Musical scores written in ABC notation. Output folder also contains HTML, MIDI and PDF files generated from the ABC scores.
Scores are original music, created either by me or by rock band Primakers. Please, look at copyright notes inside the score for authoring and licensing information. If no license specified, CC-BY-NC-SA applies by default to score and generated music.
I used EasyABC program, which integrates everything you need, and generates the score as you type.
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Love: most famous Primakers song. ABC file also includes all the lyrics, very useful for fans :). Two voices are written in the staff: singer and bass. Guitar chords are also written on top and are rendered to MIDI. In the header there is a drum pattern defined that also is played in MIDI.
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Amateur Intro: original soundtrack of short film "Amateur" (2013. Dir: David Rodríguez). Intro is a 2 minute tune that is played at the beginning of the film. Music goes synchronized with images, that is why there are some text marks in the staff. My most complex composition up till now, there are 8 instruments, so I created comments as guidelines in order to make the content more readable.
After playing with some score authoring software, I went to the basics: text editor and ABC notation, because:
- It's a easy notation to remember, at least most basic elements.
- It's powerful enough to create mid complexity scores.
- Easy to edit: cut, paste, reuse...
- Extraordinary tools for conversion to MIDI, HTML+SVG and PDF.
- Easy versioning with typical VCS tools.
- Good online documentation and examples.
In my soundtrack compositing workflow ABC has become the starting point. I can go quick enough to make "executable notes" and then refine them until composition is finished. After that and depending on the instrument, I either directly use generated MIDI sequence or play the instrument reading generated PDF.
- The ABC reference I use most of the time: http://abc.sourceforge.net/standard/abc2-draft.html
- The ABC plus project: http://abcplus.sourceforge.net/. Includes a very good PDF guide for music creation with ABC.
- Much more resources on ABC: http://abcnotation.com/learn