> I've been unable to find ABC files with the much-talked-about
> bang (!) for breaking lines.  Could any good soul send me some
> examples?  It's for extending abcpp to deal with this beast.

Here's another one using it the way I want to.  The point of
reproducing the original linebreaks isn't just for historical
documentation; it's a lot easier to see if your transcription
is right if the line breaks are in the same places on the screen
staff display as on the page.  Linebreaks in mid-bar are common
in this period, both in MS and print.

It's an interesting tune too.  As far as I know it has only been
published once before in a form anything like this, and that was
in the 1790s.  It's a Scotticized version of a northern English
hornpipe from the 17th century, "Three Sharp Knives".

X:1
T:Old Age and Young
S:Drummond Castle/Duke of Perth MS (David Young, 1734)
B:NLS Acc.7722/MS.21715
N:pseudo-type-facsimile, showing original staff linebreaks by ! signs
Z:Jack Campin 2003
M:3/2
L:1/8
Q:1/2=120
K:G Minor
G4     B3  c  d2(cB)|A2 F4    cB  A2 (G^F)|G4    B3  c  d2(cB)|A2 G2g2 G2 TA2(G^F)::!
DG^FA  G2G,2  B,4   |D2 F4    B2 TA2 (G^F)|DG^FA G2G,2  B,4   |D2 G4   B2 TA2(G^F)::\
GABG   ABcA!  BcdB  |A2 F2c2  F2 ABcA     |GABG  ABcA   BcdB  |A2 G2g2 G2  ABcA   ::\
Gg^fa! g2G2  TA4    |F2 f4    F2 ABcA     |Gg^fa g2G2  TA4    |G2 g4   G2  ABcA  H::

Notice how easy it is to ignore the linebreaks when reading the source if
you aren't interested.  That's the point - most of the time you *will*
ignore them.

I regard the last three characters as optional.  The two-sided repeat at
the end doesn't mean anything special, and the fermata simply means that's
where the tune stops (as opposed to "Fine" somewhere else), so :| would
convey the same meaning.  (The fiddler would probably have ended with a
big fat three-string G minor chord).

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760
<http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/jack>     *     food intolerance data & recipes,
Mac logic fonts, Scots traditional music files, and my CD-ROM "Embro, Embro".
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