Pencil Code and ABC Notation Cheat Sheet

adapted from: http://www.guitarsite.de/pics/clef.gif

Explanation

the notes in octave #4, from middle C to B, are represented as capital letters: C D E F G A B
to represent notes in the next higher octave (#5), put an apostrophe (') after the letter: C' D' E' F' G' A' B'
- to represent the octave above that, use two apostrophes, etc.: C'' D'' E'' ...
to represent notes in the next lower octave (#3), put a comma (,) after the letter: C, D, E, F, G, A, B,
- likewise, to represent the octave below that, use two commas, etc.: C,, D,, E,, ...
to represent rests, use the letter Z, but note that some software “engines” require a lowercase z

adapted from: http://musictutorial.in/wp/wp-content/uploads/rest.jpg

For dotted notes, which have half again the duration value of the non-dotted note, use a fraction

Example

Z4 Z Z/2 C'/2 E'3/4 C'/4 B/2 C'/2 E-B/2 B/2 F'3/4 D'/4 C'/4-B/4 C'/2 G-G/2 Z/2

these are set code letters forllowed by a colon (:)
key signature: K:C K:Eb K:F# K:Gmaj K:Emin
time signature (meter): M:4/4 M:3/4 M:5/4
- the first number is the number of beats per measure
- the second number identifies the note that gets 1 beat, which is typically a quarter note, hence the number 4
tempo (beats per minute): Q:60 Q:120

Example

K:Eb M:2/4 Q:60 D'3/4 _D'/4 C'/2 _D'/2 =D' _D' D'3/4 _D'/4 C'/2 _D'/2 =D' _D'

Two other symbols are used in the sample program linked at the top of this page and in the examples above

the vertical bar (|) is a musical bar line
- a bar line simply separates the music into measures according to the time signature
- each measure is a segment of time corresponding to a specific number of beats [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_(music)]
- for simplicity, our examples all call the sing function with the notes for only one measure unless a “tie” (see below) is required to connect notes in different measures
the hyphen (–) can be either a musical “tie” or “slur,” both of which are drawn as curved lines connecting two notes as you can see in the above examples
- if the curved line connects two notes of the same pitch, it is a “tie”
  - this notation indicates that the two notes are to be played as a single note, with a duration equal to the sum of the individual notes’ values [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tie_(music)]
  - this notation is often used if the two notes to be connected are separated by a bar line (|)
- if the curved line connects two notes of different pitches, is is a “slur”
  - this notation indicates that the two notes are to be played without separation [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slur_(music)]

COMP 2120 / MUED 2120 — Sound Thinking