Mark Hall wrote:



> I am writing a thesis relating to 'abc', and I would like to know why

> you use 'abc' as apposed to alternative notation software?



* I really like the flexibility in abc (placement of accidentals, any

number of beats in a 4/4 bar, stuff like that), it's the closest I've

seen to a piece of music paper.



* It produces nice quality prints (abcm2ps)



* It's fast and has small file size



* You can do so many things with text format, for instance I did

http://www.lovsangsmappen.dk that does on-the-fly transposition, format

conversion of a selection of files. I'm also warming up to write a

beagle plugin that'll allow search of contour ("if you can whistle it

(or a fragment of it) you can find it")



* I can change the layout of all my scores in one place



* I accumulated over 1500 tunes in abc



* Since I'm running linux, all the commercial big ones are either not

available to me or would be inconvenient to run. But actually I'm not

sure (from what I heard from my winfriends) I would ever have the

patience to struggle with finale to make it do what I need



--

peace, love & harmony

Atte



http://www.atte.dk      | quintet:      http://www.anagrammer.dk

                          | compositions: http://www.atte.dk/compositions

On Mon, 26 Mar 2007, Mark Hall wrote:



> Hello all, I am writing a thesis relating to 'abc', and I would like to

> know why you use 'abc' as apposed to alternative notation software? Your

> responses and opinions would be welcomed and may be used with your

> permission. Thanks, mjh





I like the idea of text based music notation software. I only need a good

editor (I use vim on my Linux box) to get started. Sibelius and Finale are

great, but expensive and not what I need.



I can make really fine scores with abcm2ps. There are alternatives that I

can use like Mup ( which I also like and use ) and Lilypond ( which seems

to have a lot of power ). But what makes ABC special is that it is, more

than these alternatives, quite human-readable. A simple song that is

notated in ABC can be played or sung by a human being, not only by a

computer.



--



Martin

X:999                                            % number

T:Snippet of Unknown Tune                        % title

C:Unknown Composer; Traditional Irish?           % composer

O:at a Workshop                                  % origin.

M:C                                              % meter

L:1/8                                            % length of shortest note

K:D                                              % key

N:Dorian E?                                      % key

|E3FEDB,A, | B,EEDEGFE | D3EDB,A,B, | DEFABdAF |





*********************************************************************



Any and all possible information would be greatly appreciated.



		 Thanks!  :-)



			 -Steve-

Here are a few items.





Because I don't even have to have an abc program to use it.  I can

convert it on the web.



http://www.concertina.net/tunes_convert.html





Because I can search the web using JC's ABC tune finder

http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/cgi/abc/tunefind



because I can control the print out better with it than with Tabledit

that I also own, and use.



Because it can repeat seamlessly instead of having a pause at the end

while it goes back to the beginning, the way Tabledit does.





Because I can make it it sound better than with band in a box, which I

already own,  but gave up on it when I couldn't get it to add backing

tracks so they would sound right.





Because I can keep many tunes in one abc file and make special files to

have music for a gig.



Because several of the ABC tunes will search all the files for a

specific tune, instead of having to search them all.



Because the files are compact and can be emailed to band members as

regular email without making them an attachment.



Because others don't have to own any software to use them.  They can use

the concertina site to hear something I send them.



Because a tune that I transcribed 8 years ago will still play on the

current ABC software.   (Anyone still use Songwrite?)



Because I can import or export between abc format programs and other

format programs.





I remember on program that I bought and tried out, but I couldn't

exchange the tunes with any other program.  I ended up giving it to my

nephew.



I use mostly  ABC2WIN,  ABCMUS, ABCTools, ABCEDIT,  Tabledit



I've tried several others but the  these I like.



Mark Hall wrote:

>

>

> Hello all,

> I am writing a thesis relating to 'abc', and I would like to know why

> you use 'abc' as apposed to alternative notation software?

> Your responses and opinions would be welcomed and may be used with your

> permission.

> Thanks, mjh

>

> ------------------------------------------------------------------------

> What kind of emailer are you? Find out today - get a free analysis of

> your email personality. Take the quiz at the Yahoo! Mail Championship

>

<http://uk.rd.yahoo.com/mail/uk/taglines/default/championships/quiz/*http://uk.r\

d.yahoo.com/evt=44106/*http://mail.yahoo.net/uk/>.

>

>

On 3/26/07, Mark Hall <hallmark7328@...> wrote:

> I am writing a thesis relating to 'abc', and I would like to know why you use

'abc' as apposed to alternative notation software?



It's easy to learn and easy to use.  Software for it is fairly readily

available, but you can use it without any software.  Much of the

software for it is free, or not very expensive.  It is quite powerful,

while being fairly simple.



It is also reasonably intuitive.  I created my own very simple version

of it years before I first came across it, and it was exciting to

discover a much more powerful version of my simplistic notation.



Geoff Loker

Good Morning:

    Abcusers have many similar reasons for using abc software.

We probably differ in our choice of a particular abc application.

Currently I prefer Abcedit.

Straightforward text editor, midi-playback, PDF score . . .

Other than abc most programs are difficult to learn & expensive.

Alternate programs do not have the support that the abc community has.

I suspect it has something to do with the universal use of abc in the

exchange of public domain music.



--- In abcusers@yahoogroups.com, Mark Hall <hallmark7328@...> wrote:



> Hello all,

> I am writing a thesis relating to 'abc', and I would like to know

why you use 'abc' as apposed to alternative notation software?

> Your responses and opinions would be welcomed and may be used with

your permission.

> Thanks, mjh