Transcribing What You Hear
In This Chapter
- Understanding why ear training is important
- Discovering how to actively listen
- Developing your tonal memory
- Learning how to transcribe songs from recordings
In an ideal world, everything you need is served up to you on a silver platter. As a musician, that means you’ll always get perfectly noted pieces of sheet music from which to read, with all the chords and melodies and rhythms clearly and correctly written out.
Unfortunately, we don’t live in an ideal world: you won’t always get sheet music for the songs you have to play; sometimes you’ll be expected to “play by ear” and figure out the music on your own.
How do you write down a piece of music, note for note, based on a few listens to a recording? It’s a particular skill, that’s for sure; one that involves a technique called ear training. That means you have to train your ears to recognize certain rhythms and intervals, and be able to transfer what you hear to the written page.
Consider the following: you’re in a band that plays the latest hit songs, and the band leader points you to an online playlist or hands you a CD and asks you to learn a new tune—by tomorrow night. No sheet music, no one to answer your questions, no one to practice with you and help you figure it out—you’re completely on your own, just you and the recording.
Or you’re working with a songwriter who doesn’t read music. Your friend sings a melody, and asks you to write it down so he can send it to a music publicist. He doesn’t know what key the song is in, or what notes he’s singing; he leaves those details up to you to figure out.
Maybe you’re playing organ in the church choir. The guest vocalist this week approaches you just before Sunday’s service, and says she’ll be singing “Amazing Grace,” in the key of G. She doesn’t have any sheet music for you—“You know the song,” she says—and if you don’t, you’ll have to learn it, fast.
Perhaps you’re playing saxophone in a pickup band at your local bar. It’s open mic night, and the next performer wants you to add some horn accompaniment to his tune. “It’s a 12-bar blues,” he says, “in the key of A. You have a solo after the second chorus.” No music, no nothing—just you, onstage, winging it.
All of these situations require you to think on your feet—or, more properly, to play by ear. You need to be able to hear a song and figure out what chords and notes are being played, without the benefit of any written music.
This might sound daunting, but it’s a skill you need to develop. You have to be able to hear a melody or chord progression, and then transcribe what you hear. With practice, you’ll be able to do this quickly and accurately; it can even become second nature. All you have to do is train your ears.
DEFINITION
Transcribing is the art of writing down melodies and chords by ear, without the benefit of any other written notation.
Transcribing music involves three distinct steps:
1. Listen
2. Process
3. Document
You begin by listening to the music—not for passive enjoyment, but more actively, so that you clearly hear every note. Then you process what you’ve heard, figuring out what notes and chords and rhythms are being played. Finally, you document the music you’ve processed, either by writing down the notes on paper, or using the processed music as a basis for live playing or improvisation.
With practice, you’ll move through the listen-process-document system almost subconsciously; the notes will come to you automatically when you hear them, without a lot of work on your part. So warm up your ears—it’s time for the training to begin!
NOTE
Ear training is a difficult skill to learn. Developing listening skills takes time and guidance, and for most people is best accomplished in a classroom setting or with an experienced teacher. If you’re serious about training your ears, a good place to start is with this book’s online audio files. You can then check your progress against the answers provided in Appendix B. You also can pick up a copy of Ron Gorow’s Hearing and Writing Music: Professional Training for Today’s Musician. Even better, head down to your local community college or university and sign up for an ear-training class. The personal feedback and guidance you’ll receive from the instructor will be worth the effort.
Listening—Actively
Before we get into ear training proper, you need to learn how to actively listen to music. This isn’t listening for enjoyment; it’s listening to remember, and to analyze.
Start by isolating yourself from the hurly-burly of your day-to-day life. Turn off the TV, close the windows, and block out all extraneous noises—the air conditioner, the refrigerator, the hum of the air pump in your fish tank. Create an environment in which you can focus on the music, without any distractions.
Prepare the music. This means setting up your computer or audio system with a good pair of speakers, or even a quality set of headphones. Make sure the music source can be easily accessed; you’ll be doing a lot of clicking backward and forward.
Now get yourself comfortable. Find a comfy chair, or a couch, or even a place on the floor, surrounded by pillows. Get comfortable, but don’t get relaxed; instead, remain alert and ready for input. When you’re fully prepared, it’s time to listen. Select a song, one of your favorites; then click or press the play button … and listen.
