a question about music transcribing.....?

Question

when professional people transcribe piano songs by ear is it really acurate? Even though the song has many difficult chords, has many arpeggiated chords throughout the whole song, and it goes really fast? Its a blues song and in the middle theres a "boogie woogie" style rythm...

Answer 1

If they're professional, I would say it probably is. I wouldn't consider myself a professional and its never what I would do as a career, but in my undergrad I took some basic music theory courses for a music degree and we learned to dictate music by ear...nothing too incredibly complicated since it was only two years of study, but far more complicated than I ever thought someone could just listen and write out.

Answer 2

Transcribing music is legal. It's the use you make of the transcription that raises copyright issues. If it's just for your own practice, it's fine. If you intend to conduct an orchestra with the transcription in a performance of the work, you need a license from the composer for the performance, and a license for any copies of the transcription that you distribute. There are fair-use exemptions for certain cases. Using a copyrighted work for research, education, criticism, parody, etc., can be considered fair use, meaning that it's legal even if you don't get permission. It's a gray area, though, so you have to be very careful. If you used your transcription only to conduct the orchestra for purposes of an assignment or exam, without an audience, it would probably fall under the fair-use exemple (17 USC § 107) for educational purposes. But if you perform the work in front of an audience, as in a spring concert, you need a license, and it will NOT qualify as fair use. If your teacher believes otherwise, he is mistaken. Teachers and schools have been dragged into court for copyright infringement after publicly performing copyrighted works without a license (I"ve seen it), and you don't want to be a part of that. You can always contact the composer if you know who he is. If for some reason you cannot get through to him, then you need to pick something else instead of his song, because you can't do a public performance of his work without a license. Since Zack Hemsey provides an easy e-mail address for licensing inquiries, e-mail him and ask. He may well give you permission for free. Or he may ask for a license fee, in which case the school will have to pay that to use the music in a concert. Or he may also refuse a license entirely, in which case you'll have to choose something else. It's entirely up to the artist. Most artists are kind to students, but not all, so you have to ask.

Answer 3

Commercial piano sheet music rarely duplicates the popular recording of the song. That can come about for a few different reasons:

- The music was written down and printed independently of the recording, and in the recording the musicians improvised, changed timings, etc.

- The recording contains several instruments, and the arranger needs to come up with something that a mere mortal can play with only two hands.

- The arranger tried to match the popular recording, but a different take was used by the time it got released.

- and so on and so on. The publishing and recording businesses aren't that closely tied, so there are all those variables and more.

Answer 4

if they have a good ear. and if they are very well educated musically. it can be acurate