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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
How do you transcribe?
How do you transcribe?
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Eyeball_Kid
9 posts
Nov 21, 2013
3:55 PM
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It's interesting to know the various methods how you transcribe your music or the music of others you want to write down and remember.
Do you use scores or tabs and how do they look? Do you use lots of arrows and stuff or do you rather just record everything and don't transcribe your stuff at all? And how do you deal with certain techniques you want to describe?
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WinslowYerxa
426 posts
Nov 21, 2013
5:42 PM
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How you write it down depends on what you want to do with it and how much information you need.
Tab will give you the moves - blow, draw which hole, bend, how far, etc. What it doesn't give you is time - how long notes last, what beat they fall on, etc. Are you doing this for someone who expects music notation? If not, maybe you don't need it, but rhythmic notation and maybe the backing chords would both be useful.
Tab comes in many versions once you get beyond hole number. I designed a font specifically for tabbing diatonic, called Fletch Diatonic. It includes all the bends, expressive devices, ways of starting and stopping notes, texture effects, tongue blocking effects, and so on. You can check out the user's manual by : clicking here
You can buy the font for $10 here
But you started out with a more general question about the "how" of transcribing. So I'm not sure whether you're looking for more how-to insights, or just about the subject of using symbols to write stuff down.
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Winslow
Last Edited by WinslowYerxa on Nov 21, 2013 5:44 PM
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Frank
3331 posts
Nov 21, 2013
6:02 PM
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I like to learn something that will benefit my improvisational ideals - so I enjoy simply writing out the name of the notes...ex: G B D F...and just make up symbols that make sense to me regarding techniques. And I'll break-up the rhythm of the song with lines to separate the notes ex:G B / D Db C / Bb F / D ...I also like to add the I, IV, V to see how the notes and phrasing are fitting into the 12 bar Blues format.
Once you do this millions of times - it becomes second nature and fairly easy to do :)
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The Centipide Saloon
Tip Your Waiter Please
Last Edited by Frank on Nov 21, 2013 6:10 PM
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nacoran
7361 posts
Nov 21, 2013
11:31 PM
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I often record a snippet of anything new I write so I don't forget it. When I'm writing stuff I still tend to either write a lyric/vocal and then write the harp part, or write a harp part for a instrumental. When it's got a lyric, usually, if I record just a snippet having the lyrics in printed up in front of me will jog my memory.
The first recording doesn't have to be a great take, or even include lots of flourishes, but it's got to have the basics. When I'm going to be playing it with the guys I write down the key and have written out the notes on occasion. I've been trying to write out the chords for more of my lyrics so I can recruit a guitar player at an open mic if my band members can't make it.
Most of my song 'tab' is lyric sheets, with the key written on them. Sometimes it has the chords, but they are so I can teach other people the song, not for me. Sometimes, if I haven't chorded the whole thing out, I'll write the starting note down too. It's funny how the brain can have the muscle memory down for every part of something except which hole to start on!
When I'm learning something someone else has written, I rarely tab it out, but I do edit the metadata on recordings in my media library to list the key of the song. WMA will let you sort by any category. Most people usually sort by artist, album, song title, but if you add the information you can sort by key, which can give you a bunch of songs for one harp, which can be a fun way to spend some time, just playing along song after song. There is a practice virtue to keying each song as it pops up, but it's a lot more fun to just play.
When I'm writing out tab for other harp players, I usually just stick to standard 4b 4d sort of tab.
I've written out sheet music for some piano stuff before, and even using a piano, some vocal melodies, but never for a harp. My sight reading is just too rusty to be quicker than tabs, especially since tabs are easier to type up on your computer. (Although I just looked it up based on this thread, and apparently there is a way to write sheet music in Open Office if you get a plug-in. I always have preferred sheet music for rhythms.)
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MindTheGap
62 posts
Nov 22, 2013
1:15 AM
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I use Adam Gussow's format he uses for his paid-for song lessons. You have the 12-bar structure (or 8-bar or whatever you need) in a nice graphical format plus as much detail about the articulations, techniques and rhythm as you care to add.
I add tails and groupings to the stokes as if they were quavers, crotchets etc. So if you are used to reading rhythms from conventional sheet music, at least that part is a familiar read-across.
Personally I can't sight-read from these things like piano music, but that's not my aim.
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Shaganappi
57 posts
Nov 22, 2013
8:56 AM
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Dependence on tabs can become a crutch but they are necessary to transcribe and/or analyze - or to help beginners. Also the very fast licks... even for short licks & phrases. But tab has to be kept simple and uncluttered so the player is encouraged to insert his own style.
The big problem is getting simple RHYTHM inside tab. Hole numbers are easy to notate by comparison.
Some reasons for needing music notation for the harmonica are:
1. Communication - quick "napkin scratching" to email, forums & full detail archiving
2. Analysis - breakdown detail of note patterns, beats, connectors & structure
3. Learning - muscle memory lick practices and accurate "classical" playing
4. Transposing - moving lick positions via a computer to re-tab the piece
I just yesterday uploaded a pile of examples to my Museum page per what tab notations I have bumped into. Tons of them. It's amusing to look at the amount of different tab systems out there.
https://sites.google.com/site/btabnotation/museum
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Shaganappi
58 posts
Nov 22, 2013
4:57 PM
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EyeBall: On a reread, it sounds like you are asking more per process than just tools & notations so I should mention that the Beat Tab web page (just about at the bottom of the Tab page) has some general notes per process that I think many tabbers do to enable accurate transcriptions. I find that there are tons of tricks to getting accurate tab and this is likely far from exhaustive. The first few tabbed pieces can require a lot of hard work note by note, but eventually, that experience spills into later efforts of new pieces that have similarities.
https://sites.google.com/site/btabnotation/practical
Also note that Beat Tab is fully QWERTY and has rhythm & chording, etc. and should rhythm not put in, it basically reverts to somewhat typical harp tab. I really suggest at least using the Chord notation as it covers most of the typical stuff blues players do.
My advice is to keep it simple. But rhythm is very nice if you can do so.
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joe
117 posts
Nov 22, 2013
5:37 PM
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i did a series of posts on transcribing skills
reading and transcribing
Winslow's font is super.
joe
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UTC+10
Blues Harp Forum - topics 1
Blues Harp Forum - topics 2
Last Edited by joe on Nov 23, 2013 4:34 AM
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Gnarly
796 posts
Nov 22, 2013
9:31 PM
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Boy, I don't transcribe much! Mostly for students . . .
But I got Winslow's tab font (and the Chromatic one, Chromatic Sans) many moons ago, and it makes it a lot easier.
I keep forgetting if the arrow up is blow or draw LOL
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Frank
3363 posts
Nov 23, 2013
7:24 AM
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I don't use arrows when writing things out, only names of notes - seems the sensible thing to do and it invigorates my curiosity of note combinations as well as satisfies my learning preferences :)
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