Gray on 22/1/2020 at 00:52
Ok, I've put "Ingenting var bättre förr" on hold for a while, it's basically all written and recorded, I'm just having second thoughts on the lyrics, and I feel really insecure about putting my actual voice on it, I've never dared to put down my vocals on a track before, and I'm not sure yet that the comedy element is coming through as I intended, and if you can't see the joke it's just basically a shit EBM track. I'll give it some thought before I proceed. If I do manage to finish this little bit of sarcasm, I'll post a link here. But enough of that, this is about something else.
I've been working on something else lately, and
I need to ask TTLG for knowledge and wisdom here, because there's probably a simple solution to my current problem, except I'm just not aware of it yet. Here's the issue:
I'm trying to do a cover of a bouncy happy ska/pop-song I like, but there's a brass intro that is so fast and nimble I can't quite get my head around it, even after editing out all the other stuff of the song, filtering out the bass, and slowing it down, in the hope of figuring out exactly what the brass section is playing there, so I can hope to replicate it on keyboards. Halfway through this process, I started thinking that there might be some new cool piece of software that can do this for me, I'm just out of touch and unaware. So, I put it to you, the actual musicians, is there some nifty new software that you can feed a sound file, and it will tell you what notes are being played and when?
I googled the song for help, but all I got were the chords which are so simple even a halfwit like myself already figured them out, what I want i a transcription of the 30 seconds of brass at the very beginning, between 0:19 and 0:49. Can you perhaps suggest a software capable of analysing it and giving me the notes, or can you, an actual musician, help me out by manually doing it yourself? (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iB3gerIBoRs) This is the song. So far, my feeble attempts of recreating the brass is just embarrassingly poor and comes nowhere near the energy of the original.
PigLick on 22/1/2020 at 02:23
I havent got any notation tools handy but the notes are (key of E) E G# B E(octave higher) C# C# C# D# D# D# E E E, 2nd time is E G# B E C# C# D# C# B A or at least thats pretty close, of course there are other brass playing harmony parts but thats the main line. You will have to work out the rhythm yourself.
Gray on 22/1/2020 at 02:59
Thanks, that helps a lot. I'm pretty decent when it comes to rhythms and timing(*), I don't need any help with that, but what I suck at is harmonies, that's what got me stumped here. I figured out the key and chords, that's pretty simple, it's just the brass I can't do. I'll try your notes tomorrow, I need a bit of sleep now
(*) Whenever people ask me what instrument I play, I always say I play the drum machine. In my stupid head, rhythm is very important, very basic, and one of the things I believe I can do fairly well, at least to please myself. I just suck at all the other bits of making music, like actually playing it, or doings chords or melody. Noises, fine. I can do that. I live for making terrible noisy crap. Beats, yeah. Loud and proud of it. Actual music? Hmmm.... not so much talent there, I'm afraid, so I have to struggle with things that may be obvious to real actual musicians. I learned to play keyboards by listening to my favourite songs in headphones and replicating it, but in this particular case it's too fast and I can't keep up. My brain is too slow.
demagogue on 22/1/2020 at 11:35
For transcription, the norm these days is you get a tool that slows the music way down but maintains the pitch. I just did a quick Google search and dozens of options pop up, some online, some you install, many of them free. So just pick the one you like. If you slow any music down enough, it becomes much easier to transcribe.
And the idea is, if you attempt to figure it out yourself and use a tool like that to check yourself, and then gradually speed up yourself/the tool, you can actually make it a practice to develop it as a skill. And if you do it long enough, you'll start being able to transcribe by ear and at faster and faster rates. If you're really disciplined about it, at some point you'd be able to just play back any music you hear, which basically means you've arrived as a musician. You can adopt anything by listening. (I'm not quite there myself, but I'm getting better!)
PigLick on 22/1/2020 at 12:39
Youtube will allow you to slow down the speed from 3/4, 1/2 and 1/4, without changing the pitch. Very useful. Or from 1 to .75, .50 and .25 if you want it in decimal. Although at the slowest speed you do tend to get some weird sound things happening, so I find half or 3/4 the best for transcribing fast passages.
For example I am learning some Django Reinhardt solos at the moment, and though I have the sheet music for it, the speed is quite fast so I find it easier to take it down to .75 to really be able to play it note for note.
And then, as dema said, start speeding it up once you have mastered the slower version.
PigLick on 24/1/2020 at 09:25
Hey Gray, how did you go with that brass line?
Gray on 24/2/2020 at 03:57
As much as I appreciate the help, I've actually done close to zero work on it. Real life has a way to interfere with the best laid plans, and even more so with my half-assed last-minute shit. My parents are ill and I need to go back to the home country, only a little over 1000 miles away. But there's good news too, of at least two different flavours. I'll probably tell you about both when I get back, and I might finally get back to the thing you so kindly tried to help me with. To sum up, right now, I'm quite confused, anxious, worried, happy and surprised. You know, the whole range, all in the space of a few days. Life is weird. It's been especially weird lately.