Transcribe songs by ear--Testimonial.

[jwing]

I'm not sure what you mean by 'transcribe.' The dictionary definitions all relate to a written copy. If that is what you are talking about, I disagree with you.

On the other hand, I believe that 'playing by ear' and transposing (changing keys) without the need to write is very useful. However, these are skills that are more easily developed when one has a solid foundation of basic guitar-playing skills. Then playing by ear can be developed along with more advanced playing technique.

[tbeltrans]

I think the term "transcribe" is being used loosely here, just as people who say they "write a song" or "just wrote a song" and didn't actually write anything down. I simply responded to the "by ear" portion and really didn't see anything from the OP indicating writing anything down. I have written stuff down as I figured it out, but gave that up some time ago because I didn't find it necessary for what my intended goal was/is.

Tony

[trion12]

+1 on the value of transcribing and ear training in general.

Back when I was a music student I used to transcribe stuff by great players by ear without the instrument (although ever few bars I would check to see if I was still on track.)

I think I learned more from this than almost anything else.

It's hard work.
I remember rewinding the cassette tape dozens of times over the same 2 bar segment of an Ed Bickert solo until I could figure out what he was doing.
The sense of awe I had when I figured it out I still remember as his whole approach clicked for me in that instant.

The "deep listening" required to do this gives you an understanding that I don't believe can be acquired any other way.

What was most interesting to me was that this deep listening had gotten the music so deep into my bones that I could pretty much play the stuff I had transcribed first time without much practice and the big lesson I got from this is that playing music is less a mechanical challenge than a conceptual one.

Aaron

[Dalegreen]

Transcribing is a valuable tool as sometimes one can write what may be missed when playing by ear, and vise versa of course.
Having a "good " ear is the most important aspect when it comes to playing (imo) and being able to write a out a chart only adds to all the nuances and understanding of what is being played.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by jwing

I'm not sure what you mean by 'transcribe.' The dictionary definitions all relate to a written copy. If that is what you are talking about, I disagree with you.

On the other hand, I believe that 'playing by ear' and transposing (changing keys) without the need to write is very useful. However, these are skills that are more easily developed when one has a solid foundation of basic guitar-playing skills. Then playing by ear can be developed along with more advanced playing technique.

Hi jwing…

There are certainly some here who mean 'writing' when they use the word transcribe - either on a score (in standard notation) or TAB when they say transcribe, and there are those who mean digging it out from the original and committing it to memory.

I'm more in the camp of digging it out by ear and then reshaping it for personal use. I learn quickest with a recording that I can pause, and a guitar in my lap/hands.

Doesn't mean I won't jot some notes, but those are usually done in alphanumerics with 'generic' note values (for rhythm) for melodies, and everything else (including inversions) I just remember.

Not sure what the original poster meant by it…

[stanron]

Etymology eh?

'Trans' indicates across and 'scribe', of course indicates writing. This is the origins of the word and not necessarily the current usage.

In my mind transcribing is the business of changing something that is heard into something which is written or played. A useful skill.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by stanron

…In my mind transcribing is the business of changing something that is heard into something which is written or played. A useful skill.

Hi stanton…
Transcribing is a useful skill for a composer, or arranger. Not sure if it's all that useful for the bulk of individual guitar players. The two guitar forms which carry the tradition of scoring are classical (extensively) and jazz (more loosely).

While some fingerstyle artists make their songs available as 'scores' and 'TABS', they certainly sell more recordings than scores, and I hear people playing their creations in coffee houses and other venues. When I ask how they learned it, the most common answer is they dug it out by ear with a recording/video
(YouTube gets a lot of mention).

Why do we have scores?
In a time when there were no physical recordings, and the only way to transfer the 'notes' to others was in written form, I think transcription was more useful.

If one attended a John Philip Sousa brass band concert in 1885, the only way to take songs home was through purchasing scores of songs the orchestra/artist/band played, because we didn't sell recordings. People had to rely on memory, and players on a score to remember it (albeit a piano transcribed score of a Sousa Band song was not identical to the band version).

