg. C3/2) as done in the body of the music, but it is still possible to express complex rhythms. For example, to indicate a rhythm such as (3ddd d/d/d/d, you would write the string "d4d4d4d3d3d3d3". For reference, the percussion instruments defined in the General MIDI standard are given below. 35 Acoustic Bass Drum 59 Ride Cymbal 2 36 Bass Drum 1 60 Hi Bongo 37 Side Stick 61 Low Bongo 38 Acoustic Snare 62 Mute Hi Conga 39 Hand Clap 63 Open Hi Conga 40 Electric Snare 64 Low Conga 41 Low Floor Tom 65 High Timbale 42 Closed Hi Hat 66 Low Timbale 43 High Floor Tom 67 High Agogo 44 Pedal Hi-Hat 68 Low Agogo 45 Low Tom 69 Cabasa 46 Open Hi-Hat 70 Maracas 47 Low-Mid Tom 71 Short Whistle 48 Hi Mid Tom 72 Long Whistle 49 Crash Cymbal 1 73 Short Guiro 50 High Tom 74 Long Guiro 51 Ride Cymbal 1 75 Claves 52 Chinese Cymbal 76 Hi Wood Block 53 Ride Bell 77 Low Wood Block 54 Tambourine 78 Mute Cuica 55 Splash Cymbal 79 Open Cuica 56 Cowbell 80 Mute Triangle 57 Crash Cymbal 2 81 Open Triangle 58 Vibraslap %%MIDI control [bass/chord] n1 n2 This generates a MIDI control event. If the word "control" is followed by "bass" or "chord", the event will be applied to the bass or chord channel, otherwise it will be applied to the melody channel. n1 and n2 are numbers in the range 0-127. Generally, n1 selects a control parameter and n2 is the value to which it is set. A couple of examples : %%MIDI control 7 50 will set the main volume of the channel to 50 %%MIDI control 10 0 will set the pan parameter (left/right balance) to 0. See the manual for your MIDI tone generator to find out what control events are supported. %%MIDI pitchbend [bass/chord] This generates a pitchbend event on the current channel, or on the bass or chord channel as specified. The value given by the following two bytes indicates the pitch change. This feature is experimental and I do not have good documentation on how it works. %%MIDI nobarlines This is a somewhat obscure option to support early music without barlines. Normally, an accidental applied to one note e.g. ^c will apply to every note at the same point in the scale until the end of the bar (so C,, C, C c c' would all be sharpened). This option turns off this behaviour, so that an accidental applies only to the next note. It should be used in the header of any tune requiring this behaviour. %%MIDI barlines This turns off the effect of %%MIDI nobarlines in the middle of a tune. This is the default behaviour assumed at the start of every tune. %%MIDI ratio n m This sets the ratio of note lengths in broken rhythm (e.g. a>b). The default behaviour is for note a to sound for twice as long as note b. This can be achieved with %%MIDI ratio 2 1 and hornpipes are commonly played with approximately this ratio. However, for other musical styles, a different ratio may be appropriate. If you are using abc2midi to export music to another program for printing, then you may wish to use a ratio of 3:1 which is how hornpipes are usually notated. This can be achieved with %%MIDI ratio 3 1 Typesetting abc --------------- If you want to typeset your abc, there are some more features of abc syntax that you need to know: If 2 notes appear consecutively with no space between them, they will be grouped together under the same beam. A space between them prevents them sharing a beam. A new line of stave music is generated by the newline at the end of a line of abc music. To suppress this, put a \ character at the end of the abc music line. An abc music line should end either at a bar line or at the space between two notes which indicates they do not share a beam. This is true whether or not the abc line ends with a \ character. Error Messages and Warnings --------------------------- abc2midi attempts to perform various checks on the abc and reports any problems via error and warning messages: A warning message indicates there is something strange in the abc - possibly an error or possibly non-standard usage. An error message means that abc2midi thinks there is definitely an error in the abc and the MIDI generated may not be correct. In a small number of cases, an error may cause abc2midi to stop. This is usually either because it has run out of memory or because there is some problem with reading or writing a file. Bar counting and checking ------------------------- Conventionally bars are numbered starting from one. If the first bar is incomplete (anacrusis), then it is counted as zero. Abc2ps and abcm2ps follows this convention but abcMIDI does not. All bars are counted starting from zero and furthermore if there is an incomplete bar just before a repeat (:| |: or ::), the bar count is not incremented. It is difficult to change this convention since abcMIDI assigns a number to the bar ahead when it sees a bar line. It would be necessary to introduce some look ahead for the first bar in the tune. If abc2midi reports a problem in a specific bar, you can use yaps with the -k option (for print bar numbers) to locate this bar. If you use another program such as abc2ps, then the bar number in the displayed or printed version may be one unit higher. The most common error seems to be a missing beat or having an extra beat in a bar. In the vicinity of a repeat, abc2midi tries to complete the first bar using the incomplete bar at the end of the repeat. If the first bar can be completed, then no warning is reported. The first bar may be complete the first time the section is played but incomplete in the second repeat. Complications occur when the left repeat symbol (|:) is missing and abc2midi has to assume it is at the beginning. More complications occur when there is a key change after the repeat or the music is split into parts A,B,C, etc. Yaps does the bar checking differently when it encounters repeats so that it may not resolve as many incomplete bars and report more warnings. The bar checking is present for providing warnings. For some music, an extra beat may be intentional and it is not marked by a meter change. If you are only printing the music, there is probably no problem; however, if you are producing a MIDI file and there is guitar (gchord) accompaniment then a break or missing beat might be noticeable. General MIDI Program Number/Instrument Name ------------------------------------------- 1. Acoustic Grand Piano 2. Bright Acoustic Piano 3. Electric Grand Piano 4. Honky-tonk Piano 5. Electric Piano 1 6. Electric Piano 2 7. Harpsichord 8. Clavi 9. Celesta 10. Glockenspiel 11. Music Box 12. Vibraphone 13. Marimba 14. Xylophone 15. Tubular Bells 16. Dulcimer 17. Drawbar Organ 18. Percussive Organ 19. Rock Organ 20. Church Organ 21. Reed Organ 22. Accordion 23. Harmonica 24. Tango Accordion 25. Acoustic Guitar (nylon) 26. Acoustic Guitar (steel) 27. Electric Guitar (jazz) 28. Electric Guitar (clean) 29. Electric Guitar (muted) 30. Overdriven Guitar 31. Distortion Guitar 32. Guitar harmonics 33. Acoustic Bass 34. Electric Bass (finger) 35. Electric Bass (pick) 36. Fretless Bass 37. Slap Bass 1 38. Slap Bass 2 39. Synth Bass 1 40. Synth Bass 2 41. Violin 42. Viola 43. Cello 44. Contrabass 45. Tremolo Strings 46. Pizzicato Strings 47. Orchestral Harp 48. Timpani 49. String Ensemble 1 50. String Ensemble 2 51. SynthStrings 1 52. SynthStrings 2 53. Choir Aahs 54. Voice Oohs 55. Synth Voice 56. Orchestra Hit 57. Trumpet 58. Trombone 59. Tuba 60. Muted Trumpet 61. French Horn 62. Brass Section 63. SynthBrass 1 64. SynthBrass 2 65. Soprano Sax 66. Alto Sax 67. Tenor Sax 68. Baritone Sax 69. Oboe 70. English Horn 71. Bassoon 72. Clarinet 73. Piccolo 74. Flute 75. Recorder 76. Pan Flute 77. Blown Bottle 78. Shakuhachi 79. Whistle 80. Ocarina 81. Lead 1 (square) 82. Lead 2 (sawtooth) 83. Lead 3 (calliope) 84. Lead 4 (chiff) 85. Lead 5 (charang) 86. Lead 6 (voice) 87. Lead 7 (fifths) 88. Lead 8 (bass + lead) 89. Pad 1 (new age) 90. Pad 2 (warm) 91. Pad 3 (polysynth) 92. Pad 4 (choir) 93. Pad 5 (bowed) 94. Pad 6 (metallic) 95. Pad 7 (halo) 96. Pad 8 (sweep) 97. FX 1 (rain) 98. FX 2 (soundtrack) 99. FX 3 (crystal) 100. FX 4 (atmosphere) 101. FX 5 (brightness) 102. FX 6 (goblins) 103. FX 7 (echoes) 104. FX 8 (sci-fi) 105. Sitar 106. Banjo 107. Shamisen 108. Koto 109. Kalimba 110. Bag pipe 111. Fiddle 112. Shanai 113. Tinkle Bell 114. Agogo 115. Steel Drums 116. Woodblock 117. Taiko Drum 118. Melodic Tom 119. Synth Drum 120. Reverse Cymbal 121. Guitar Fret Noise 122. Breath Noise 123. Seashore 124. Bird Tweet 125. Telephone Ring 126. Helicopter 127. Applause 128. Gunshot --------------------------------------------------------------------- This reference written 1995-1998 by James Allwright