What method do you use for transcribing music? Pencil and paper or do you have some softwares that help you out? Or do you just play by ear?
Im a drummer and transcribe music using pencil and paper and it's painfully irritating. I'm trying to find out what else is there so please share your methods!
Poll: How do you transcribe music
The hard way, pencil and paper (6)
46%
I dont have to, i play by ear (3)
23%
Software (2)
15%
Others (2)
15%
13 total votes
Your vote: How do you transcribe music
(Vote): The hard way, pencil and paper (Vote): Software (Vote): I dont have to, i play by ear (Vote): Others
I'm not an expert nor a drummer but what comes to mind are Sibelius, Guitar Pro 6 (yes it works for drums too), a free Guitar Pro clone called Tux Guitar, or DAWs like Ableton is you have problems with getting the timing right because you can play it real time and it will automatically write down the notes for you, and it can even turn audio to midi. (Don't think other DAWs can convert from audio to midi but I'm not sure since I don't use them)
A demostration (search more for tutorials):
Once you got the midi you can use Sibelius or Guitar Pro to make the formal drum music sheet.
The advantages of using all the software above are that you can listen to your transcription for mistakes -- and the almighty copy -> paste function :D
To answer your question, I used to transcribe but I prefer to either make a recording (since nuances are lost when written down for me, and I'm slow) or make a draft track with Ableton when I need more instruments or layers. Of course, the thing is so far I'm usually doing it for myself, and I can usually get away with showing people what I want so I don't need to transcribe anything yet since I haven't composed a long piano piece for someone else or anything like that.
Is the transcribing for noting your own music, or to decipher songs you are trying to play?
In the first case, I would make a MIDI file as suggested above. Try Reaper, it's free! With a piano roll you can easily program some midi notes if you have no midi-input device. Maybe add a VST plugin like EZ Drummer to make it sound good, if you want to do anything with it.
In the second case I would just suggest using and training your ears by listening.
Guitar pro and tux guitar does that I think. I haven't done it before but since it can make sounds from a music sheet (meaning it's probably using MIDI, and translate music sheet into tabs, it should work.The software mentioned should be used a rough guide since they are imperfect.
If you're just starting to learn guitar I recommend finding for tabs by googling or in sites like ultimate-guitar.com. Just using other people's transcriptions (and correcting their mistakes) is better since it takes time to build up strong fundamentals, and knowing about conventions before you can progress into making your own transcriptions.
Ear training with knowledge on common chords used are a very important thing to do and I recommend that you focus and work hard on that. You could try to figure out the song by ear and then check out other people's transcriptions and compare it, that helped me a lot.
Also, you could find youtube videos of people playing it so you can pause or slow down to see how they are playing it. Don't underestimate the power of slowing down videos and finding tutorials. I've learnt Andy Mckee's songs using that techinque a long time ago and a Kotaro Oshio one too. As for times where I only have the audio I just slow down the audio so I can catch the notes, since I'm not that good
I create a rough outline with pencil and paper and then make a permanent copy on the PC. Keeping hundreds of songs in your head may be possible, but once your band wants to play that old song from 2years ago you will wish to have been more orderly.
I'm a drummer too. I usually just play by ear nowadays. I've gotten to the point I can figure most things out by just quietly picking out each drum/cymbal, figuring it as a basic single stroke pattern to start (if it can't be played as singles then I look for a fitting rudiment, usually doubles or paradiddle) or noticing the beat pattern, and then just playing to match it for sound by ear.
When I was still learning and sucked, I used tabs...a lot. I can read sheet music but more slowly, and tab is more effective for drums simply because drummers write tabs that are in time with themselves and almost always set in 16ths, unlike guitar tabs which are all over the place, most with no timing at all and a note to "just listen to the song to figure out it out." *facepalm*
Despite this, I am a strong visual learner, not a auditory learner, and when I really need to figure something out I just use the midi drums in Guitar Pro 4/5 to tab out a song as I listen to it with headphones, slowing it down with WMP or Acid if I need to hear it better. Been doing this for years, and it works great for me.
I've tried writing things by hand (usually when I was bored in school, lol) and holy hell, is it tedious.
On June 27 2014 00:11 crippledx wrote: For Sibelius/Guitar Pro, they will auto transcribe midi to tabs?
Guitar Pro has an option to transcribe midi inputs, either directly or from file. You can then export it as a tab (though it will use the midi voice numbers instead of common tab symbols) for printing or w/e.
If you're looking to transcribe live audio without triggers (i.e. off of mic inputs) you'll have to find something else; but for a simple reference tool it works well enough.
yea i usually play by ear cos writing everything out on paper is too much hard work.
i used to just use WMP and slow down the speed and slowly figure everything out, so much hassle and i do prefer reading music sheets to playing by ear.
Could you guys kindly record your responses into this google doc? I'm trying to build a transcription app so all your help would be greatly appreciated