Graham English

A time honored tradition for learning the ins and outs of a specific discipline is by transcription. Monks transcribe sacred texts in order to internalize the teachings. Writers copy their favorite authors’ books in order to assimilate their style. And musicians will transcribe their favorite artists solos as a study in ear training and to increase their musical vocabulary.

These days, transcribing is easy. There are many great freeware programs that will allow you to rip a song from your favorite CD and load it into an audio editor where you can define regions for quick playback or looping and even slow a section down–without changing pitch for more difficult parts.

Some of my greatest musical epiphanies occurred while transcribing and realizing, “Oh, that’s what the hell they were doing!” I strongly encourage you to put pen to paper and internalize and eternalize the music.

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Tags: authors, Ear Training, ear training freeware, freeware, musical vocabulary, opensource, software, soloing, transcribing, transcriptions

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 20th, 2006 at 10:21 am and is filed under Music Education, Prose. You can leave a comment if you follow my Living Room Rules. If not, you can leave a trackback from your own site.