Transcribing

BluesboyMitch

Hi all, So I have been trying to learn how to transcribe using Justin's course and I tried to start with oil brown - played by the devil and I can't even get the first note so is there any songs I should start with? Any recommend anything or so I try and carry on with what I'm trying Thanks Mitch

octatonic

Start with American Pie.

Transcribe the melody as well as the chords.

Are you writing it down, or just copping lines?

BluesboyMitch

I'm writing it down all be it on a notepad

octatonic

Full notation or tab?

BluesboyMitch

Just tab

octatonic

Can you try full notation?

dafuzz

First thing I ever worked out for myself was Knocking On Heaven's Door - I'd recommend Dylan as a good place to start in general.

I don't know of Justin's methods but generally I work out the bass notes first and fill in the rest from ear, or knowledge of the key. Have a crack, then check against a trusted transcription and see how well you did. Over time your ear just develops.

Best of luck

BluesboyMitch

octatonic when you say full notation can you explain what you mean

octatonic

I just mean normal musical notation- on a stave, with rhythmic and pitch notation.

It helps immensely if you can write stuff down properly- tab doesn't really cut it.

Roland

... and TAB only gives you the note pitch. For note duration you need the dots on the stave. You have to work out duration as well as pitch to understand the tune so you might as well write it down

close2u

Here is a link to Justin's course of transcribing
http://www.justinguitar.com/en/TR-000-Transcribing.php

BluesboyMitch said:

... is there any songs I should start with? Any recommend anything or so I try and carry on with what I'm trying

Blues is a good place to start ... figure the key and then you have (usually) 12 bars of I, IV, V repeated.
BB Kink is very accessibly for transcribing as he isn't flashy with speed, he tends to use certain areas of the fretboard. Just don't worry if you can't emulate his vibrato. The focus in on piecing together the notes and phrases.
Slow those songs down using Audacity or similar software (Audacity is free).

I disagree about using notation ... that's another whole set of complexity to learn. Your focus, if transcribing is your learning goal, is to pick tunes up by ear and have a handy way of recording what you figure out. TAB is quick and simple and doesn't force you to worry additional factors.

EricTheWeary

Just deleted a very ,very long answer to this! But as a tone deaf numpty I still thought I'd offer what can work for me:

Sometimes a good idea to get to know a song really well first. I don't mean hum along in traffic well I mean disect it to bits - structure, timing, lyrics - pull it apart in every way you can think of WITHOUT A GUITAR IN YOUR HAND until you get sick of it well. I'd suggest with headphones and pen and paper. Then get your guitar and find a note within a chord/ bass note ( you've got 12 to choose from) that fits and start fitting in others around it . Does the next chord go up or down, can you hear a single note riff or a chord or a double stop or an octave?

The  more familiar you are with how some of these things sound and with the theory which suggests what is likely to come up next the faster you can be. Some bits of a song will be more obvious than others so do those first, you don't strictly have to start with the first note in a song.

If you were putting together a 1000 peice jigsaw you probably wouldn't start with the first random peice. You might look for corners, then edges, then distinctive parts of the picture. Same process here, start with what's easiest and fill in as many of the gaps as possible. Each time you do that you are re-familiarising your brain with the picture song and so when you play something on the guitar it will be easier to hear what's wrong ( or right) and adjust what you are playing.

A lot of guitarists a lot of the time don't get transcribing 100% right. Obviously this is a generalisation but I have endless anecdotes to back it up if you have a couple of hours. This isn't neccesarilly a bad thing dependant on why you want to transcribe.*

With reservations I'd recomend finding a live version on youtube. If you want to work up a version of a song to play with a band then this is a good way of doing it anyway. Triple guitar harmony in the middle 8? How does the one guitarist in the band do it live? It may be clearer what is going on in a song without studio over dubs. You can ( tsk, tsk) also try to see what is going on with their hands. This will probably drive you mad and doesn't develop your ear as well  but sometimes you get little revelations - oh he's playing that intro around the 12th fret and I was playing around the fifth sort of thing.

Knowing something about the song/ artiste isn't always a bad idea. Discovering a song is in an open tuning when you've spent ages trying to work it out in standard is a bit of a bummer!


*Okay, one anecdote Back on MR ( I think) someone asked about playing Brown Eyed Girl. Now, this must be one of the most transcribed and played bits of guitar playing in history. Yet we still came up with several different ways to play it. All the same notes - and all the same to drunks at a wedding-  but in different places on the guitar.If transcribing BEG was to get the notes right we all got it. If it was to work up an acceptable version for playing in a band we got it. If it was to exactly replicate what the guitarist did on the original recording in terms of which frets and strings his fingers were on - well , we didn't all get it.