This chapter explains basic description of notes and melody.

Notes

The musical notes are expressed by alphabets like c, d and e. Middle C is expressed by the capital C. C Dur scale from middle C is as below.

CDEFGABc

Here the lower-case letter c denotes C one octave above middle C. One octave above C to B is expressed by lower-case letters from c to b. Higher notes are expressed by a number of apostrophes ('). Lower notes below middle C is expressed by a number of commas ',' with capital letters. A rest is denoted by 'z'.

% cat sample02.abc
X:1
K:G
L:1/4
C,,D,,E,,F,,G,,A,,B,,|C,D,E,F,G,A,B,|CDEFGAB|
cdefgab|c'd'e'f'g'a'b'|c''d''e''f''g''a''b''|

Sharp, flat and natural is expressed by '^', '_' and '='.

% cat sample03.abc
X:1
K:G
L:1/4
c^c^^c_c__c=c|f^f^^f_f__f=f|

As described above, sharp, flat and natural is independent from key notes.

Length

Note length header 'L:' determines the default length of notes. Here 'L:1/4' means default notes is crotchet. Note lengths are expressed as a multiple of the default length. Triplet is described '(3' and following notes. Others tuplets are same. The example is below.

% cat sample04.abc
X:1
K:C
L:1/4
M:C
[|c4c3c2c1|c c1/2 c3/4 c2/4 c1/4|c7/8 c6/8 c4/8 c3/8 c2/8 c1/8|
(2c1/2d1/2 (3c1/2d1/2e1/2 (3e/d/c/ (7c/d/e/f/g/a/b/ (6c/d/e/(f/f/)g/ |]

In special case, Z denotes multi-bar rests. 'Z12' means twelve-bar multi rests.

Beaming

Notes without spaces are beamed together if possible. An example is below.

% cat sample05.abc
X:1
K:G
L:1/8
M:6/8
GAB cde|GA Bc de| G A B c d e|

Bar lines

Bar lines and repeats are described in the following table.

Ties and slurs

Ties are expressed by hyphen '-' after the first note. Slurs are expressed by parentheses.

X:1
K:C
L:1/4
M:C
G-G(AB|cdef)|

Ornaments

Some common ornaments are described in the following table.

Complicated ones are expressed by a letter bounded by exclamation marks '!'.

We can insert text by a letter bounded by double quotations.

An example is below.

% cat sample06.abc 
X:1
K:G
L:1/8
M:C
.GLATB!tenuto!c Hduevf!marcato!g | !pp!!crescendo(!GAB!crescendo)!!ff!c !+!d!+!e"^above text"f"_below text"g |

Grace notes

Grace notes are denoted by braces '{}' as below.

% cat sample07.abc 
X:1
K:G
L:1/4
M:C
{EF}G4| {GABcdef}g4|