What is ABC notation?
ABC is a way to write music using letters. Chris Walshaw devised it in 1993 for folk and traditional tunes, which are mostly a single melodic line, and publishes its standard at abcnotation.com. Notes are letters, lengths are numbers and bars are vertical lines, so a whole tune fits in a few lines of text.
That is why tune collections use it. You can paste ABC into an email, a message or a forum post. You can search it, and a program turns it into staff notation or sound. A file ends in .abc, and one file may hold many tunes, called a tunebook.
It is mainly for tunes: a melody, with chord names above it if you like. It is not made for dense piano pages, but it can hold several voices.
What does an ABC tune look like?
Here is a complete tune, the melody of Beethoven's Ode to Joy. Each line of the header starts with a letter and a colon. After the header come the notes.
| Line | What it says |
|---|---|
| X:1 | The reference number. It starts every tune, so a file can hold many. |
| T:Ode to Joy | The title. |
| C:Ludwig van Beethoven | The composer. |
| M:4/4 | The meter, four quarter-note beats to a bar. |
| L:1/4 | The default note length: a plain letter is a quarter note. |
| K:C | The key, C major. It comes last in the header, and the music starts on the next line. |
| EEFG|GFED|CCDE|E>DD2| | Four bars: E E F G, then G F E D, then C C D E, then a dotted E, a short D and a half-note D. |
| EEFG|GFED|CCDE|D>CC2|] | The second phrase ends on C. The |] is the final bar line. |
A tune needs X:, T: and K:. M: and L: set the counting. Read the header first, then the notes: that is the whole method.
How do letters and octaves work in ABC?
Capital C is middle C, and the capitals C D E F G A B climb to the B above it. Lowercase letters are the next octave up, so c is the C an octave above middle C. Add an apostrophe to go up another octave (c'), or a comma to go down one (C,).
| Write | It means |
|---|---|
| C, | C below middle C (C3) |
| C | Middle C (C4) |
| c | C above middle C (C5) |
| c' | C an octave higher again (C6) |
| ^F | F sharp |
| _B | B flat |
| =B | B natural |
| ^^F, __B | Double sharp and double flat |
A sharp, flat or natural lasts to the end of the bar, as in printed music. You do not write the sharps and flats of the key itself: K:G already makes every F an F sharp.
Keys can name a mode. K:Dmix is D mixolydian, and K:Ador is A dorian. Many tunes in the folk repertoire use modes, so look at the key before you assume major or minor.
How do note lengths work in ABC?
The L: line sets the unit. A letter alone lasts one unit. A number after it multiplies the length, and a slash divides it. If a tune has no L: line, the standard picks one from the meter: an eighth note when the meter is three quarters or longer (4/4, 3/4, 6/8), and a sixteenth note for shorter meters such as 2/4.
| Write | Length |
|---|---|
| A | Eighth note |
| A2 | Quarter note |
| A3 | Dotted quarter note |
| A4 | Half note |
| A8 | Whole note |
| A/2 or A/ | Sixteenth note |
| A3/2 | Dotted eighth note |
| A>B | A dotted eighth, then a sixteenth. Turn the arrow around to dot the second note instead. |
| z, z2 | A rest of one unit, and of two |
Notes written with no space between them are beamed together, and a space breaks the beam. With L:1/8, ABcd is four eighth notes beamed together, and A B c d is four separate eighths. This is how you show the beat in a jig or a reel.
How do you write bars, repeats and endings in ABC?
- | is a bar line, || a double bar and |] the final bar.
- |: starts a repeated section and :| ends it. Dance tunes are often two repeated parts.
- [1 and [2, often written |1 and :|2, mark the first and second ending of a repeat.
These work like the signs in printed music. If first and second endings are new to you, see how to read repeats, endings, D.S., D.C., coda and fine.
How do you add chords, ornaments and lyrics?
- Chord names go in double quotes before a note: "Am"A2 or "G7"B2.
- Notes that sound together go in square brackets: [CEG] is a C major chord.
- Ties join two notes of the same pitch with a hyphen (A2-A2), and slurs use parentheses: (DEFG).
- Triplets start with (3, as in (3abc.
- Grace notes go in curly braces before the main note: {g}A.
- Ornaments are short marks before a note: a tilde ~ is the Irish roll, a full stop is staccato, H is a fermata and T is a trill. The long form !trill! also works.
