Short Blog Review re ABC

[bellowbelle]

I am not particularly a writer but I wrote a bit in my blog that may interest someone here that knows nothing about ABC. A friend of mine was wondering about it, and that's what prompted this:

 

A brief blog review of ABC (ABC2Win)

 

THIS NOTE ADDED 12/30/12:

I edited and updated this blog entry a tiny bit this morning, after having read the posts in this thread.

Edited December 30, 2012 by bellowbelle

[cboody]

Interesting little post. Thanks for sharing. A couple of thoughts:

 

1) Barfly did not ever work on the PC, only on the Mac. As I read your post it seemed to me you implied otherwise. It's late here, so it might just have been my reading.

 

2) ABC2Win is the grand-daddy of all the abc programs, but is no longer in development and is becoming obsolete despite what it does.

 

3) I'd strongly suggest you look at EasyABC which works on both platforms and has more and better capabilities than most of the programs (though not all). what you see on the screen is what you get when you print the music. You might particularly like the ability to make cheat sheets with the tune title and a couple of bars of music.

 

This is not intended to be critical, so please don't take it that way. I just think if you've gone this far you might like to go a bit further.

[David Barnert]

1) Barfly did not ever work on the PC, only on the Mac. As I read your post it seemed to me you implied otherwise. It's late here, so it might just have been my reading.

And it no longer works on current Macs, as Wendy notes in the blog. It relies on Rosetta to work in OSX and the most recent two versions of OSX do not support Rosetta. I still use BarFly all the time, and it is one of the main reasons I have not moved beyond OSX 10.6.8. I don't see anything in the blog that suggests BarFly works on PCs, only a characterization of BarFly as a Mac version of ABS2Win, which I think overstates the relationship. They are similar programs, one for Windows, one for Mac, written by different people with different interfaces and different internal workings.

[Simon H]

There's an awful lot of software out there for all platforms.

 

http://abcnotation.com/software

 

I'd recommend ABC explorer for PC. For iPad/iphone there's Tunepal and Tunebook And Tefpad. (tefpad even gives whistle/ guitar and mando/banjo tablature of ABC tunes)

 

Once you have the software you like its easy to google and search for ABC tune collections and import them en bloc and use the search system within the software to find the tune you want. Here is just one example of a site that has ABC collections downloadable: http://www.nigelgatherer.com/tunes/abc.html

 

ABC is such a small file format (just a text string after all) that there is no problem having thousands of tunes on your PC/Mac/ ipad etc.

Edited December 29, 2012 by Simon H

[bellowbelle]

Thanks all - Only have phone right now, When I get to the computer I will add an update/ correction/etc to my blog entry, and check out those links.

 

I appreciate all the info and I don't mind any constructive criticism or corrections.

[Wolf Molkentin]

3) I'd strongly suggest you look at EasyABC which works on both platforms and has more and better capabilities than most of the programs (though not all). what you see on the screen is what you get when you print the music.

I can confirm that; EasyABC has been working fine since I once got it...

[David Barnert]

Once you have the software you like its easy to google and search for ABC tune collections and import them en bloc...

Probably a good time and place to mention John Chambers's abc Tune Finder at http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/cgi/abc/tunefind. Type in the name of a tune and if it's out there it will find it and offer it up as abc, gif, postscript, midi, etc.

[bellowbelle]

Okay, my head is spinning after seeing how many ABC programs there are available!

 

This morning I updated my blog post a little bit to fix it up.

 

More than trying to write about software programs, I was trying to indicate that it was so much nicer to be able to work offline (and 'on couch') by using ABC code. Pen and paper first... computer later, and no dot-by-dot entry but -- with a bit of know-how -- one easy copy/paste.

 

However, it IS all about software, in a way, because... well, because I'm referring to writing music notation using a computer, ultimately.

 

Unlike using ABC, using Noteworthy Software or similar types requires you to sit there and place your information note-by-note. There are shortcuts, but you can't copy/paste very much at once (though, there is the option to do some copy/paste). Maybe it's changed.... haven't used it in a long time... but, I doubt it's changed that drastically.

 

 

 

I will further check out EasyABC and some of the other programs when I get a chance... looks like I can get an ABC app for my Android phone.

[Steve Mansfield]

Puts down concertina, picks up own trumpet, blows it gently ... My abc tutorial at Http://www.lesession.co.uk has been helping people learn abc since 2001, and continues to astound me with the number of hits it gets every month ...

Edited December 30, 2012 by Steve Mansfield

[Anglogeezer]

Puts down concertina, picks up own trumpet, blows it gently ... My abc tutorial at Http://www.lesession.co.uk has been helping people learn abc since 2001, and continues to astound me with the number of hits it gets every month ...

 

Sooo - you play the trumpet as well!! How versatile!!

Do, please post a sound file.

 

Jake

[cboody]

Puts down concertina, picks up own trumpet, blows it gently ... My abc tutorial at Http://www.lesession.co.uk has been helping people learn abc since 2001, and continues to astound me with the number of hits it gets every month ...

 

Perhaps we should try a virtual version of the Vivaldi concerto for two trumpets in C...but only if I practice lots again

[Roger Gawley]

Puts down concertina, picks up own trumpet, blows it gently ... My abc tutorial at Http://www.lesession.co.uk has been helping people learn abc since 2001, and continues to astound me with the number of hits it gets every month ...

 

You should not be astounded: it is very well written. It would make a good model of how to do documentation even for people with no interest in ABC.

[bellowbelle]

This morning, I'm happy to report, I tried my previously installed BarFly again and it works beautifully now. I have Mac OS X version 10. 5.8, and don't plan to update ( I don't connect to the internet with it).

 

So I'm very happy that came back. I don't know what I did before that was wrong, but the program kept closing on me no matter what I did.

 

On my phone, an Android which is a Virgin Mobile Chaser- partly a prepaid no contract - ZAP'SABC is working out very well.

 

It didn't look like Easy ABC was going to work on my phone.

 

ADDED LATER:

Just got EasyABC for our one live Mac, though! Looks like that will work out alright.

Edited January 4, 2013 by bellowbelle