Today (2015), I see that as 'changed' with the advent of recordings, and access to digital recording in even our phones. And factoring in DVDs, we not only capture the notes, but performances including musical nuances (which we can only approximate with transcription).

If there is one thing I've observed as a teacher is not every student learns the same way. Some are visually geared (monkey-see-monkey-do) whereas others seem to need paper-guidance…either in the form or TAB or notation.

Both types of students learn to play equally well if given the freedom to choose the 'media' they work with. My typical student now-days carries a smart phone with a video camera to 'take notes' home from lessons. And they just want 'snippets' not the entire piece.

To me it begs the question:
Is scoring as valuable as recording for both archiving and recalling music?

[stanron]

Originally Posted by ljguitar

To me it begs the question:
Is scoring as valuable as recording for both archiving and recalling music?

I suppose the short answer is yes.

Obviously a recording is more accurate and more detailed than a score. A score is specific and in pursuit of brevity the more subtle nuances of expression and variation are not noted. It could be argued that a score leaves more to the individual imagination and it has often been argued on this forum that those who follow scores can end up unable to play without them.

If, however, you have determined the notes to play using listening skills, and then you have written them down to avoid forgetting them you have the best of both worlds. Tab and Notation are equally good for this.

Of course there is a difference between playing the right notes in the right order and playing the music. I don't think that the ability to read Tab or Notation affects this in either way. The ability to read is something a musician chooses to learn or not to learn. To use an old teaching metaphor, it's one more tool in the box. Musicians make generic choices, stylistic choices, technical choices and lots of others as well.

It's the choices that individuals make that makes us individuals. Viva la!

[Doug Young]

Words can mean different things to different people, and transcription is one of them. I usually think of "transcribing" as the process of listening to a piece, figuring out the notes, and writing them down. "Tabbing it out", we often say.

When I interviewed Sergio Assad, the amazing Brazilian classical player, a few years ago, he talked about transcribing vs arranging, and there he meant that transcribing was moving a tune meant for one instrument to another. So if you take a Bach cello piece and figure out how to finger it on the guitar, pretty much literally, other than perhaps needing to adjust some notes for the different ranges of instruments, he'd call that "transcribing". Nothing related to the ear involved, necessarily. You could sit down with the Back sheet music and do it. if you took that tune and made it something completely different, say reharmonized it and made it a reggae piece, then he'd call that an "arrangement". Again, nothing necessarily related to the ear, tho there some personal creativitiy involved now. I was a bit surprised by his definition, tho it made sense. But it means that some things we think of as guitar "arrangements", he would call transcriptions, and that it's totally independent of writing it down.

In any case, to the original topic here, I agree, learning by ear in invaluable (and so is reading). I think that being able to listen and play is a great skill, and taking the extra step of writing down what you have heard adds additional education value - you see the music in a different way, certain structural aspects become evident.

Originally Posted by ljguitar

To me it begs the question:
Is scoring as valuable as recording for both archiving and recalling music?

I think it's apples and oranges. Good for different things. To me, written music is like a recipe. Yes, you can bake a cake, and now the cake exists. If it's a big enough cake, people could take bites of it for a long time, and never care about the recipe (and since music isn't physical, a recording will never be used up, unlike the cake). But if you want to bake a 2nd cake, the recipe is really handy! Yes, a skilled cook might taste the cake and be able create something that mimics it, and another skilled cook might read the recipe and decide that some deviation would be better, but all in all, it's pretty useful to have both the cake (to know how it's supposed to taste) and the recipe (to understand how it was made).

Especially with guitar and alternate tunings, it can be pretty tough to figure out how to play a tune totally by ear alone, at least past a certain point of complexity. (Having video does make this easier, tho. At least you have some hand positions to start with to figure out the tuning and so on)

[EoE]

there is a big difference between learning by ear and transcribing.. putting it on paper is what opens up the pathways in the brain that moves you to another level...it is the combination of ear, instrument skill, and theory then writing it down...

