Transcribing Music With a Guitar
The guitar can be a great tool for transcribing music, and transcribing music can be a great practice for any musician. Some of the factors that make the guitar a good instrument for music transcriptions are that it is portable and can be taken to the computer or stereo that music may be playing from. Also, because you can play chords on the guitar you can handle any type of music that you may need to transcribe. Finally the guitar has a wide range of notes so you should be able to match any pitch in a recording, which makes it easier to transcribe.
Transcribing music is a great practice because it helps your playing, your ears, and your music writing and theory understanding. If you need something transcribed and you cant figure it out there are people who can offer a music transcription service, but if you start practicing with simple melodies you can eventually build up your transcribing skills.
Some things that can help your transcription abilities are learning the intervals by ear. This can be done by playing and identifying the intervals one at a time. First concentrate on minor seconds and then move up through the intervals. Beyond knowing the intervals you need to be able to identify rhythms and being able to slow down the melodies in your head can help with that. Obviously you need to know how to write the music to properly transcribe it. This can be easier if you have a notation software program but it is also good to know how to write music by hand.
January 05 2009 10:02 pm | Guitar Theory