Turning off octave following indicates that pitches stay in the same absolute octave register until explicitly moved. An absolute octave starts at pitch c and ends at the b above it. The octave middle-c-to-b is indicated with an equals sign (`=') and octave displacement is indicated with the appropriate number of commas or apostrophes. These displacements are cummulative. For example,
!octaves "off"
4='c g b 'c
starts at the c above middle c and ends at two c's above middle c.
The keyword which follows the `!' may be abbreviated to the first two characters.