[Dalegreen]

Does it not really come down to the type / form of music one wants to transcribe (chart out)?

Pop / country/ and standard blues forms are not so difficult to "transcribe by ear", in fact, usually relatively simple melodic melody lines, and very predictable chord changes within the context of the key they are in.

On the other hand, the classical domain, and modern american jazz form are two examples where transcribing is invaluable. And also almost impossible to play by ear when it comes to the more difficult pieces in those domains (imo).

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Dalegreen

…almost impossible to play by ear when it comes to the more difficult pieces in those domains (imo).

Hi Dalegreen…

Yet, interestingly, for the purpose of discussion I bring up the fact that until the last ¼ century Gypsy Jazz has had a cultural tradition of no written expression, only learning by rote. It was not unusual to see a Gypsy Jazz quartet with 5 members - the 5th being the apprentice guitarist learning parts by rote through observation (and coaching). And Gypsy Jazz is some of the most complex guitar music around.

I'm not opposed to scoring. I know people who are smart enough to figure out complex guitar music by listening and discovery. I also know a lot of players who use scores and play terribly (I belong to a local guitar society where this is all too true).

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Doug Young

Words can mean different things to different people, and transcription is one of them.
…he talked about transcribing vs arranging, and there he meant that transcribing was moving a tune meant for one instrument to another.

Hi Doug…
Yes, in the classical community, transcriptions can mean adaptations of from one form of expression to another (orchestral score transcribed to piano for instance, or a Bach fugue transcription for guitar).

A good example would be Muriel Anderson's transcription from piano to classical guitar of "Nola" - which is arguably one of her most well known pieces. She talked of her transcribing it in her 2005 Healdsburg workshop.

It can also mean annotating pieces either verbatim or translating them for specific instruments. If one is simply transcribing the notes and rhythms played by a pianist, organist, or guitarist, it is very straightforward. When transcribing an orchestra piece for guitar, it requires judicious voicing and editing.

One of the issues I encounter frequently are simple lead-line-with-chord chart transcriptions by transcribers who simply identify keys and build charts without knowledge of the original piece, or a working knowledge of the instruments involved. Therefore, a piece which was written by a guitarist in key of A but capoed at the second fret is charted in key of B, making it improbably complex to replicate the original feel of the writer.

This is an all to frequent occurrence in the contemporary worship music community.

In college I helped transcribe and flesh out pieces for an a'capella group. They admired the Swingle Singers from the 1960s, who performed many classical and popular pieces with voices rather than traditional instruments. Those involved both arranging and transcribing.

The melody had to remain intact, key licks played by horns or other instruments had to be mimicked, walking bass lines replicated, and chord voicings had to be in keys which fit the singer's ranges, and the styles had to match the original pieces properly whether Jazzy, classical, rock etc. Thankfully that was not a life-long gig for me…but I learned a lot doing it.

These days most of the paper-n-pencil notation/scoring I do is a few bars for a pianist/keyboardist, or a lick for a sax player now and then.

[Dalegreen]

Hi Larry
Gypsy jazz really does seem to follow a basic blues format structure and also 8 and 16 bar american jazz form with many embellished chord variations (imo). ( I can only use one example, Jango Reinhardt, as I have three of his song books, one dating back to the mid 70's)

And of course many players will learn and become excellent at their craft by playing along with others and learning by watching and listening.

Note reading / transcribing is only one form of many approaches when it comes to understanding music. Works for some, not for others.

In the end it is all about playing the song..

[PickinPaddler]

Hello,

I recently found a piece I was transcribing about twenty years ago. It is the solo to "Here Again" by Rush, both music and tab. I can still remember how I enjoyed listening to it over and over and trying to get all the notes to fit in the with the timing as I wrote it down. I think there is no more of a thorough way to learn and understand a song than transcribing it.

Now that I have returned to guitars, I hope to pick up and finish the project. Good thread.

Cary