Lesson 1 Lesson 2 Lesson 3 Lesson 4 Lesson 5 Lesson 6 Lesson 7 Lesson 8
Lesson 1 – Change The Way You Listen To Music, Course Prep, Set Up
This is the first lesson so there will not be a lot of material. The main goal of this lesson is to get you to practice active listening. I will present some ways to practice active listening and your assignment for the week will be to actively listen to music 10-20 minutes every day. There will be a Theory and Ear Training check outlining some prerequisite knowledge and training needed for this course. You will also need to make sure that your workspace is all set up and you have all the relevant materials and software. We will talk a little about assignments and what kind of commitment you need to make to render the course worthwhile.
Lesson 2 – Note By Note
The goal of this lesson is to learn to transcribe a series of pitches. Although there are many methods and approaches I will outline a step by step method that you can use for any series of pitches regardless of the difficulty. For any melody the method involves hearing one note in isolation, singing it, finding it on your instrument and then notating it. It seems straight forward but there are some details and techniques that I will cover to ensure that you can begin to gain fluency in this method. Your assignments will be to transcribe a series of increasingly difficult melodies, a solo work from J.S Bach and to choose a song you know well and notate it.
Lesson 3 – Rhythm
The goal of this lesson is to learn to transcribe a rhythm. By examining beat, division and meter you will learn how to implement an appropriate time signature (asgmnt. 3.1). With the correct time signature, counting along and determining a rhythm becomes much easier (asgmnt. 3.2). You will be introduced to some of the nuances responsible for making a particular rhythm difficult to transcribe and how to deal with some of them such as tuplets, behind/ahead of the beat playing and pickups (asgmnt. 3.3). A final assignment 3.4 will tie all of these elements together with real world examples.
Lesson 4 – Basslines
The goal of this lesson is to learn to pick out a bassline. First order of business is hearing the bassline. Isolated listening and if needed, technology, will be of great assistance here. Looking at a couple examples will make it clear what we are really going after when transcribing a bassline and how helpful transcribing a bassine can be in the future lessons when we look more into harmony and chord progressions. Your assignment of transcribing 6 basslines is lighter in comparison to previous lessons but it will be your first real transcription where you are combining both pitch and rhythm.
Lesson 5 – Chord Progressions
The goal of this lesson is to learn to pick out a the chords to a piece of music. You will begin to see the relationship between ear training and transcription and how important tonal context will become from this point forward. Thus, you will first learn then practice (asgmnt 5.1) finding the key of a piece of music. Next I will discuss the finesse method for determining chord changes as well as a brute force approach and asgmnt 5.2 – 5.4 will provide ample practice.
Lesson 6 – Making a Lead Sheet
This lesson will tie all of the previous lessons together as you will learn to make a full transcription in the form of a lead sheet. We will first discuss form and how helpful it is towards having an organized lead sheet and examining a piece macroscopically. Next I will go through a thorough procedure for making a chart which will tie in many elements from previous lessons. Alongside that you will start to consider your individual goals concerning transcription, what you are most keen to transcribe and how you would like to notate your transcription. For assignment 6.1 you will make 4 charts with an increasing amount of elements/details.
Lesson 7 – Some Obstacles
This lesson is all about obstacles. Transcription is filled difficulties involving both hearing and notating subtle details in music. We will class obstacles into 4 categories: Melodic, Rhythmic, Harmonic, and Other. Via many examples, in learning to deal with obstacles you will start to become aware of your weaknesses as well as you will begin to tune into the subtleties that drive you to like and want to transcribe/understand a particular type of music.
Lesson 8 – What To Do With Your Transcriptions – Applications
Many of you are likely musicians seeking to improve your craft. While transcription alone will be of great benefit to your oral skills, practicing and applying what you have transcribed is an even better way to improve as a musician. We will look at a variety of follow ups tiered at 3 levels; surface, second, higher level. We will go through 3 specific scenarios that hopefully you can relate to and then as it is the last lesson, the ‘assignment’ is up to you!
Why learn transcription?
The idea of the transcription course is after having completed it you will have an idea of how to learn music from listening. This will accelerate your learning as when you listen to music that you like you will start to think about and hear more precisely what is happening in that music. It will also serve to introduce some musical terminology, concepts from music theory as well as notation.