Transcribing: Melody

The dark art of transcription, a.k.a. “tabbing stuff out” has baffled many aspiring musicians for many years. Well, if you’ve come here looking for the answers then you’re in luck! I’ve broken down the process of transcribing into what I might end up calling “The Lead Sheet Method“.

What is the “lead sheet method”? Well, as I explained in last week’s post (linked above), when you transcribe a song you need to think of the whole structure of the song and where each part fits- and the lead sheet allows us to do this.

In a lead sheet, you will have the basic melody, chords, and song structure written out. That’s what we’re going to start to create. Starting with the melody.

How to Transcribe Melody

There are several different ways that you can go about transcribing the melody. Well start with the most basic- playing along until you find out what fits.

This method is probably how many people try, and fail, to transcribe melodies. It seems like the easiest option- you hear something, then copy it on your guitar…but can you really play a phrase back exactly how you heard it the first time?

If not, then you’re in for a long, drawn out process of trial and error…until eventually you give up a few hours later having got almost nowhere! Sound familiar? I know that’s how I used to try to transcribe! Not fun at all.

Singing Along

This next method may be familiar to those of you who have watched my “how to solo on guitar” videos on YouTube. One of the ways in which you can connect your brain to the sounds you’re hearing (or the solo you want to play) is to sing along and then match it on guitar.

This method can work better than pure guesswork (because you are engaging more of your brain)…

…but we’re still pretty much stuck with the “try to play this” method of trail and error!

Interval Recognition

The above two methods can work fine…they’re just very time consuming! A much better plan is to get better at something called “melodic interval recognition”- three long words which basically mean “hearing two notes, and being able to tell how far apart they are”.

If you can match any of the notes (preferably the first) in the tune with your guitar, then (with good interval recognition) you only need to work out the distance to the next note, then the next, then the next etc…

No, this is not sorcery! There are tools that you can use to improve this ability. One of my favourites is GNU Solfege, which is almost like a game where you get to hear a melodic (or even harmonic) interval and then choose the correct answer from a list.

Definitely worth the time spent on this, and- like I said- it’s like a game once you get into it.

Here’s another tip if you want to get good at this but don’t know where to start: think of the starts of songs you know. For example, the very first two notes in the theme to “Star Wars” are a perfect 5th apart (the standard powerchord shape). So if you hear two notes one after the other and it sounds a bit like the the start of Star Wars, you’ve probably got a perfect 5th interval going up.

Other songs include: the octave in “Some-where over the rainbow…”; the flattened fifth in “Black Sabbath” by Black Sabbath, or (for you Star Wars fans again) the “Imperial March”; the major 2nd in “Happy Birthday”…see if you can find more of your own…

There is no “magical pill” you can take to make you good at this, it is going to take practice- but at least there are some techniques like these to help you improve.

Rob.

June 9, 2011 at 2:00 pm | Developing Your Ears, How to, Practicing and Practice Routine | No comments