Music transcription is hard!

[annathepiper]

My new task to contribute to the soundtrack for Faerie Blood and Bone Walker: transcribing some of the more challenging sets that Dara’s putting together! In particular, the one that goes along with the fight scene in Chapter 7 of Bone Walker. That’s got some fun, fun Japanese stuff going on in it along with a heavily mutated version of “Road to Lisdoonvarna”–and Dara’s also doing some fun almost orchestral things here as well, with interlocking themes representing Christopher and Kendis fighting with the nogitsune.

It sounds really bitchin’ cool in Dara’s work track, especially given the drums she’s laid in!

But Dara doesn’t read sheet music; she learns music by ear. I am pretty much exactly the opposite. I’ve been trying to improve my ability to learn by ear, but I am still very, very much better at learning something if there’s sheet music for it in front of me. That said? It was challenging and FUN to take Dara’s track, slow it down to half speed in my Tempo Slow app, and try to get all the notes and rhythms right on my piccolo so that I could transcribe them into actual musical notation.

My head is very full of notes now and I cannot brain any more tonight. I’m here to tell ya, it’s almost easier writing the book. Well, almost! ;D Not to mention that this is only the first part of the fun with this piece–now I have to actually learn to play it properly. And I’m actually going to have to break out my seldom-played flute with keys, since I don’t have a proper Irish flute with keys on it yet, and this bastard is changing keys WAY too often and into way too annoying keys for me to handle on Norouet at my skill level. (Read: my generally sucking at half-holing.) The piccolo’s too high and perky for this, so it’ll have to be the flute.

I’ve flung the PDF as well as the original Finale Songwriter file over to the others who’ll be playing on the soundtrack with us, and have shared the PDF with the Kickstarter backers as well. Really looking forward to doing my part for the recording–even if it means YIKES Dara’s going to record me! This won’t be the first time my flute playing’s been recorded; there are still the old MP3s from our Three Good Measures days. But this’ll definitely be the first time for something as formal as a soundtrack album, with studio work on it and everything! YIKES! *^_^*;;

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

Comments

[wildshadowstar.livejournal.com]

What difference would there be if I played the treble clef on piano when you have it for flute? Also, would you consider a bass clef line for piano?

[annathepiper]

Not being a piano player I couldn't say for sure--however, I'm still fairly certain that you could just play that straight through on the piano without any finagling. I tend to think in concert C anyway so I don't have to worry about bumping stuff up a step or down a step to make the keys match. If you were trying to play this on a clarinet (B flat instrument) or a saxophone (B flat or E flat) or a trumpet (B flat), then we'd have some problems. ;)

Re: the bass clef--I've never actually played much with the bass clef. I know it exists, but I've never had to worry about it as a flute player. Are you asking if I could just take what I wrote out and drop it straight down onto the bass clef without doing anything else?

[wildshadowstar.livejournal.com]

I was wondering if bass clef could be added in addition to treble. If nothing else, adding a few chords. I'm not very good at adding because I tend to play what I see.

[annathepiper]

Well, hrmm. The piece is intended to be played session-style. Which means that when Dara adds me on the flute and hopefully also Sunnie on violin and Ellen on dulcimer, we'll all be pretty much playing what I wrote out there.

Dara says she doesn't want me on guitar for the soundtrack, so there's not an immediate need for chords. (If she were to actually have me on guitar, it wouldn't be much anyway--just occasional punctuation, NOT steady strumming all the way through.) She didn't write any chords for it either, so she doesn't have something I can immediately transcribe.

It would certainly be possible to experiment on our piano and figure out what chords would be good to play on the left hand. But since I am not in fact a piano player, it'd be difficult for me! And it's not something I'd be able to do soon, or do fast.

I'll tell you what I'd do though if I had time to spare. Since I did identify what key changes Dara does, I know what sections have one sharp, what sections have two, and what sections have three. The piece is in minor pretty much all the way through. So it would be possible to figure out what the known base chords are for those keys. Then I'd have to figure out where to take those chords and drop 'em in to support the melody line.