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notes about notes for your eyes for your ears
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Why/How to Transcribe
Nov 17, 2011Tap to summarize–This is a post I originally put up on SoKillingMan.com, so if you like what you see, give it a visit!– A big reason why I learned how to transcribe is so that I can write out charts for myself, and other musicians I’m playing with. It seems like there’s always new repertoire for everyone to learn, members to add/replace or a sub to train, and the reality is that not everybody does their homework. There’s not always time, and you don’t always have the $$ to pay somebody who’s willing or able to put in the work and accurately learn/memorize a part. My first experience getting paid for a transcription was when I was playing cello in a rather bizarre ‘funk band’ that played in-between boxing matches at a local fitness club. Occasionally we had accompanimental pole dancers (to be fair they probably saw us at accompanying them) and one time our sound guy was in a boxing match and got pummeled so bad he couldn’t mix us for the rest of the night. The name of our band was Funktasia – here’s one of our <old set lists> to give you an idea. So the first difficult transcription I did for Funktasia was when the band leader wanted to sing Late in the Evening by Paul Simon and we needed horn charts for the trumpet, alto, and tenor players. This is the first stuff I wrote when I sat down to transcribe it: All I set out to do was write down the rhythm of the horn line, which is all that gibberish directly underneath the title, Late in the Evening, which I underlined so emphatically. Here’s sound files of these sections: 1st Horn Break: https://cellogoodbye.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/1-08-late-in-the-evening-horns-1.mp3 2nd Horn Break – starting after (perc. solo) https://cellogoodbye.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/1-08-late-in-the-evening-horns-2.mp3 In my experience, transcribing the rhythm before plugging in the pitches makes for a much more efficient and accurate process, and it’s really manageable to do the first step by hand because you don’t even need staff paper. When I try to transcribe pitch and rhythm all in one pass, it can be overwhelming, especially with fast arpeggiated passages. But once the rhythm is all squared away, it’s just a matter of plugging in the pitches, which is so damn satisfying to do. ‘Plugging in the pitches’ can be done by hand, or I really like to do it using music notation software, which in my case is Finale. For a little mini-finale tutorial on ‘plugging in the pitches’ <click here>. And actually, before I even start entering any notes in Finale, I get the general structure all squared away. First off, make sure you have the right number of measures by listening through the tune once or twice while counting the number of measures in each distinct section. You can see I’ve written that down at the bottom-left corner of the page above. Here’s how my chart might have looked before I entered any notes (probably not this pretty): For the sake of fitting it all in one page I condensed the rests, but everything else is a great idea to have before entering notes. One really great technique is putting double barlines between phrases, even when using multimeasure rests as shown above. This way, when the trumpet player is counting out 14 bars of rest during the verse, he/she’ll be more likely to hear the two 5-bar antecedent phrases plus a 4-bar...
Transcribe →Harold Crumb: the last session
Aug 13, 2011Tap to summarize(for background on this project check out quoted text below) About a week before the premier of Harold Crumb (short film) Adam invited me into the studio to record some credits music, and the night before our session he emailed me a scanned copy of the part: (excerpt of sheet music) Initially I was really pissed because this is a pain in the ass to learn and none too simple to play – and I hate wasting peoples’ time in the recording studio with tons of bad takes. But once I played through it once I could tell it was a cool piece, it lays under the fingers surprisingly well and is somewhat intuitive, although very confusing at the same time. The premise of the three moving parts is that they’re all based on the same 2-bar sequence of notes, but offset by one 8th note (aka, a canon). And then there’s some transition material for the modulation to C# minor (every cellist’s favorite key). I was a bit worried walking into the studio, but overall the session ended up going very smoothly and once everything came together we were all surprised at how well it turned out: Crumb Credits https://cellogoodbye.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/crumb-credits_master.mp3 Huge props go to Graham Wakeman and Dane Hoppe for their fabulous expertise recording, and for blazing through the post-production bullshit while entertaining me and Adam’s every whim. Also, here’s a recording of the montage scene from an older recording session: Harold Crumb – short film (May 18-24) The above date is only the time that I spent on this project, whereas my friends Adam Conrad (music composer) and Christoper Jopp (writer/director) have put in COUNTLESS hours to create this film. (cello part) Check out the <trailer> and the video Chris shot of our recording sessions <here>. (Adam Conrad/Dylan Jack) I’ve done quite a bit of work with Adam playing his compositions, and he provided me with crucial support on my first composition project, so I was thrilled to have the chance to work with him on this production. Rehearsals and recording were a lot of work, as is necessarily the case with film scoring, but the musicians, recording technicians and other supporting artists made it an excessively positive experience. (Ben Kelly) The unexpected MVP of the whole process was Ben Kelly, who Adam had enlisted as our ‘rehearsal assistant.’ His job was to follow along in the score and take notes on reoccurring mistakes/rough patches/whatever, and to offer an outsider’s opinion on which takes were good, and/or how they could be better. Ben was absolutely the hero of each recording session – and he plays a mean bass guitar in gangster jazz band Sexy Delicious.
