My transcription often ends up being a compromise between being rhythmically very accurate (lots of detail) and readable (less detail). Even when making a transcription for my own purposes, there are lots of decisions to be made about how best to notate rhythms where the soloist is playing around with the time. When transcribing jazz solos, and particularly ballads, I find that getting the rhythm "correct" is often much more challenging than the pitch. One small difference to your process is that I enter barlines by hand but get Transcribe! to put in the beat markers by simple division - that's what Andy Robinson (the developer) recommends. It's almost always jazz solos, usually saxophone but I have also done trumpet, voice, piano, bass, trombone solos and also whole section parts when trying to transcribe a full band recording (from quartet to big band). I do something similar to what you have described, using Transcribe! and Sibelius open at the same time. I'm not good with a pencil and paper on a blank score sheet because I've done it and I can't read my own writing AND I'm a slow reader, so doing all the work helps me learn the song in more detail.Īre there any other tools or workflow tips I should know about to improve my transcribing efforts? So where am I going with this you say? I hope to hear from those of you who know easier ways to do transcribing. Real Book versions are basic melody notes which I can usually play from memory. I've done this with Aubra Grave's Misty, and Ken Peplowski's Trubbel so far.Įach of the transcriptions include the artist's improvisations which is what I was after in the first place. I just did Coltranes' Nancy with the Laughing Face - his alto version from his Ballads quartet album. I then read the XML file into MuseScore and I have a score which differs a bit in timing from the original. Then I output the MIDI in XML format (the. This is time consuming but probably the most accurate I've ever been. After that, I could adjust the length of the MIDI notes to match what I see and hear the sax play on the piano roll. Then the hard work begins editing out piano, drums and harmonics, then editing in sax notes that it missed. ALL the music in the song is turned into MIDI which is a real mess, but I learned that I could edit out many of the notes (Bass, and high freq piano and harmonics) easily. It has a good piano roll function but no way to change to Eb Alto like Transcribe! The first load of the mp3 audio takes a long time because it is using the AI engine to determine the tempo, beats, MIDI notes and chords. I found AnthemScore free trial and it is similar to Transcribe! but will use an AI engine to try to give you all the MIDI notes. MuseScore note entry is slow and painful for me. The result is that even though I only do ballads, the score is never the same timing as the original and I repeat the workflow to try to improve it. I then open MuseScore and insert each note as I see and hear it. It gets pretty dense when 32nd notes are there. I can then see where each note starts and stops. I first play it at speed and put in measure bars and beats. I then pick out the melody notes by sight because all the other instruments (and the horn harmonics) are all there too. The piano keys at the left will move position to correctly show the notes for an Eb alto with one button click which is awesome. In my efforts to transcribe EXACTLY what is being played, I found that Transcribe! has the best sow-speed playback, loop capabilities and best of all, a piano roll where you can see the actual notes being played. (Full disclosure - I'm just ok at doing it but I love trying to get as close as possible.) So I realized if I wrote it down in notation I would be able to practice it and focus on my sound that would recreate or at least resemble the original. Memory was never my strong suit but thank goodness for some of today's software! Remember having to lift the needle of the record player over and over so you could just write the lyrics? I get close but can't remember the details of the whole song. I spend (a little too much) time listening and repeating ad nauseum. I did this back in grade school with the clarinet, in a weekend rock band on guitar, in a club band with sax, clarinet and guitar. I have always liked to play any given song as close to the recording as my capabilities allow.
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