- Lyrics go on a line starting w: under the notes.
- More than one voice uses V: lines, one for each voice.
Different programs draw ornaments in different ways. A roll in a session tune may be shown as a roll sign, as grace notes, or not at all.
Where do ABC tunes come from?
Most ABC comes from tune collections for folk and traditional music. The Session is a community site for Irish traditional music, and its developer has described how each setting of a tune is stored as ABC text and drawn as sheet music in the browser. The abcnotation.com site, kept by the format's author, has a tune search and links to collections elsewhere, and says it links to hundreds of thousands of tunes.
Three things to check in a tune you find:
- The key and meter. Anyone can post a setting, and a header can be wrong. If the tune sounds odd, compare it with a recording.
- Which setting it is. Traditional tunes exist in many versions. Two people's ABC for the same tune can differ in notes, ornaments and bars.
- The rights. An old tune is not always free to copy. A person's arrangement or a collection can have its own copyright and terms. See where to find free sheet music.
At many sessions people play from memory, so ABC is mostly for learning a tune.
How do you turn ABC into sheet music and play from it?
Any text editor can write ABC, but you need a program to see the staff. Many free ABC viewers and converters exist. Or open the file in SheetScroll, which reads ABC as it reads any digital score.
- In the library, tap Add and choose Files. Pick the .abc file, or a whole folder of them.
- A file with many tunes comes in as separate tunes, each its own piece, and SheetScroll says how many it imported from the book.
- Open a tune. SheetScroll engraves it as staff notation, with every bar known exactly, and with repeats and endings followed.
SheetScroll can also listen to you play and turn the page. It follows strings, woodwinds and the other instruments it hears through the microphone. Most tunes fit on one page, so the page turn matters mainly in a long set or a tunebook. You can put tunes in a setlist, in the order you play them, and the foot line names the next one. Listening and automatic turns are part of Pro. The reader, setlists and every format are free.
Fiddlers will find the same tools on the string players page and in the violin course. The help page on import formats lists what else opens.
Questions
What does ABC notation mean?
It is a plain-text way to write music, built on the note letters A to G. You type the notes as letters and the program draws the staff.
How do I read ABC notation?
Read the header first: M: is the meter, L: the default note length and K: the key. Then read the notes. C is middle C, c is the octave above, a number lengthens a note and a slash shortens it.
How do I convert ABC to sheet music?
Open it in an ABC viewer or converter, or add the .abc file to SheetScroll, which engraves it as staff notation. Copy the text into a plain text file and save it with the .abc ending.
What does L: mean in ABC?
L: sets the default note length. With L:1/8, a plain letter is an eighth note, A2 a quarter note and A/2 a sixteenth note. If it is missing, the meter chooses the unit.
Is ABC only for folk music?
It was devised for folk and traditional tunes and is mostly used for them. It can also hold chords, several voices and lyrics, and it has been used for other kinds of music.
Can SheetScroll turn the page for an ABC tune?
Yes. ABC opens as a digital score, and SheetScroll follows it as it follows any other, turning two beats before the end of the page and never early. Listening is part of Pro.
Related
- Repeats, D.S., D.C. and codaHow to read repeat signs, first and second endings, D.C., D.S., coda and fine in sheet music, with a worked example and how a page turner follows them.
- How to read sheet musicLearn to read sheet music: the staff, treble and bass clef, note names, note values, rests, time signatures, key signatures and how to practice reading.
- Where to find free sheet musicWhat public domain means for sheet music, how old a piece must be, why a new edition may not be free, and where to get free scores legally.
- String playersA sheet music app that turns the page while you bow. It listens to strings, never turns early and shows your PDF parts as printed. Free reader.
- ViolinSixteen free, public-domain violin pieces in teaching order, from the open D and A strings to Bach-era minuets. They listen and turn pages without Pro.
- Opening music filesSheetScroll opens PDFs, photos, MusicXML, MuseScore, Guitar Pro, MIDI, ABC, chord charts and more. How to add them, and pair a scan with a digital copy.
Sources
- The abc music standard 2.1, abcnotation.com, checked October 23, 2026
- About abc notation, abcnotation.com, checked October 23, 2026
- Jeremy Keith, how The Session shows ABC as sheet music, checked October 23, 2026