Begin by listening to the overall form of the song. Determine where one phrase ends and another begins. Figure out where the verses are, and the chorus, and even the bridge, if there is one. Get a feel for how the song is constructed, for its internal logic, for the way it flows from one point to another.
Now listen to the song again, but this time focus carefully on the melody line. Listen hard, and listen critically. Note where the melody goes up, and where it goes down. Note where the melody changes, where the verse ends and the chorus begins, and where any variations occur. Listen to it as many times as you need, until you’re sure you can sing it back, verbatim.
Return to the start of the song, and this time don’t listen to the melody. Instead, listen to the bass line. Listen to the tones played, and to the rhythms. Note how the bass notes relate to the melody, and to the other parts. Listen to the bass part and memorize the bass part; then play the song back again and sing along with the bass, from memory.
Again, return to the start of the song. This time listen to another part—the lead guitar, or the piano, or the saxophone. It doesn’t matter; pick a part, and follow it from start to finish. Listen critically, and hear how this part fits with the bass and the melody and all the other parts. Listen until you have the part memorized.
Repeat this process until you know all the parts of the song. Get to the point where you can sing back any given part, without prompting. Let that song get inside your brain; become one with the music.
TIP
When you’re isolating the bass line, you might want to turn up the bass (and turn down the treble) on your audio system, to better hear the low notes.
Finally, listen to the entire song again and try to figure out where the chord changes are. There might be a new chord every 4 beats, or 8, or even 16. Figure out the time signature (probably 4/4), and then try to lay a map of the chord changes over the form of the song.
This is how you actively listen to a song. You’re not listening for enjoyment (you can do that separately); you’re listening to learn—and to remember. Once you can recall a part exactly, from memory, you’re one step closer to figuring out the notes behind the part, and transcribing it to paper.
Developing Super Hearing
As part of your active listening, you have to be able to discern the component parts of the music. You have to be able to hear discrete pitches and intervals, hear different rhythms, and even hear the individual pitches within each chord. Sound difficult? It is—which is why you need to practice!
Lesson 1, Track 2
The first part of the music you need to hear is the pitch. You need to be able to listen to a pitch, isolate it, and then replicate it. In plain English, that means you need to be able to sing back any specific pitch you hear in a song. To do this, you have to develop what is called tonal memory, or pitch memory. This is simply the ability to recall a specific pitch, outside the context of the song or melody.
You can develop your tonal memory with this simple exercise. Take a half-full glass of water and hit it (gently!) with the edge of a spoon. The glass will produce a distinct pitch. Listen to the pitch, and fix it in your head. Wait until the glass stops ringing, then wait a few seconds more, then sing or hum the note that you heard. While you’re singing (or humming), hit the glass again; if your tonal memory was on target, the second tone generated by the glass will be the same as the tone you’re singing. If not, try it again—and pay more attention this time.
NOTE
When you hear notes or melodies inside your head (in your inner voice), you’re internalizing the music.
Repeat this exercise, adding more time between hitting the glass and singing the note. The longer you can hold the note in your head, the better developed your sense of tonal memory will be.
Next, try to find that pitch on an instrument. (Use whatever instrument you like—piano, guitar, trumpet, whatever—it doesn’t matter.) Hit the glass, wait a minute, sing the pitch, and then try to play that pitch on your instrument. Don’t worry if you can’t find the pitch right off. You might need to poke around a few related notes until you find the one that matches what you’re singing. That’s natural. With practice, you’ll be able to more quickly identify individual tones.
Obviously, you want to verify the note you’re playing with the source—the ringing glass. Play the note on your instrument while you hit the glass; if you have the right note, they’ll be in unison.
You can extend this exercise by generating different notes with different objects. (You can also fill the glass to different levels to produce different pitches.) When you’re comfortable with your progress, fire up a track and pick a single note from the melody. Repeat the exercise, this time trying to reproduce that melody note. Replay the track to check your accuracy.
Interestingly, about 5 percent of musicians (just musicians—not the general population) have something called absolute pitch or perfect pitch, which means they can, with no prompting or assistance, correctly sing or identify any given pitch in the scale. Some people claim to be able to help you develop this skill, but in general it is virtually impossible for anyone over the age of five or so to “learn” perfect pitch. (Not 100 percent impossible, but almost.) In any case, you don’t really need this kind of long-term pitch memory to transcribe music. You can get along fine with the short-term pitch memory that we all possess, along with a good interval memory, which we’ll discuss next.
