I would transpose by hand in notation software if you must, then use the tools to transpose to your preferred key. (My assumption was perhaps wrong: I think I now understand, something like the special vesperal that Jeff O posts about sometimes)

The Weimann graduals are available via CCW that do exactly this. It rather saddens me that this never caught on, as it is the best of both worlds in a way.

Hi, you might be interested in my new project: https://aretino-chant.github.io/ It's an old concept promoted by the Hungarian professor Laszlo Dobszay, and a new (early) implementation.

Thank you for your feedback. Aretino is not “GABC with different syntax,” but a Dobszay-inspired concept for transcribing Gregorian chant on its own terms: staff-readable for modern singers, yet still preserving the neumatic logic of chant. So while it literally is "GABC like chant notation on modern staff", as the discussion title says, might be not at all relevant for many people. I believe still could be interesting for some.

If it's of interest, here is a Claude-generated app that converts gabc to musicxml, ready for import into your regular notation software. Rename .txt to .html and launch.

this type of thing is already easily achievable in notation programs like Dorico

Thank you for your example (it is indeed beautiful), this clarifies your comment for me. Dobszay's system, with huge emphasis on neumes as single blocks and virgae as visual separators, which I try to support with software, is not easily achievable with Dorico I think. Take a look at Kyrie VIII's transcription from GABC. This shows the uniqueness of his system (and it is teached at cantor schools in Hungary, so it does have some established practice). A text format has some advantages (creating scores without installing software etc.), and the pecularities in the syntactical language (which borrows stuff from both GABC and ABC) is partly due to the nature of the system, which is half-Gregorian, half-Classical... So in a nutshell, these are the reasons. But to be honest, this project was born to replace a 25 years old Hungarian system for this kind notation, used in the country in countless liturgical books... but I though this would be interesting abroad as well.

On the website, I only see an interactive web application, but it says on the bottom "Released under MPL-2.0 (code)". Is the code somewhere accessible? And is it only a web application, or does it include a command line program that takes a file in your code as input and produces some graphics?

Thank you a lot for your feedback. All source code is public on GitHub, though I wouldn't fork it yet, as in this early phase of the project, everything is in motion. Currently the renderer needs a browser to properly render text, so no command line yet, but I will certainly prepare it for LaTeX workflows, so command line is coming for sure.

Take a look at Kyrie VIII's transcription from GABC. This shows the uniqueness of his system (and it is teached at cantor schools in Hungary, so it does have some established practice).

Here is my own transcription of the same:


I prefer the white noteheads for "long" as it's simpler for a congregation to read (black means "short", white means "long") but it could be dune with dotted black noteheads just the same.

I confess, I find your example much more difficult to read than the one I've engraved.

I have also gone back and forth on how I wish to present things; I'm settling into stemless, using dotted ties (since I do ultimately use Mocquereau…), slurs only for parts actually connected meaningfully, and white notes for dots/the mora vocis: however, I do use the tenuto for the episema, which I still mark in.

I used to beam things like Mocquereau's older transcriptions, but that's a little less clean in the end.

I appreciate seeing the virga; the slur doesn't represent this effectively. You have to know what kind of neume it is in the square notation (or whatever notation you used originally), whereas this Hungarian system at least makes it more clear what kind of neume the square notation is representing (however accurate or inaccurate this is itself representing an earlier form).

I'm on the sidelines here but let me ask: are congregations in Hungary Kodaly educated? Would that put them already at a higher level of musical literacy than Western Europe?

I found a book published in 1990 that follows this Hungarian notation system, a Good Friday lamentation. Exactly this is what Aretino software was created to support.
From 1990:

With Aretino Chant notation:

And I've also attached a manuscript page from the 14th century, where the basic elements of this notation are visible: a neume is strictly not a sequence of notes, but one musical gesture, but also it is denoted using the X axis as time. This is the tradition this system tries to preserve.

@davido I think I can show you the authoritive interpretation of a score (with some slight textual variations, not exactly the same edition, but almost), as both of them are coming from the same source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdop9YT9OWg