Folk Music and the ABC program.  Includes a large IOW Sea Song example.

Work in Progress

The ABC program ( created in 1980 by Chris Walshaw) is used extensively to produce and play folk tunes.  There are thousands of examples already on the net.  A warning is that many of the examples have not been checked over so you can get very strange tunes. Full details are found at abcnotation.com .  

It can look a bit complex but basically to get started you need to download a free abc player and then you can play any of the tunes on the net.  Available for Windows and Mac.  

Producing your own tunes does take some time and you do really need to have some knowledge of written music.  It is a worthwhile project and means you can easily send music to other people.

One of the best programs to download is the free Easyabc.  This will play your abc files and also has a very good section for producing your own abc files.  If you try to open an abc file it may ask what program you want to use. The abc files have to associated with this player.

We have been working on Isle of Wight Sea Songs in an abc format so you can play along with them. A great deal of time and effort has been put into this collection we hope you like it.  Do use it to add songs to your repertoire.

See if you can get this file to work you will need to have downloaded Easyabc. It may automatically start Easyabc or you may need to Save the file / open Easyabc/ load this file.

Click Here for IOW Sea Songs abc