21/08/2026
Music is an important part of culture and the ability to provide music for some is a gift, others have to work hard to learn tunes by ear or through reading sheet music scores. There is a wonderful free to use music transcription site authored by Michael Eskin who is a retired software developer in California, and is deeply involved with Irish Session music. He plays multiple instruments including the Irish Uillean pipes. It's a folk music scene and folk musicians use a lot of tune scores held digitally in 'abc' text music notation.
Holding music notation files in text form is far more data storage space efficient than if held in the format of images of a sheet of music. Such files are also 'human' readable unlike the compressed and hexadecimal character formats of pdf, jpg, gif and png or other file data formats. This means there are advantages of being able to access, create, amend (basically edit, save, print) the files with any text editor and not require any particular music program, plus 'abc' notated tunes are readily available from many online sources, easy to download, share, and learn for a multitude of different musical instruments. There are many apps that are freely available that process abc tune files. Thus providing access to a huge music resource of traditional, cost free tune scores. Some developers accept donations but the real value is the folk music aspect of sharing music and culture by enthusiasts more than by commercial enterprises 'selling' music.
My particular music interest is obviously that for the Scottish bagpipe. As the same tunes and notation form can be played on Highland Bagpipes, Border pipes, Cauldwind pipes, Irish war pipes and various adaptions, (such as Kitchen or Parlour pipes etc), based on these using the nine notes available, the tunes that build up in a library based on the use of 'abc' notation becomes very useful and freely shareable. Useful for individuals or pipe bands and piping groups.
I've used 'abc' notation since the 1980's for all my personal tunes and for most of the 35+ years I spent as Pipe-Major of local pipe bands, a position I retired from due to heart issues. I still play, still maintain music files and offer free advice. There's a free downloadable document providing an overview of how to use 'abc' notation from a piper's use perspective I wrote for the 'Cambridge & Districts Pipe Band of NZ' that sits in the Files section of their fb page.
Here is the abc text for a simple tune. "The Black Velvet Band". Copy the text that follows, from and including the 'X:1' line to the 'W: end' line. Then go to you online browser and enter this URL "https://michaeleskin.com/abctools/abctools.html" (don't include the " characters), then paste the copied 'abc' code into the entry box shown on the screen when the website loads. When copied over the music score is displayed. It can be played, printed, edited, saved to the 'Downloads' folder on your computer.
X:1
T:Black Velvet Band, The
C:Arr. BEM Demo.
R:SONG
L:1/8
M:6/8
Q:3/8=70
K:HP
P:A
|:a|{g}a2 {GdG}a {fg}fga|{f}g {a}f2- f2 {g}e|{Gdc}d>ef {Gdc}dcB|{G}A3 {GAG}Aag|
{a}f2 {GdG}f {g}ABc|{Gdc}d2 e {g}f2 d|{g}e>fg cd{gef}e|{Gdc}d3 {gdc}d2:|
X:2
T:And now the full scale of nine notes:
R:Exercise
L:1/8
M:6/8
Q:3/8=48
K:HP
P:A
|:{g}GAB cde|fga {g}agf|edc BAG:|
W:end
