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Shape Note Step 4
Step 4 - Enter music for the Soprano voice
OK, with those abc tune body basics out of the way, let’s enter the music for the Soprano part. Enter the following lines after the line that has “K:Ab”
% Measures 1 - 7
[V:S] (E/ F/) | A2 (c/ A/) | c2 B | A2 F | E2 (E/ F/) | A2 (c/ A/) | c2 (B/ c/) | He2 |
% Measures 8 - 14
[V:S] (B/ c/) | e2 (e/ c/) | | A2 (F/ E/) | A2 F | E2 (E/ F/) | A2 (c/ A/) | c2 B | HA2 |
The first and third lines begin with a “%” and are comment lines and we just make a comment to help keep our place in the music.
The second and fourth lines start with “[V:S]” and this tells abc we are going to enter the “S” voice. Remember we set that up in the tune header with the line (V:S clef=treble name=""). Our default note length is a quarter note (“L:1/4"). We want two eighth notes so we enter “E/ F/”.
But wait… what is the “( )” that surrounds the “E/ F/”? That tells abc that we want a “tie” or “slur” across those notes. The “|” tells abc to put a measure bar at that spot, and the “H” before the last note of both lines tells abc that it is a fermata or “hold” note.
You’ve made it this far; go ahead and press the [Play] button!
(If you want to “cheat” and just cut & paste the tune so far, here it is… we won’t tell, we promise! :)
%abc-2.1 X:1 T:Amazing Grace C:Lyric Author: John Newton / Early American Melody Z:Public Domain L:1/4 M:3/4 V:S clef=treble name="" V:A clef=treble name="" V:T clef=bass name="" V:B clef=bass name="" %%score (S A) (T B) %%pagewidth 8.5in K:Ab % Measures 1 - 7 [V:S] (E/ F/) | A2 (c/ A/) | c2 B | A2 F | E2 (E/ F/) | A2 (c/ A/) | c2 (B/ c/) | He2 | % Measures 8 - 14 [V:S] (B/ c/) | e2 (e/ c/) | | A2 (F/ E/) | A2 F | E2 (E/ F/) | A2 (c/ A/) | c2 B | HA2 | |
You’ve made it this far, go ahead and press the [Play] button!