Hearing Intervals
Lesson 2, Track 11
If you can hear and reproduce a single note, what about two of them?
That’s right: the next step is to develop your tonal memory to decipher and reproduce pitch intervals.
Before you begin your exercises, you need to develop an internal database of relative interval relationships. That means internalizing all the different intervals within a given object—remembering what each interval sounds like.
The best way to do this is to sit down at your instrument and play each interval until it’s burned into your brain. Play a minor second, and a major second, and a minor third, and a major third, and so on, until you have each interval committed to memory. Can you sing a minor third? If not, you need to study some more.
Of course, there are shortcuts you can take. If you can remember specific snatches of melody, you can associate those melodies with particular intervals. The following table provides some melodic shortcuts for your interval training.
Intervals Found in Popular Melodies
Exercise your interval memory the same way you did your tonal memory. Start by listening to a song and picking two adjacent notes in the melody—the first two notes are often the best to work with. Wait a few seconds; then try to sing the two notes. Verify your accuracy by playing the song again.
Once you can internalize the interval, try to determine what interval you’re singing. Is it a second? A third? Is it major or minor? Determine the interval, and then try to reproduce the interval on your instrument. Once you can accurately play the interval, you can verify the specific interval you guessed. (For example, if you find yourself playing a G and then a B, you know you’re playing a major third.)
TIP
When you first start listening to intervals, you should focus on the relative distance between the two notes. Is it a wide span between the pitches? If so, the interval is a larger one; maybe a fifth or a sixth or something even larger. Is it a narrow span between the pitches? If so, the interval is a smaller one; maybe some sort of second or third. Narrow the possibilities down as much as possible before you determine the precise interval.
Hearing Rhythms
Lesson 4, Track 27
We’ll set aside pitches for a moment and instead focus on note durations—in other words, your rhythmic memory. Use the same technique as you did before, but this time listen to the rhythm of a song’s melody. Start by figuring out the time signature of the song and breaking the melody (in your head) into measures. Now pick the first few beats of the melody’s first measure. Stop the playback, fix that rhythm in your head, and then pound it out with your hand on a table. Repeat this process until you can hold the rhythm in your head for half a minute or longer.
Once you can repeat a short rhythmic phrase, it’s time to up the ante. Try repeating the rhythm for an entire measure; then two, then four, then for the entire melody. Always check your accuracy by pounding the table in time to the original song.
With the entire rhythm of the melody committed to memory, use the theory you’ve learned and try to transcribe the rhythm. Start small, a beat or two at a time. Make sure the rhythm you write is mathematically sound; for example, if the song is in 4/4, all the notes have to add up to a full whole note. (That means four quarters, or eight eighths, or two quarters and four eighths, or whatever.)
Once you’ve written down the entire rhythm, play back the song again, this time reading the rhythm you’ve written. If you notice a discrepancy, correct it; otherwise, repeat the exercise with another song, this time one that is more rhythmically complex.
Hearing Melodies
Lesson 5, Track 36
Now that you can hear individual notes, intervals, and rhythms, you should be able to hear and transcribe complete melodies. All you have to do is put together everything you hear, in the right order, to develop your melodic memory.
Although you can piece together a melody one note or interval at a time, it’s easier if you try to grasp the big picture first. That means figuring out how many measures long the melody is, and how it’s broken up into phrases. Once you can disassemble a melody into its component parts, you should focus on each part separately.
On what pitch does this part of the melody start? On what pitch does it end? On what pitch does the middle of the phrase end? If you try to pinpoint individual parts of the melody, it should be relatively easy to connect the dots and fill in the empty spaces with the proper passing and neighboring tones.
Once you’ve written out the entire melody—including both pitches and rhythmic notes—remember to verify your accuracy by playing back the melody you’ve written. Compare the melody you play with the melody you first heard; the better you get, the closer they’ll match up.
Hearing Keys
Once you can notate a melody, you should be able to determine what key the song is in. For example, if your melody incorporates a B♭—but no other flat or sharp notes—it’s a good guess that the song is written in the key of F. (As you probably remember from Chapter 4, the key of F has a single flat.) If the melody has an F♯ and a C♯, you’re probably in the key of D.
