ABC Notation

Standard ABC 1.6 Notation is not fully supported in LOTRO's Player Music System. LOTRO Forum members Northman and Northwoods have done extensive testing and have determined that the following lists summarize how ABC notation seems to actually work when played in LOTRO. Note that Turbine seems motivated to continually improve and expand on the Player Music System, so the restrictions and unsupported formats listed in this article might eventually be addressed.

Creation and playback of ABC files

All ABC files that you create for playback in LOTRO must have an .abc extension, and they must be stored in a sub-folder named Music that is located in My Documents\The Lord of the Rings Online.

To play an ABC file from within the LOTRO client, enter the Player Music System mode by using the /music command. Then play each ABC file by using the command /play [filename], where [filename] is the name of an ABC file minus the .abc extension.

For best-quality playback, you should enable the Quantize Player Music checkbox in the Audio section of your LOTRO client options.

You can easily edit an ABC file while in Player Music System mode. You can Alt-Tab between the LOTRO client and the text editor in which you are editing the file, and LOTRO will play the saved version of the file even if it is currently open in a text editor.

Posting your ABC songs in the LOTRO forums

Be aware that the LOTRO forums have a 30-character limit for a single run of unbroken text. It considers a slash (/) as a break, but not a comma. It will insert a space after the 30th consecutive character, which could separate a note length from a note if you're not careful when posting an ABC song for LotRO.

Information fields (the ABC file header)

Only the first occurrence of an information field is interpreted. Tempo and key changes mid-song are ignored.

Information fields must be places before the music data, at the top of the ABC file.

Supported information fields

The ABC Player interprets these fields to identify the character of the music:

Q (tempo): The default seems to be 1/4= (that is, Q:120 is the same as Q:1/4=120), and LOTRO does accept and interpret other tempo bases such as 1/8=nnn.
K (key): It seems that only specific types of scale names are allowed. For example, K:Cmin. will successfully specify the C minor key, but K:Cm will not work.
L (default note length): This field seems to be fully supported.

Ignored information fields

The following fields are not interpreted by the ABC player, and are only used to identify the music:

T (tune title): Information only
N (comments): Information only. You can safely have multiple lines of comments in the header.
C (composer/author): Information only
Z (transcriber): Information only
R (Rhythm/Style): Information only
S (source): Information only
O (origin): Information only
I (information): Information only

Unsupported information fields

The following fields are not currently supported by the ABC player:

X (tune index): LOTRO seems to ignore this when included in the header before notation, but multiple tunes have not been tested so it is unknown whether a second instance of this information field after an initial group of notation will generate an error. Can be safely omitted from ABC files written explicitly for playback in LOTRO.
M (time signature): This field appears to be ignored. It's encouraged to include this field for portability and to maintain proper meter if you plan on using the ABC file outside of Lord of the Rings Online. Some ABC readers/players will insert implied rests or generate errors if the music is out of step with he specified meter.
V (voice): LOTRO ignores this information field, so it's use in an ABC file played back in LOTRO will have undesired effects. Remember that this information field denotes the different voices in an ABC song, but LOTRO does not support multi-voice songs. The net result, when played back in LOTRO, is that each voice's notation is played consecutively rather than simultaneously.

Supported notation modifiers

Octave range, specific notes, accidentals, and chords

Specific notes supported (3-octave range)
- C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C D E F G A B c d e f g a b c' z
  - z is a silent rest note
  - any notes other than these will generate an error
Rules for accidentals
- There is no need to specify sharped or flatted notes that are already part of the song's specified key. For example, if K:Cmin. is in the song's header section, then the notes E A and B are already flatted without any need to specify the _ symbol before any instance of E A and B.
- Implied accidentals are ignored by LOTRO; you must place the accidental symbol before every instance of a sharped or flatted note that isn't in the song's specified key.
- Placing ^ before a note sharps it, and ^^ double sharps it
- Placing _ before a note flats it, and __ double flats it
- You cannot sharp or flat the z (rest) note
- You cannot sharp c'
- You cannot flat C
Chords (for example, [ceg]) are now supported by LOTRO. Set the length of a chord like [c2e2g2]

Specifying note durations

Note length scalar multipliers seem to be supported up to a value of 25 (and perhaps more--untested). For example, if Note Length is defined as eight-notes (L:1/8), then c2 would be a quarter note, c3 would be a dotted quarter note, c4 would be a half note, c8 would be a whole note, and so on.

LotRO has a maximum time for sustaining notes from ABC (as well as live playing), so depending on the tempo and multiplier, you may get an error for holding a note too long.

String instruments have a set sustain regardless how long the note is specified to play. While the notes will still start on-time for string instruments, they will continue to play through following notes. This makes arpeggio-like notations sound more like strumming or picking on string instruments.

Note length scalar divisors seem to be supported to a value of 4 (and perhaps more--untested). For example, if Note Length is defined as quarter-notes (L:1/4), then c/2 would be an eighth-note, c/3 would be a dotted sixteenth note, and c/4 would be a sixteenth note.
- / by itself is the same as /2. For example c/ is the same as c/2.
- // (normally equivalent to /4) is not supported.