Transcribe →Lulu’s: will you marry me?
Aug 8, 2011Tap to summarizeLulu’s Playground just had a rehearsal last night after a seven-months-long hiatus and, as they say, absence [most certainly] makes the heart grow fonder. Trumpeter Adam Meckler literally proposed marriage to the band and brought up recording an album. Those were actually two separate events, that literally occurred. But the point is that I am incredibly excited to be playing with these fellas once again! Here’s a little video we made of our first time through a new tune I was just showing them – it’s only the very very end of Positive Rays, which I’ve already posted an audio file of. https://cellogoodbye.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/ofi-sketches-2.mp3 So tonight is our first gig in 7 months, and it’s also Adam Meckler’s birthday party; I can’t imagine having more reason to celebrate! If you’re a Lulu’s fan or an Adam Meckler fan, come check us out at the Carleton Place Lofts around 10pm tonight.
Transcribe →OFI Sketch 8/4/11
Aug 5, 2011Tap to summarizeThis is going for more of a hardcore, “I’m dangerous” kinda’ vibe. To me the cello almost sounds like a bari sax, which is hilarious, while at the same time terrifyingly awesome. There’s a lot more I wanted to add to this, but I’d rather see what the dudes come up with, rather than ruin it myself. haha Working title = 2hundredhttps://cellogoodbye.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/200-1.mp3 And here’s the hilarious version that I did for funhttps://cellogoodbye.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/2hundred.mp3
Transcribe →OFI Sketch 8/1/11
Aug 1, 2011Tap to summarizeHere’s a really simple loopy thing that might make a good tune – it’s just a bunch of Ma7 chords planing around but I think the complementary rhythms sell it. One problem is that it’s really difficult to solo over, another is that it’s horribly repetitive – but it’s going to be a hip hop beat so nbd. Working title = Familiar Mistakeshttps://cellogoodbye.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/the-grind.mp3
Transcribe →Light, Motion and Sound (March-April 2011)
Jul 29, 2011Tap to summarize(Vanessa Voskuil - photo by James Sewell) This collaborative work of challenging-to-describe art was organized by Zachary Crockett, and served as the dissertation for his PHD in music composition (at the University of Minnesota). Months before I entered the process Zac joined forces with choreographer Vanessa Voskuil, and at her suggestion invited visual artist David Mehrer to the team. They’re all amazing so check out their respective pages! (Zachary Crockett / me - photo by Justin Schell) Zac began the creation process by composing a recorded soundtrack that would serve as the foundation for the whole piece. In its totality the track was about 45 minutes of sparse, ambient soundscape divided into 3 sections by 2 climaxes of much denser, intense textures. Ambient excerpt: https://cellogoodbye.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/voca__omni-ritual-1-2.mp3 2nd climax: https://cellogoodbye.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/electronics.mp3 Based on an early draft, him and Vanessa began brainstorming themes and concepts off of which the work would be based through a long series of emails. This early draft was much more sparse than Zac intended for the final product, but Vanessa had very positive feedback about the expansive/open texture and convinced Zac to keep it lean/simple. Some examples of themes/concepts that arose throughout the process: ritual, expansive, earth, fire, light, sound, unity, negotiation of space, attraction/repulsion, etc., which led them to the title: “VOCA::Omni (Ritual #1).” (David Mehrer - photo by Justin Schell) The sculptures (David’s creations) that Zac, Vanessa and David decided to incorporate into the piece all produce different qualities of light – my favorites being the 55 galon lamps and empty basin because they have the common theme of light as a volume, which I find very evocative. David’s sculptures really helped me get into the right mindset for this production because of how urgently they invite interpretation without imposing any definite guidelines on the substance of said interpretation. Every component of this performance was designed to do exactly that, and the unity of intention saturated the whole experience with a feeling of raw creative energy – rehearsals and performances alike. So at the first of only 4 rehearsals the sculptures and musical sound scape were in the late stages of development, but there was still a huge amount we didn’t know about the end product. <img loading="lazy" data-attachment-id="154" data-permalink="https://cellogoodbye.wordpress.com/2011/07/29/light-motion-and-sound/5639929438_f42a03aa59_b/" data-orig-file="https://cellogoodbye.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/5639929438_f42a03aa59_b1.jpg" data-orig-size="1024,683" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":...
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