Learning To Transcribe

[stewblack]

I can pick out the notes, but then if I don't play the songs on repeat every day for the rest of time they drift a distance from my memory.  If only there was a way to write out what I'm playing, that way if I need to revisit a song I can pull out a piece of paper and just read it. The muscle memory would soon kick back in. But what's this? There is a way??

I know never to go near tab (thank you @TKenrick ) because it is apparently the work of Beelzebub - so what about these here dots? Turns out my childhood piano lessons and some work last year from a bass tutor have left me with the ability to translate the dots into sounds. Result. So writing them is just reverse engineering this right? Wrong.

Rhythm, note length, timing, whatever the correct name for it; this is where I've been falling down. So I've devised a sheet to which I add dots in what I believe to be the appropriate places. (Lots of slowing stuff down and chanting one e and uh two e and uh while attempting to split my mind in half, one to maintain this chant the other to listen to where the notes are landing).

I share all this here with you good and knowledgeable folk in the hope you might say - wow, well done, that's awesome. Or slightly less of a massage to my fragile ego but infinitely more useful you might say, yes but if you do this this and this it's even easier.

Here's what I made:

Each line is one bar  and the pink dots are where the note lands. The length of the gap tells me the value of the note. So far I'm nearly at the end of Charley Larkey's bassline from I Feel The Earth Move Under My Feet by Carole King and guess what? Each time I come to an obvious bit (where the first beat of the bar is clear and unambiguous) I'm on the money. This includes tied notes across bar lines which have foxed the bejasus out of me in the past.

OK so it may still be disastrously wrong but I shall laboriously enter this lot into a piece of software and play it back, the results should be interesting. Only taken three days to get this far. My respect for those who churn out transcriptions like others write shopping lists has passed through the roof.

 

[itu]

You have a tap tempo metronome, or at least a metronome (app, anything)? If you know the length of the song (minutes, seconds) AND tempo, you can count how many bars are there. See:

4/4 = 4 quarters (here: beats) per bar

Length: 3.12

Tempo: quarter note is 90 bpm, so beats per minute

3 1/5 minutes = 3 x 90 + 90/5 = 270 + 18 = 288 beats

288 / 4 = 72 bars

Helps in the start while trying to put all phrases to their respective places.

 

Edited October 16, 2019 by itu

[stewblack]

So you would learn the part first then play it to a metronome? Is that right? 

Edited October 16, 2019 by stewblack

[TKenrick]

12 hours ago, stewblack said:

 My respect for those who churn out transcriptions like others write shopping lists has passed through the roof.

I'm keen to point out that in spite of transcribing a lot of music over the last 10 or so years I'm by no means quick at it - most of the charts that I put up take a few hours of solid work, others much more.

One trick that I use when I have a lot of charts to write in a short space of time is to spend my 'first pass' of the song listening to structure only. If you know where the pulse is, then you can create a neat little list of how many bars each section is, which might look like this:

Intro 4

V1 8

Chorus 8

V2 10

Solo 16

V3 (breakdown) 8 + 4

Chorus 8 + 8

This gives you a head start when putting things into notation software, and gives you a bird's-eye view of the 'geography' of the song, which can be helpful when it comes to memorising it for a gig.

Rhythm is one of the most frustrating aspects of transcription, but all I can say is that over time you'll begin to build up a library of 'patterns' in your brain and instinctively know how to write out what you hear. I'm also a firm believer that better reading = better writing, so keep up the Louis Bellson torture...

FWIW, 'I Feel The Earth Move' is a tough one to write out because of all the syncopation, so fair play for not making life easy for yourself!

[stewblack]

Thanks @TKenrick I am evolving a system but it's great not to have to reinvent the wheel, so I really appreciate your pointers.

I use Audacity to slow songs down, repeat tricky passages etc. Also you can label sections of the track so I am breaking it down into its component parts but I haven't been listing the numbers of bars for each so that's a great tip 

[stewblack]

Going to seem weird but I enjoy the Louis Bellson torture. Like others enjoy crosswords, I suppose, while to me they seem unnecessary, masochistic and painful. 

I found a YouTuber who uses the Louis Bellson torture method with notes and metronome and it's great for tapping along on your lap using your phone. 

Anyway Carole King is done. Just a week to try to force it into Musink (worlds clunkiest software) and I'll share it. 

[itu]

16 hours ago, stewblack said:

So you would learn the part first then play it to a metronome? Is that right? 

I start the transcription by finding the tempo with a metronome. Then I check the the length of the song, and do these few calculations to nail the number of bars of the score.

Like Master @TKenrick showed us, it is nice to be able to "see" the parts. But the parts are also easier for me to put to a template that has the right amount of bars in it.

Then I try to fix the parts, choruses, bridges et al. I hate a 150 bars paper, where I need to subtract 28 bars or 57 or anything from the middle of the song just because the end part was easy and the song actually is only 90 bars long.

Afterwards it usually is much easier to make the score smaller, if there are repetitive parts etc.

And I am much, much slower than our productive Master K and the other transcribers.

[stewblack]

Finished! 

 

Edited October 18, 2019 by stewblack