projectnotions.com
Shape Note Step 2
Step 2 - Enter the tune header
The song we will be using is “Amazing Grace.” You might want to print out a copy to work from as we are entering the music. Here is a link to a PDF that you can download and print. So we will “note” a few things to get started. This version of “Amazing Grace” is written in the key of Ab (A flat) and has a time signature of 4/4. The bottom part of the time signature tells us the a quarter note gets 1 beat.
So, let’s return to the projectnotions.com “ABC Web Editor with Shape Notes” web page that we used for our “Hello World!” exercise.
In the ABC input area enter the following, then we will explain each item line by line. (You can use “cut and paste” to copy the lines from these instructions into the web page.)
%abc-2.1
X:1
T:Amazing Grace
C:Lyric Author: John Newton / Early American Melody
Z:Public Domain
L:1/4
M:3/4
V:S clef=treble name=""
V:A clef=treble name=""
V:T clef=bass name=""
V:B clef=bass name=""
%%score (S A) (T B)
%%pagewidth 8.5in
K:Ab
Listing - The abc Tune Header
The version of the abc standard we are using is version 2.1. So the first line is a comment line, since it starts with a “%” symbol, and it’s generally good practice to begin an abc file with the comment “%abc-2.1”.
The next set of lines from “X:1” to “K:Ab” make up the abc tune header. The tune header tells abc various information about the song. There are even more information fields that you can read about in the specification, but these will get us started.
The tune header starts with the “X” field, or reference number. You can use any number you would like, in this case we are using “1”. The “T”, “C”, “Z” fields are “Z:Title”, “C:Composer”, and “Z:Transcription” respectively. We also covered the “K:key” field in our “Hello World” example, and we’ve set the key to A flat. The tune header starts with the “X” field and ends with the “K” field.
The “L” field defines the default note length. By entering “L:1/4" we have defined the default note length to be a quarter note. Later when we enter the tune, if we just enter a note name by itself it will default to a quarter note (1/4).
The “M” field defines the meter, or time signature. “M:3/4" tells abc that the meter is in 3/4 time.
Our version of Amazing Grace has four voices. The two in the treble clef are the “Soprano” voice and the “Alto” voice. The two in the bass clef are the “Tenor” voice and the “Bass” voice. The lines
V:S clef=treble name=""
V:A clef=treble name=""
V:T clef=bass name=""
V:B clef=bass name=""
tell abc that we will mark Soprano notes with a “S”, Alto notes with an “A”, Tenor notes with a “T”, and Bass notes with a “B”. We’ll show exactly how in the next step. Ignore the (name=””) for now, but when we finish you can see how it can be used to clearly show which part is which.
Next there are two special lines that begin with a “%%”. Lines beginning with “%%” are called style directives and they provide formatting and other directions to programs that process abc tunes. The program we are using to translate the abc music was written by Jean-Francois Moine, and he provides his programs free of charge under an open source license. He is quite a remarkable programmer, and if you appreciate his work, I’m sure he would appreciate a donation on his web page.
The line “%%score (S A) (T B)” tells the program to display the music with two staves, the Soprano and Alto voices on the top staff, and the Tenor and Bass voices on the bottom staff.
The line “%%pagewidth 8.5in” indicates that the page width is 8.5 inches. (Go ahead and try changing the line to “%%pagewidth 11in” and observe what happens.)
OK, that’s it! Notice that some of our header information is nicely displayed, the T:Title and the C:Composer fields. The right side of your screen should look like Figure 5.
Figure 5 - Amazing Grace abc Tune Header Output
Now we are ready to enter music!.
C:Lyric Author: John Newton / Early American Melody
Z:Public Domain
L:1/4
M:3/4
V:S clef=treble name=""
V:A clef=treble name=""
V:T clef=bass name=""
V:B clef=bass name=""
%%score (S A) (T B)
%%pagewidth 8.5in
C:Lyric Author: John Newton / Early American Melody
Z:Public Domain
L:1/4
M:3/4
V:S clef=treble name=""
V:A clef=treble name=""
V:T clef=bass name=""
V:B clef=bass name=""
%%score (S A) (T B)
%%pagewidth 8.5in