Ties and slurs are not fully tested, although it's reported that simple ties using the same note seem to work okay. For example gc-c.

The shortest note duration reported is the length of a 16th note at Q:1/4=250. Anything faster was reported as generating an error in the chat box. The person who reported these test results, however, noted that they had seen others playing ABC scripts (hollow note animation) with faster notes than that, so it is surmised that client processing power or latency might affect the fastest notes that you're capable of playing.

Tuplets, broken rhythms, Slurs, and Irish rolls

Tuplets are supported only by one specific notation type.
- A tuplet (duplet, triplet, quadruplet, etc.) is any set of n notes that takes place in the same time as m notes. For example, a duplet is 2 notes that takes place in the time of 3 normal notes, and a triplet is 3 notes that takes place in the time of 2 normal notes, etc.
- Supported format (triplet example): (L:1/8) a2/3b2/3c2/3
- Unsupported format: 2ab (duplet) or 3abc (triplet), etc.
- Note that the supported format takes the form of each the notes in the tuplet having a compound scalar mulitipler/divisor pair that effectively achieves the timing of the duplet. For example, a triplet is 3 notes that take place in the time of 2 notes. So in our example of the supported format for a triplet, the multipler for each note is 2 and the divisor is 3. Each note therefore gets a 2/3 appended to it, and there are no spaces between the three notes. A duplet would therefore take the form of 3/2 after each of the two notes, like this: a3/2b3/2. A quadruplet would take the form of 3/4 after each of the 4 notes, like this: a3/4b3/4c3/4d3/4. And so on for each tuplet.
- Remeber that for quintuplets, septuplets, and nonuplets, the m notes of the tuplet can be either 2 or 3 depending on the time signature of the song. For compound signatures such as 3/8, 6/8, 9/8, 3/4, etc., m is 3. Otherwise, m is 2.

Broken rhythms are supported
- A broken rhythm is a dotted note followed immediately by a halved note, a type of 3 notes in 2 beats triplet feel common in traditional celtic music.
- Supported format 1: (L:1/8) a3/2b/2 c/2d3/2 abcd
- Supported format 2: (L:1/8) a>b c

Slurs are ignored. The systemn will play (AB) as AB. Ties A-A are supported.

Irish Rolls (interpreted by a rare few ABC players as a stuttering-style playing of the note, very common in folk music) do not seem to be supported.
- (Reported workaround from Northman): For "Toss the Feathers", I originally had: D2ED ADED|AB=cA GECE|D~DED ADED|AddB =cAGE|. I had to change it to: D2ED ADED|AB=cA GE=CE|DD/D/ED ADED|AddB =cAGE|. The performance of the Irish Roll is dependent on the tempo so you'll have to interpret it for the situation.

Grace Notes and Decorations

Grace notes like {a} are not supported. They can be replaced by placing a standard note of the shortest available duration immediately before the note being graced, in many cases.

Staccato notes (preceded with a period, e.g., .C) can be substituted with by shortening the note and adding a rest to fill out the timing.

+decorations+ (such as +trill+ +dc+) are not support and may generate errors Just interpret them as best as you can, or remove entirely if necessary.

Measures and Repeats

Measure bars | || |] as well as repeats |: :| :: :|: are ignored completely. Repeats need to be changed manually. E.g., |: ABC DEF :| should be changed to |ABC DEF |ABC DEF |

First and second repeats [1 and [2 will generate errors.

Guitar Chords and Lyrics

Guitar chords like "Am" and lyrics are ignored altogether.

Comments

A % marks the beginning of a non-displayed, uncatalogued comment line in ABC 1.6/2.0 and LotRO ABC. Anything after this on that line is ignored by LotRO. (Some programs use %% to signify some special command, configuration or notation, but it is still ignored as a regular % in LotRO.)

Notes and References

ABC can still generate the "Too many requests, Slow down" error from the server. Latency turned on (meaning Low Latency turned off) will give a performance like what others with a similar Internet connection will hear. Quantization on or off does not change ABC /playback. /Playback performance for other listeners seems to rely the musician and listener's computers and their Internet connections (which suggests they're simply notes generated by your client and sent to the server automatically for you). You cannot play notes manually while /playing an ABC file. You can chat in-game while /playing ABC (for things like typing lyrics as you play in /say or /telling your fellowship what chords they should start playing, and you might be able to bind such things as in-game aliases to the hotbars if those are not currently mapped to notes, such as Alt+[#]).

When posting ABC notations in the forums, it might help to select the "Disable similies in text" option at the bottom of the reply or advanced edit screens to prevent the forum from converting certain notations into "smilies". Also, the forums will insert a space in front of every 31st character if a string of characters is "unbroken" (no spaces) and "unbreakable" (not containing any characters such as hyphens that will allow many browsers to move the remaining text to the next line, making the string "breakable"). The forums considers a slash (/) as a breakable character (even though many browsers do not), but a comma (,) is not considered a breakable character. This could end up with spaces between accidentals, notes, octave modifiers and length modifiers. It is recommended that you use spaces freely when appropriate while posting ABC in the forums.