Transcription workflow

danishbacon

I’m curious as to what different workflows are buying employed for transcribing guitar parts, in other words, you sit down to learn a piece, how do you go about doing it effectively and efficiently?

One thing I discovered quickly is trying out a couple of different positions for the same short phrase to identify what the easiest way of playing it is, before commuting a potentially problematic one to muscle memory. 

Roland

To start I watch YouTube videos of the original artist playing the piece. This shows which notes and phrases they think are important, and the neck positions they use. Quite often a solo has moved on from the original recording, or been adapted for playing live. 

Then I work out the notes and phrases which are important to me, and the neck positions which work for how I want to play it. Next I’ll settle on the recording I want to work from, check the bpm, do a bar count, and identify where the important notes and phrases fit. 

After all this I’ll settle down with an unplugged guitar and laptop to write things down. Quite often I’m working out a solo for a song the band might play, and don’t bother about muscle memory until I know that we’re actually going for it.

Brad

Depends on what I’m working on and the difficulty. 

I’ll have listened to it a fair bit and got a feel for the overall thing, be able to sing it... phrases permitting of course.  
 

Work out the key(s) so I’ve got an idea of what pool of notes are likely to be used. I’ll go one phrase at a time, but as I learn each phrase I’ll play through the previous ones so I’m consolidating as I go. I’ll only slow something down if it’s a bit beyond my ear and I’m getting desperate. I’ll often notate difficult things for future reference, or because I’m likely to forget them!

I might try some things in different places if needed. 

Regarding harmony, for difficult things I’ll get the root movement first, see if there are any common relationships that will help get the chords. For voicings I’ll try different inversions if needed. I’ll work out the melodic content if I’m struggling as that often gives clues as to what a given chord may be. With harmony, I’ll generally notate as I go. 

joeW

I’ve only just started recently and so am interested to know if people have a more formal approach.  I use transcribe! initially to get the bar structure to help with beat placement. Then melody which usually helps with the chord structure, esp for extensions / alterations. Then I just plod thro one phrase or bar at a time and try to keep it referenced to the chord shape on the fretboard.  

Danny1969

I listen to a song, no guitar to hand and just mentally chart the intervals of the chord progression. 

If it's riffy then I listen to the voicing, some things you can hear straight away like open strings which give clues in the position and key it's played in. It's important here to just listen to the voicing and not the absolute pitch ... this is why so many people try and play Brightside in Db ... it might sound Db in pitch but you can clearly hear the open E string which tells you straight away it's played in D but the guitars tuned down a half step. 

Solo wise some you can hear straight away what's happening, others can need a lot of work. @Roland watching live videos of the song on YT is something I do a lot but there are other tricks too  

Load the song into a DAW

Flip the phase on one of the channels to cancel out the lead vocal, bass, snare etc so you can hear the sides more clearly. Generally guitars are panned in the mix so this helps. 

is the song used in Guitar Hero, Rock Band etc ?  ... if so download the mogg file and open it in Audacity .. then you can solo the guitar track. In a dense production it will be stems but still a lot easier to hear.

Listen to the track at different volumes on different things, phones are so bad at producing low and very high frequencies that guitar parts do stand out quite well (down tuned metal aside). 

Use your DAW to slow sections of the song down, loop sections and work through them bit by bit. 

Most important though .... forget the notes and listen to the attitude and phrasing of the piece because that's actually the most important. When Eddie died every famous guitar youtuber seemed to do an Eddie video,  and some of them were just awful ... they had got the basic notes right but the phrasing, attitude and aggression,  which is what makes EVH sound like that was completely missing. I watched a very famous Youtube guitarist do a video on why people mess up playing Dire Straights Money for Nothing riff,  then he preceded to do an awful version of it himself .....again the notes were roughly right but the phrasing was completely wrong. 

viz

Totally agree with the point above about hearing the voicings, which tell you what position the chord is in. 

Similar voicings have similar sounds (unless you have perfect pitch) so a D major played x5777x sounds like any A-shaped chord. It sounds the same as E major’s x7999x. It doesn’t sound like D major 200232. If you can instantly hear A-shaped chords wherever they are up the neck, you will be able to replicate the exact way the piece is played. 

octatonic

I get the structure down, then the harmony, then the individual notes.
I write everything out, it helps me remember it- I might never need to refer to the score after that.

When transcribing heads or solos I work from the final 8 bars and work backwards.
This is a technique that ensures you don't learn the first half of the solo better than then last half.

Another thing to remember is what really matters is how you start something and how you finish.
Going off piste in the middle is often forgivable but if you fuck up the entrance and exit lines then it falls flat.

stratman3142

I always use Transcribe! and pitch transpose to the required key. For example, if the original is based on a guitar tuned a semitone flat, I shift it up by a semitone. Or I might shift things to a key requested by a vocalist.

Are we talking about guitar solos/nuances or a guitar chart for a song?

If it's a guitar solo (or I want to capture guitar nuances)
I use Guitar Pro7, if I'm going to notate a solo as an exercise. But I often don't bother notating it, especially if it's somewhat tricky - I'm no Levi Clay.

Although I sometimes work out solos by ear and notate them as an exercise, more often than not, for speed, I'll use any resource I can find to get there, including videos of the original player, comparing various Youtube tutorials etc.  I also play along with the original to check whether I hear discrepancies. Sometimes I have to find my own way of playing something that works for me. For example, I'm one of those who's incapable of phrasing it like EVH.

When I learn a solo, I try to understand the scale/chord relationship at various points, which helps with memory. It's a good exercise to learn a solo note for note at home. But in a live situation, it's quite rare that I play a solo literally note for note and I'd just capture some key elements. I know I get distracted live and want to avoid blanks that can't be filled by improvisation.

For a guitar chart,
I start by tapping the B key in Transcribe! for a section of the song, so little beat marker lines appear. Then I select the section > Markers > Compute Tempo. That gives me the tempo, then I delete those markers.

Then I mark out the sections in Transcribe! while the song is playing by hitting the S key. That inserts a letter (starting with A) which I right click > Edit this marker > and set it to (I) Intro, (V) Verse, (C) Chorus, (R) Rise, (B) Break, (O) Outro etc. It's a bit of game to try to keep up, to see if I can do it without pausing the song.

I mainly work out basic charts by ear, but I'm not averse to looking at stuff online to speed up the process if there's something I'm uncertain of - bearing in mind that stuff on line is often wrong.

I notate guitar charts using Musescore, I've set up my own basic template for guitar charts, so I don't have to set things up every time. I use rehearsal marks to denote sections. I edit the the rehearsal marks to state Intro, Verse, Chorus etc. They're mainly chord charts using either slash notation, or rhythmic slash if there are stops or specific rhythms. I might also notate any specific guitar melodies that seem important to the song. I don't go so far as to notate any actual solos in basic guitar charts.


Guitar Pro 7 is great for capturing guitar solos and guitar nuances using a combination of standard and tab notation. But it's not so useful if you need charts combining slash, rhythmic slash and standard notation.

Musescore is great for guitar charts involving a mixture of slash, rhythmic slash and standard notation. It can also do tab but I think Guitar Pro is much better for capturing guitar nuances.

xavriley

Worth checking out Soundslice too. It has YouTube, speed adjustment, notation/tab editor all in a webpage for free. I’ve been enjoying it recently. See the community section for examples of what people are doing with it.