Another way to determine the key is to fix the home pitch of the melody. If the melody keeps resolving to G, chances are you’re in the key of G. (Unless, that is, the melody is minor—in which case, you could be in the key of G minor.)
Test your guess by using your instrument to play a major scale in the designated key, while the original song is playing. If all the notes fit, you’ve guessed right. If not, try a related key—a key one or two steps away on the circle of fifths.
Hearing Chords and Chord Progressions
Lesson 6, Track 41
The last piece of the puzzle concerns the underlying chord structure. You need to hear when the chords change, and what they change to.
When determining chords, it helps to listen to the song’s bass line. If you listen to the notes the bass is playing, 9 times out of 10 the main notes—all embellishment aside—will be the root notes of the underlying chords. For example, if you know the song is in the key of C and the bass player plays, in successive measures, C, A, F, and G, it’s a good guess that the chord progression is C-Am-F-G.
You should also listen carefully to determine whether you’re hearing a major or a minor chord. Remember, major chords are happy sounding; minor chords are a little sad.
TIP
If you’re having trouble hearing the chords, you can always try to figure out the chords from the notes of the melody, which you learned how to do in Chapter 10.
Once you’ve figured out the chords in the song, you should test your chord transcription against the melody you’ve previously transcribed. Make sure the notes of the melody fit within the chord structure; if not, you probably need to rethink a few chords.
The real test comes when you play your chords against the original recording. Be especially careful to match where your chords change with where the chords change in the original song. It’s not uncommon to accidentally skip a chord change or two, so listen closely to make sure you picked up on all the changes.
Writing It All Down
If you’ve followed the exercises carefully, you’ve ended up with a complete transcription of the melody and chords for a specific song. Congratulations! It’s a lot of work, I know, but this newfound skill is one you’ll use again and again as you progress in the music field.
You can further develop this skill by transcribing other parts of the song, not just the melody. If the song has a horn section, try to figure out and transcribe each individual horn part. If there’s an orchestral backing, work on transcribing the string parts. If there’s a fancy rhythm section, isolate and transcribe the rhythms played by each individual percussionist.
Further developing your transcribing skill is especially important if you choose to pursue the fields of composing or arranging. You can certainly challenge yourself by transcribing an entire big-band arrangement for your high school jazz band, a full choral arrangement for your church choir, or a string quartet for your community orchestra. There’s value in this skill—and a great sense of accomplishment when you get it right.
Exercises
Exercise 12-1
Play each of the following notes on your instrument, wait for 30 seconds, and then sing them back.
Exercise 12-2
Sing each of the following ascending intervals, starting on any note you like.
- Major third
- Perfect fifth
- Perfect fourth
- Major second
- Minor second
- Minor third
- Octave
- Tritone
Exercise 12-3
Sing each of the following descending intervals, starting on any note you like.
- Minor third
- Major second
- Perfect fifth
- Major sixth
- Perfect fourth
- Major seventh
- Major third
- Minor sixth
Sing all the notes of the following chords, one after another. (Start on any root note you like.)
- Major chord
- Minor chord
- Diminished chord
- Augmented chord
- Major seventh chord
- Minor seventh chord
- Dominant seventh chord
- Major ninth chord
Exercise 12-5
Transcribe the rhythm (only) of “I Got Rhythm.”
Exercise 12-6
Transcribe the melody of “This Land Is Your Land.”
Exercise 12-7
Transcribe the melody and chords of one of your favorite popular songs.
Exercise 12-8
Listen to and complete all of this book’s online ear training exercises, and check your answers in Appendix B.
- Ear training is necessary for those times when you don’t have written music to work with—or when you want to figure out a song you’ve recently heard.
- The key to transcribing a song is to listen, process what you’ve heard, and then document what you’ve processed.
- To accurately analyze a piece of music, you have to learn how to actively listen—to isolate and then remember the individual parts of the song.
- As part of the ear training process, you must develop your intrinsic tonal, interval, and rhythmic memory, so that you can remember and replicate the pitches, rhythms, and melodies you hear.
- Once you’ve transcribed the entire melody, you can more easily figure out the song’s key signature and its underlying chord structure.